Your 10-point Email Check-Up Plan

You wouldn't drive your car for 50,000 miles without getting the oil changed and the tires checked. If you have let an entire year go by without getting under the hood of your email marketing program, you don't know what's working and what's about to break down the next time you send. Run our list of diagnostics, though, and you'll be able to tune up your program before you hit any rough spots. Read Full Article.

Full Article | Email Feedback

Previous Optimization Article
Your Intevation Report Top 10 of 2006

Additional Resources:

• Seven Steps to a Better Template
• Trim the Certain Deadwood from Your List

Make the Most of a Good Reputation

By Stefan Pollard

Maintaining a good working relationship with ISPs is essential to improving email delivery. You can enhance that relationship with two methods: authentication, which proves you are who you claim to be and have the right to send email from your domain or Internet address, and sender reputation, which you earn by following email best practices. This column explains how these two methods both differ and work together to help you prove yourself a genuine, reputable email sender. Read Full Article.

Full Article | Email Feedback

Previous Delivery Trends Column
Why Your Email Still Lands in the Junk Folder

Email marketers, especially business marketers, remain bullish on email's performance despite the hype for new channels such as text messaging and podcasting. A MarketingSherpa study found 78% of business email marketers and 69% of consumer email marketers still think that email marketing is effective and its impact continues to grow, either "slowly" or "significantly."

Source: MarketingSherpa Email Benchmark Survey, November 2006.

Blocked Images and Alt Tags

Question: If most newer or upgraded email clients block images by default, do ALT tags really help?

Answer: Yes, they do, and they're more important than ever, now that major desktop email clients such as Outlook and Web clients like Yahoo! Mail block images unless recipients specifically request to view them.

The ALT tag is an HTML code that describes its accompanying image. It's what you see instead of an image if you block images in email. Read this article to learn why you need to optimize your use of ALT tags in email messages. Read Full Article.

Full Answer | Got a Question? Ask EmailLabs

More Email Marketing FAQ's

EmailLabs is a leading provider of high performance email marketing solutions to agencies, publishers and marketing, sales and customer service departments of middle-market and Global 2000 companies. The EmailLabs email marketing platform is provided as an ASP (Web-based) service, and is easily customized and integrated with a company's Web site, sales force automation and CRM technologies. The company provides email marketing solutions to more than 550 companies, including Nokia, Agilent, PalmSource and Jupitermedia. Headquartered in Menlo Park, Calif., EmailLabs was founded in 1999 and is a subsidiary of Lyris, Inc. (OTCBB:JLHY).

For more information, visit www.emaillabs.com or call 866.362.4522.