Are you tired of sending email campaigns that get ignored, deleted, or worst, tossed in the spam folder? Here are five really common email marketing mistakes that just about everyone is making.
5 Common Email Marketing Mistakes
Unreadable Text
- Emails not tested in dark mode.
- Low contrast makes text hard to read.
- Use a contrast ratio of at least 4.5:1 (ideally 7:1).
Over-Reliance on Images
- Many email clients block images.
- Important content should be in text, not just images.
- Use web-safe fonts with proper fallback options.
Poor Formatting
- Tiny fonts make emails hard to read (use at least 16px).
- Inconsistent text styles can be confusing.
- Stick to clear, readable typography.
Excessive Table Use
- Tables can break on mobile devices.
- Avoid setting a fixed width (keep emails responsive).
- Content should adapt to different screen sizes.
Distracting Animations
- Flashing or looping GIFs are annoying.
- Users can’t turn them off—leading to quick deletions.
- Stick to simple, engaging visuals without excessive motion.
Transcript
Are you tired of sending email campaigns that get ignored, deleted, or worst, tossed in the spam folder? Well, here are five really common email marketing mistakes that just about everyone is making.
Here we have two emails from two different companies. On the left, we have an email from YouTube, and on the right, we have an email from the IAAP. The YouTube email on the left is pretty much illegible.
Both of these are on a phone in dark mode. Youtube clearly was not testing their emails on dark mode, whereas the email on the right, even though the phone’s in dark mode, they provided a background, so everything is clear and easy to read.
This is the most common mistake I see people making with their email marketing campaigns. Text is unreadable. Depending on what study you look at, it could be between 60 and 80% of users are going with dark mode.
This means you need to be testing your email campaigns on both light mode and dark mode and on real devices. You should aim for a text contrast at a minimum of 4. 5. Ideally, you really want to go for a text contrast ratio of 7 to 1 or higher.
Remember, people are opening their email on mobile devices, and those are in all sorts of different lighting conditions. If you want that email actually read, you need to make sure your text is readable.
This next mistake is on images. Too many companies are relying on images to convey all of their content. Well, guess what? Not everyone is going to receive your images. On the left, we have an image on smartphone, and on the right, we have how that exact same email showed up on a desktop email client that blocked images.
Some business email providers, such as Google and many other companies, block images in emails. That’s a content security policy. The reality is you cannot depend on your images actually reaching your email subscribers.
Additionally, from that last image, the text is almost unreadable on a small screen. You’re going to have to sit there and pinch and pull and pan around and try and read that email. Guess what? People are going to click delete instead.
Here’s another example of depending completely on images. Here we have all sorts of different text sizes, all sorts of different fonts, all sorts of different underlines. It gets pretty darn confusing.
What we need to use is actual text, an actual typography in our emails. We want to make sure that our minimum font size is 16 pixels. This is really important. People need to actually be able to read the emails. Always have a a web safe fallback font.
For example, I have a font family statement here showing open sands, a fallback to a web safe font, Verdana, and a fallback from that to Sans Serif.
Next, we have an example of using tables for formatting and setting things too wide. In general, you want to avoid tables. Yes, they were pretty much essential in 1999, but we’ve moved forward, and there is, in fact, some CSS available for email clients.
We want to make sure that you are not setting a width or a minimum width. I’ve seen so many companies set a minimum width of 600 pixels. Guess what? My phone only has a usable width of around 300. That means that your content is squished down a lot and makes it unreadable.
When these emails get forwarded on to other people, it gets so much worse. Frequently, that content that was 600 just went down to 200 because that’s all that’s available once the forwards get involved.
Don’t set a minimum content with. Next is an example, again, from YouTube’s emails. At the top of this is a rapidly rotating to the point of flashing colors, animated GIF. It’s extremely distracting, and I can’t turn it off in email. The only thing I can do is either hit delete, spam, or scroll fast through the email so I no longer see the animated gif.
In short, don’t use automated gifs. These are the five reasons why your email marketing is failing you. Address these mistakes immediately in your email marketing if you want to improve your open rates, improve your conversion rates, and reduce how many times people click spam on your email marketing.
If you enjoyed this, make sure to hit like and subscribe and all the other nice things. Share this on social media so that other people can stop these mistakes as well. And the emails that you receive in your inbox will hopefully improve if we all make some effort to stop making these five major marketing fails.