WTN News Dedicated E-Mail Creative Specifications

Below are WTN‘s guidelines and specifications for a dedicated e-mail. Please read the document thoroughly. All files should be provided to us as attachments to an e-mail. All files should arrive at least 72 hours before your mailing will be sent to allow for test e-mails and sign-off. If your file does not meet these guidelines, it will be returned, which could delay your mailing.

Layout

Provide an HTML file suitable for e-mail. A web site, PDF file, Word document, or other file cannot be sent as-is. If you cannot provide an HTML file, WTN can create one at our standard creative rates ($150 per hour) which will require receipt of your creative at least one week prior to the date of the mailing and is subject to staff availability.

The design of the e-mail message should not exceed a width of 600 pixels. Most e-mail clients have a small preview window, and you should generate interest in the top left corner of your message.

E-mail creative cannot include Flash, video, or Javascript. These will not work on most e-mail clients and may trigger security warnings.

All images used in the e-mail must be hosted on the web, preferably on your web server. Images and links should use absolute links (http://www.example.com/image.jpg) and not relative links (../image.jpg).

WTN will add headers and footers to the e-mail with a WTN logo, information about our permission-based e-mail program, and unsubscribe information. Unsubscribe or identity-management information in your e-mail that references another e-mail system or list will need to be removed.

Do not use external style sheets (CSS).

Characters in the HTML file must be within the US-ASCII character set (which excludes most accented characters and symbols) Replace characters outside this range with suitable proxies (e.g., two dashes for one emdash) or HTML character entities (e.g., © for © or é for é). Click here for a list of these character codes.

Specify ALT text for embedded images, especially images conveying information important to the meaning of the mailing (e.g., offer details). If e-mail software is configured not to load images, your ALT text is the only thing readers will see. Unimportant images should receive empty ALT attributes (alt="").

Do not use frames or image maps. Instead of image maps, cut up the image into individual pieces so that each area that should be linked will be a separate image.

Animated images will not work on recent versions of Microsoft e-mail software and are not recommended.

Do not rely on elements inside the element of your HTML file, or attributes of the element. E-mail clients may not use them.

Nested tables should be kept to a minimum. And since background colors on the element may not be rendered properly you should use tables for such attributes.

Subject lines

You must provide a subject line.

The length of subject line should be short and to the point, and must include the name of the company.

Spam

Automated spam filters look at the content of your message and the subject line. Avoid using unnecessary punctuation (!, $, 100%) to lower your spam ratings. Also try to avoid words commonly used in spam, such as “FREE”, where possible.

Do not use all CAPS. Keep the majority of your text in lower case.