So I really wanted to create a newsletter that looks very much like my website. I wanted constancy so I used MailChimp’s “code your own” system and literally created the entire newsletter from scratch in HTML. I did a few tests and everything looked fine. It looked good in my Outlook and Gmail, so I sent it out.
WELL… one of my clients and a networking partner that has Comcast email accounts told me she couldn’t see anything on my newsletter. It was all black and she wasn’t giving an option to display images. Well, that’s not good!! What happened?!?! I went to her office and looked at it from her computer.
I noticed the few images that did appear were images that were actually linked and stored on my website and not linked to MailChimp’s gallery. So I made sure all the images were coming from my website and sent out a new test to the Comcast account. No difference. I’m extremely bummed. I really want my newsletter to be like my website for consistency.
Well, I was baffled, so I decided to chat with the experts and here is what they had to say…
Ryan: Hi Katey
Katey: Morning!
Ryan: 🙂
Katey: I have a question about the custom coding for creating emails
Katey: My Comcast contacts are not seeing the background images. It’s coming thru fine otherwise. Any ideas?
Ryan: I will help as best I can. Just to set expectations our support of custom coded emails is limited.
Ryan: Background images and HTML do not get along quite often.
Ryan: This may result in the background image not being displayed
Ryan: Can I use a background image in my campaign?: http://eepurl.com/gYZk
Katey: But the templates you have have background images in them and they come across fine
Katey: What is the difference?
Ryan: http://blog.mailchimp.com/background-images-in-html-email/
Ryan: Its possible just not recommended as it can break in different email clients
Ryan: The images are broken in the link 🙁
Katey: Do background colors work?
Ryan: Background colors should work, yes
Katey: I created an email to look very much like my site, just more narrow to fit your formatting and Comcast is being mean with my bg images
Katey: I guess I will try to make adjustments and do colors
Ryan: I completely understand the frustration. Different email clients will render email in their own unique ways. We always suggest testing, testing and more testing.
Katey: Any chance your developers are looking for a fix for these issues 🙂
Ryan: Its more the way different email clients render HTML. Unfortunately there is no standard. This is why emails will look a bit different depending on where they are opened.
Katey: I hear ya. Thanks for your help 🙂
Ryan: 🙂
So I will be recoding my newsletter so it does not use background images and will send out more tests later.
