General Guidelines:
- Recommended file size for images + code should be 50K.
- Maximum width is 600 pixels.
- All animation is subject to approval.
- NO strobing effects and NO Flash
- Designers MUST check the admail appearance on a PC to see how the majority of our audience will view the creative. It will look very different on the Mac versus the PC.
- The primary message should be in the top 1/3 of the e-mail.
- Legal disclaimers MUST appear at top and bottom of e-mail.
To conform to e-dialogue requirement, produce the creative html file following these guidelines:
- DO NOT use background images. Background images will not appear once the admail has been put through our delivery program. Therefore, they will not reach our audience.
- DO NOT use Cascading Style Sheets (CSS). All internal & external sourced CSS will be stripped by our delivery program, unless in-line elements are utilized. To ensure proper delivery, refrain from CSS.
- DO NOT use dark backgrounds with light colored text. As some e-mail clients do not support html. In this case colored backgrounds do not appear and light/white text is not visible on a default background. This is why the use of light/white text is prohibited.
- Important information in the message must be displayed in html text. Images are to be used to enhance the look and feel only. E-mail clients are moving towards image blocking as a default setting. Therefore by coding the text separately from the images, e-mail clients will still be able to view the most important information in the admail.
Proper HTML Code for Admails:
Due to the changes that Yahoo! and AT&T have recently made to their e-mail security, some of our admails are now appearing as SPAM and are not reaching their complete estimated audience. Therefore, there are a few details to remember when coding an admail:
- Every admail must have a document tag.
- Example: <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"
"http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd">
- Every image source must contain an alt tag, even if it is empty.
- Example: <img src="http://tribads.com/admails/depaul/0706/images/bar_1.jpg" width="20" height="12" alt=" ">
- Remember to close all tags. Double check every table, cell, paragraph, font tag, etc.
- The hr tag (line) must not have a color specification and cannot be contained within a font tag.
- Example: <hr noshade size="1" align="left" width="600">
- Paragraph tags cannot be contained within font tags.
- Example: <p><font size="2">This is an example</font></p>
Proper Code for Text Admails:
- Don't place hard returns after sentences, only after paragraphs, the text should not wrap.
- All active links must have an <a href> tag in front and corresponding </a> tag behind. This DOES NOT apply to email addresses.
- Make sure all quotation marks are straight, this is exceptionally important if you copy and paste text from a Word document.
- Check to make sure all punctuation displays correctly and that there are no strange ASCII characters.
IMPORTANT
To verify that the admail is accurate HTML code, run it though the validation process at this site:
http://validator.w3.org/
If all criteria is met, the admail can be approved. If not, the Designer must make revisions, all criteria must be met or the admail can not be released. |
