[Sigia-l] Images in HTML newsletters

[Skot Nelson]

On Jun 2.2005, at 01:09, Welie, Martijn van wrote:



> There are only
> 2 or 3 images in the newsletter but they are images of the new car!!!!
> So, there is absolutely no point is sending a text only version.
>
>

I don't know that I'd agree with this - my client is set to prefer  
plain text; at work, your HTML mail won't render at all. I used to  
think HTML mail was a scourge, although I've revised my thinking. I  
now think HTML ONLY is a scourge - if you've made the decision to  
send HTML mail, you need to spend the time to do a plain text version  
as well.

The plain text needs to be more than "click here to view our  
newsletter on the web site" too.



>> What's more important:  the message, the image, or the
>> metrics/measurements?  Don't let secondary concerns cripple
>> or compromise your primary objective.
>>
>>
> But to do that we need to persuade them first and I don't see that  
> work
> using words only.
>
> Eric Reiss said that some firewalls/spam filters even managed to  
> filter out
> the images out of an email that contains embedded images.
>
>

and by default a lot of clients won't load graphics embedded on an  
external server - gmail, for example.

these clients generally include a button / link to download the  
graphics anyway, and these users are probably accustomed to doing so.



> My thinking is as follows. If I don't embedd the images and images  
> are not
> automatically loaded, the users won't see the car. The question is  
> then if
> people will click on the button to show the images?
>
>

doubtful, except in the case noted above.

I'd send it, but keep images on your server. People who are offline  
at the time won't be able to view images, but if the message if of  
interest they can come back to it and view it again.

This solution is more polite, and doesn't clog my pipe when I'm  
trying to download the other spam I'm getting.
--
Skot Nelson
skot at penguinstorm.com