Transactional Email Best Practices

If you're sending transactional email, there's a lot of tiny details to get right. They're easy to fix, but they're just as easy to overlook. This gives a quick run-through of the gotchas so you can send the best possible emails. Adapted from Postmark's Transactional Email Best Practices guide.

Transcript

1. Transactional
   Email Best
   Practices
   

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2. Think of transactional email as another
   interface to your software, and give it all of
   the attention that you’d give to designing
   any other interaction.
   

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3. From & No-reply
   Addresses
   1
   

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4. Glossary
   
   from address and name
   The combination of the email address and name
   that you’d see in your inbox. While a name is
   optional, we recommend including one to aid
   recognition.
   ex.
   Postmark Team
   from name from address
   

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5. Best Practice
   Why does it matter?
   ☼
   ❓
   For the From Name, use the product or
   company name that will be most familiar
   to the recipient.
   1. A recognizable From Name can increase open rates.
   2. Without an explicit name the email client will simply
   display the email address or the initial portion of it.
   

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6. Do this…
   Not this…
   
   
   “I’ve never heard of this company. Must be spam.”
   

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7. Best Practice
   Why does it matter?
   ☼
   ❓
   Avoid redundancy in the From name and
   the subject line.
   1. Redundancy wastes characters when good content can
   dramatically improve open rates.
   

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8. Do this…
   Not this…
   
   
   Wasted & Redundant Characters
   

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9. Best Practice
   Why does it matter?
   ☼
   ❓
   Keep names concise and human-friendly.
   1. Longer names can be cut off in previews.
   2. Human-friendly names can increase open rates.
   

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10. Do this…
    Not this…
    
    
    “Who? What?”
    

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11. Best Practice
    Why does it matter?
    ☼
    ❓
    Be cautious using end user names as the
    From Name for an email. Use “Jane via
    Application” or “Jane (Application)” instead.
    1. Many email clients will automatically add senders to the address
    book if the recipient replies to an email. If the name is “Jane
    Doe” they may end up with an entry like “Jane Doe
    " in their address book, and that
    can lead to confusion down the road.
    2. Since the email isn’t actually from that person, but only triggered
    by that person, including the product name helps provide
    valuable context.
    

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12. Do this…
    Not this…
    
    
    If they reply to this message, chances are they’ll get a new contact added to their
    address book, but it will be using the product’s email address rather than Jane’s.
    

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13. Best Practice
    Why does it matter?
    ☼
    ❓
    Pay attention to avatars associated with
    your email address through Google,
    Gravatar, etc.
    1. Avatars can help aid recognition and increase open rates
    with email clients that use them.
    2. Avatars help validate the authenticity of the sender now
    that Gmail is using avatars to display warning graphics for
    unauthenticated email addresses.
    3. People sometimes still have old irrelevant or inappropriate
    avatars associated with email addresses.
    

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14. Do this…
    Not this…
    
    
    Gmail will replace avatars with this symbol to
    warn recipients when sender authentication fails.
    

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15. Subject Lines
    & Pre-headers
    2
    

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16. Glossary
    
    preheader
    A short text summary of the email included at
    the beginning of the body so that it’s visible
    in the email client’s preview.
    

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17. Best Practice
    Why does it matter?
    ☼
    ❓
    Ensure subject lines are uniquely
    identifiable for each email.
    1. Searching for a specific email is difficult when all subject
    lines are exactly the same.
    2. Unique subject lines help recipients more quickly identify
    and understand the significance of an email against other
    related emails.
    

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18. Do this…
    Not this…
    
    
    Which order?
    

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19. Best Practice
    Why does it matter?
    ☼
    ❓
    Use pre-headers to complement subject
    lines with additional context.
    1. Searching for a specific email is difficult when all subject
    lines are exactly the same.
    2. Unique subject lines help recipients more quickly identify
    and understand the significance of an email against other
    related emails.
    

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20. Do this…
    Not this…
    
    
    The subject and initial content are
    redundant because there’s no pre-header.
    Adding a barely noticeable pre-header
    to the email improves the usefulness
    of the preview content.
    

