When you send emails, your audience probably won’t complain about glitches in how they render across different email clients. But trust me, they notice.
No matter which platform readers are using—Gmail, Outlook, or Yahoo! Mail—recipients expect a flawless experience. The challenge? Ensuring your email template design displays perfectly across all email clients.
The truth is, email clients each have their own way of displaying email content, and that inconsistency can cause serious headaches.
It doesn’t matter whether you’re using custom email template designs or pre-built templates; email rendering issues are always lurking. In fact, inconsistent rendering takes the spot (35.1%) of one of the three biggest email designing and coding challenges.
Designing and coding emails to handle this variability can be daunting. Even if your email looks pristine in the editor, the final result may be jumbled or misaligned once it hits inboxes.
Why do emails display differently across clients? Why does your perfectly crafted design fall apart once sent? More importantly, how can you fix it?
Keep reading for practical tips on ensuring your email templates are compatible and render consistently across different email clients —making the process easier and improving your audience’s experience.
Before we discuss these best practices, here’s a quick look at the basics of email clients and rendering.
What Do You Mean By Email Client?
An email client is basically the app you use to handle your emails. It lets you send, read, and organize messages all in one place. It provides a user-friendly interface through which you can communicate with email servers and your account from any computer.
Email clients come in various forms: as standalone desktop applications, web-based services, or mobile apps. Each email client has its own way of displaying emails.
Popular Email Clients You Probably Use
Here are some of the most widely-used email clients:
- Gmail (both web and mobile)
- Microsoft Outlook (on desktop, web, and mobile)
- Apple Mail (on iPhone, iPad, and Mac)
- Yahoo! Mail (web and mobile)
Image Source: Oberlo
Why Emails Look Different Across Clients
It all comes down to how email clients handle the code behind your messages.
When you create an email in an editor, it generates HTML and CSS code to style and format your content. Once sent, this code is processed by the recipient’s email client, which then displays your email. But here’s where it gets tricky: each email client, like Gmail, Outlook, or Yahoo! Mail has its own way of interpreting and rendering that code.
The Role of Rendering Engines
The heart of the issue lies in what’s called a rendering engine—the component responsible for turning your email code into what your audience actually sees. Each email client uses a different rendering engine, and this can lead to some wild discrepancies:
- Gmail uses a custom version of WebKit, the same engine powering Safari, which handles modern HTML and CSS quite well.
- Outlook (desktop) relies on Microsoft Word’s rendering engine, which isn’t exactly known for its support of contemporary email design standards. This is why Outlook often struggles with more advanced HTML and CSS features.
- Apple Mail also uses WebKit, so it tends to display emails with more advanced designs accurately.
Inconsistencies and Media Queries
Adding another layer to the mix, email clients also handle media queries differently. Media queries are a CSS feature that helps emails adjust their layout based on the device they’re viewed on. If an email client doesn’t support media queries, it won’t adjust the email’s formatting for different screen sizes, leading to potentially awkward layouts.
Some clients might have their own methods for improving the appearance of emails, like increasing font sizes for readability, but this is far from a universal solution.
These variations aren’t a flaw in your email design but rather a result of the diverse ways email clients process and display code. Even a well-designed email might not look the same across all clients due to these differences. Understanding this can help you design more resilient emails and set realistic expectations for how they’ll appear to your audience.
Common Email Client Compatibility Issues That Impact Your Emails
When designing emails, you can face various issues because different email clients handle your content in different ways. Here’s a look at the most common rendering problems and how they affect your email’s appearance:
- Messy Layouts: A perfectly aligned email in Gmail might be completely jumbled in Outlook due to its limited CSS support.
- Missing or Blocked Images: Some clients block images by default, leading to gaps in your design, or worse, broken image icons.
- Background Images May Not Show: Background images are a popular design choice, but they don’t always appear as expected clients like Gmail and Outlook.
- Text Wrapping Problems: Text might not wrap around images as intended, disrupting your layout.
- Font Substitutions: Custom fonts may not render properly in all clients, forcing fallback to basic, less engaging fonts.
- Inconsistent Line Spacing: Line spacing and text height can vary between clients, leading to readability issues.
- Button and Link Glitches: Buttons and links can display incorrectly, altering their look or even making them hard to click if the client doesn’t support the intended styles.
How to overcome these challenges? With so many potential issues, it’s essential to design with flexibility in mind. By following best practices, you can create emails that deliver a consistent, polished experience, no matter the client.
Best Practices For Email Templates Compatibility Across Different Email Clients
To ensure your emails look great and load consistently across various email clients, follow these essential best practices:
1. Use HTML Tables for Layout
HTML tables are your best bet for creating reliable email layouts. For complex designs, use nested tables to maintain structure and alignment.
2. Inline Your CSS
Many email clients strip out or mishandle external CSS. To ensure your styles are applied correctly, use inline CSS—place your styles directly within HTML tags (e.g., <div style=”color: blue;”>). This method helps maintain consistent styling across various clients.
3. Stick to Basic HTML and CSS
Avoid using advanced HTML and CSS features that might not be supported by all email clients. Focus on basic HTML elements and properties like tables for layout, simple fonts, and standard colors. This reduces the likelihood of your email rendering incorrectly.
4. Set Optimal Email Width
The standard recommendation for email width is 600 pixels, as this is what most desktop email clients are designed to accommodate. Many email builders, like Mailchimp, stick to this limit by default.
While some suggest experimenting with widths between 700 and 800 pixels, it’s crucial to thoroughly test these designs across various email clients to ensure compatibility.
This range ensures your email displays well in most email client preview panes and prevents horizontal scrolling.
5. Utilize CSS Media Queries
For responsive design, include CSS media queries to adapt your email to different screen sizes. Keep in mind that not all clients support media queries, so test thoroughly and use a single-column layout as a fallback for better mobile viewing.
6. Avoid Web Fonts
Not all email clients support custom web fonts. To ensure your email looks consistent, stick to web-safe fonts like Arial, Times New Roman, or Verdana. These fonts are widely supported and will render correctly in most email clients.
7. Keep Your Code Clean
Clean, well-structured code helps ensure your email displays correctly. Avoid using excessive code or complex HTML. Simple, clean code reduces the chance of rendering issues and makes it easier to troubleshoot problems.
8. Provide a Plain Text Version
Some email clients strip out HTML or display it poorly. Include a plain text version of your email as a fallback to ensure your message is readable, even if the HTML version doesn’t render correctly.
9. Ensure Readability
Avoid tiny font sizes or hidden text that could affect readability. Make your content easy to read by using a legible font size and clear, visible text.
10. Use a Consistent Template
Once you have a base design that works well across most clients, use it as a template for future emails. Consistency in your design helps maintain compatibility and simplifies the creation of new emails.
11. Pre-send Email Testing Across Multiple Devices
The surefire way to prevent email rendering issues is to conduct email quality assurance. Send test emails to different clients and devices. This helps you see how your email appears in various environments and catch any issues before sending it to your entire list.
But a more reliable method is to use automated email testing tools like Litmus or Email on Acid to preview how your email appears in different environments.
13. Prepare for Rendering Issues
Be ready for potential display problems. If you’re using white text on a dark background image, set a fallback background color so the text stays readable if the image doesn’t load. This way, your email remains clear and functional even when certain elements don’t appear as expected.
Wrapping Up
Designing emails that look great on all email clients can be challenging, but it’s key to standing out. By using the best practices we’ve covered, you’ll create consistent, engaging emails that reflect your brand well. This will help boost the success of your email marketing campaigns and ensure your messages connect with your audience. We hope these tips make it easier to optimize your emails for future campaigns.