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21. Recipients & Replies
    3
    

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22. Best Practice
    Why does it matter?
    ☼
    ❓
    Use To for primary recipients and Cc for
    secondary recipients.
    1. Providers users more filtering options when organizing
    their emails.
    2. Helps people more quickly understand the context for the
    notification.
    

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23. Best Practice
    Why does it matter?
    ☼
    ❓
    Avoid ‘no-reply’ addresses.
    1. If people can’t reply, it decreases engagement which can
    affect delivery.
    2. Some data indicates that a ‘no-reply’ directly affects delivery
    speed and treatment.
    3. People may reply without noticing and expect a response of
    some sort.
    4. It’s simply not customer-friendly.
    

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24. Unless your industry or business has legal or security reasons for
    not allowing replies, noreply addresses should be avoided. Modern
    transactional email providers can parse and process replies back
    into your system so that replies won’t get lost in an inbox.
    Learn more about the ease of processing inbound emails and
    incorporating the replies into your system programatically.
    

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25. Best Practice
    Why does it matter?
    ☼
    ❓
    Design emails to accept replies via a
    monitored reply-to address or inbound
    email parsing and receiving.
    1. Accepting replies can increase engagement and, as a
    result, delivery rates and speeds.
    2. Email notifications become a two-way interaction with
    recipients and act as an extension of your application.
    3. It’s more customer-friendly than a no-reply address.
    

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26. Authentication & Domains
    4
    

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27. Best Practice
    Why does it matter?
    ☼
    ❓
    Send transactional or application emails
    from a different domain or subdomain
    than bulk promotional emails.
    1. Domain reputation is an increasingly important trust signal for
    inbox providers. Bulk promotional emails tend to have lower
    engagement and higher incidents of spam complaints. By using
    a different domain or subdomain, you help ensure that your
    company’s bulk promotional sending doesn’t affect the
    reputation of your application emails.
    2. Decoupling transactional and bulk sending makes it easier to
    use different providers that specialize in one or the other.
    

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28. Best Practice
    Why does it matter?
    ☼
    ❓
    Authenticate with SPF
    1. Helps inbox providers identify spoofed email.
    

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29. Glossary
    
    SPF
    Sender Policy Framework
    An open standard so that the owner of a domain
    can provide a public list of approved senders.
    Want to know more about SPF? We have a complete guide on
    what it is and how it works:
    SPF: Protect your domain from email spoofing
    

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30. Best Practice
    Why does it matter?
    ☼
    ❓
    Authenticate with DKIM
    1. Ensures emails aren’t altered in transit between sending
    and receiving mail servers.
    

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31. Glossary
    
    DKIM
    DomainKeys Identified Mail
    An email security standard designed to make
    sure messages weren’t altered in transit
    between the sending and recipient servers.
    Want to know more about DKIM? We have a complete guide on
    what it is and how it works:
    DKIM: Protect your domain from email forging
    

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32. Best Practice
    Why does it matter?
    ☼
    ❓
    Authenticate with DMARC
    1. Helps to fight phishing by enabling senders to explicitly
    tell receiving mail servers how to handle un-aligned email
    messages.
    

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33. Glossary
    
    DMARC
    Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting
    & Conformance
    A standard that prevents spammers from using
    your domain to send email without your
    permission — also known as spoofing.
    Want to know more about DMARC? We have a complete guide on
    what it is and how it works:
    DMARC: Monitor & secure your email delivery
    

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34. Design & Formatting
    5
    

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35. Best Practice
    Why does it matter?
    ☼
    ❓
    Include plain-text equivalents with
    emails.
    1. Some inbox providers use the presence of a similar plain
    text equivalent as a trust signal.
    2. It increases accessibility and readability of emails.
    3. Some recipients prefer plain text to minimize bandwidth.
    

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36. Best Practice
    Why does it matter?
    ☼
    ❓
    Ensure that the plain-text versions are
    well-formatted and readable.
    1. Separating long stretches of text into multiple paragraphs
    enhances readability.
    2. Using dividers and headers can help add hierarchy to the
    email for increased readability.
    3. Putting links on their own line can minimize the chances of
    the links being broken or not working.
    

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37. Best Practice
    Why does it matter?
    ☼
    ❓
    Design for mobile.
    1. 56% of email is opened on mobile devices now.
    2. Different demographics may have different percentages,
    but it’s unlikely that it’s safe to ignore mobile.
    3. Designing emails for mobile clients is becoming less of a
    hassle.
    

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38. Best Practice
    Why does it matter?
    ☼
    ❓
    Adjust design of emails based on
    frequency and context of each email.
    1. Frequent notifications should put content front-end-center
    and keep branding to a minimum or only include branding
    elements at the end.
    2. System-based messages like password resets can be more
    focused on branding, but the activity the user needs to
    perform should always be the most important element.
    

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39. Do this… Not this…
    
    For a comment notification,
    branding is subtle and secondary
    so the content is treated with
    the most importance.
    With this approach, the content is secondary
    to the branding even through the branding
    provides no value to the recipient.
    

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40. Content & Purpose
    6
    

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41. Best Practice
    Why does it matter?
    ☼
    ❓
    Always clearly identify the reason a
    recipient is receiving the message.
    1. The asynchronous nature of email
    2. Relative dates can be used, but it’s helpful to include
    absolute dates for easy reference.
    

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42. Best Practice
    Why does it matter?
    ☼
    ❓
    Use personalization where possible.
    Personalization isn’t just about mail-merging their name into
    the email.
    1. Streamlining or otherwise improving emails based on user
    information or context can drastically improve their
    experience.
    2. Information can be included in query strings to customize
    the subsequent landing pages after following links from an
    email.
    

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43. Best Practice
    Why does it matter?
    ☼
    ❓
    Use absolute dates and times.
    1. There’s no guarantee when someone will receive or open an
    email. Relative dates like “Yesterday” or “Next week” become
    ambiguous when the email is read at a different time.
    2. Relative dates can be used, but it’s helpful to include absolute
    dates for easy reference.
    3. Include dates and times sparingly when they’re redundant
    with the email’s timestamp.
    

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44. Subscription
    Management
    7
    

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45. Best Practice
    Why does it matter?
    ☼
    ❓
    Consider adding one-click unsubscribe
    or “send fewer emails” to all non-
    essential emails even if not required.
    1. Managing emails can be tedious. The easier it is for a
    recipient to adjust their delivery preferences, the less
    likely it is that a message will be reported as spam.
    

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46. Best Practice
    Why does it matter?
    ☼
    ❓
    Include a direct link to manage
    subscription and notification preferences
    for all application emails.
    1. Managing emails can be tedious. The easier it is for a
    recipient to adjust their delivery preferences, the less
    likely it is that a message will be reported as spam.
    2. Proactively anticipating needs and offering alternatives
    can reduce noise, decrease unopened emails, and increase
    engagement. All of these can help improve reputation and
    delivery rates and speeds.
    

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47. Monitoring & Adjusting
    8
    

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48. Best Practice
    Why does it matter?
    ☼
    ❓
    Pay attention to delivery and open rates
    for groups of email.
    1. If you notice that some categories of application email
    aren’t being opened or have low engagement, you can
    revisit the email to make improvements.
    

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49. Best Practice
    Why does it matter?
    ☼
    ❓
    Monitor open, click, bounce, and spam
    rates.
    1. Even small changes in the content or design of an email
    can have unintended consequences. By staying on top of
    your statistics, you can proactively work to address
    problems before they become widespread.
    

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50. Best Practice
    Why does it matter?
    ☼
    ❓
    Use open rates to improve From names
    and address, subjects, and pre-headers.
    1. Open rates are closely tied to the quality of your message
    meta data. By monitoring open rates, you can identify easy
    opportunities to improve your emails.
    

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51. https://postmarkapp.com/guides/transactional-email-best-practices
    Adapted from:
    

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