[buckbova]

I never needed to get into table hell. I used an image map every time. One image. Define some areas with different links. Bingo.

https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Element/ma...

[amarcus]

Except you would most likely have a high rate spam rate and a major number of recipients won't be able to see your content without downloading images first.

You will get a better response with a text only message.

[eli]

So what do the majority of recipients see (who don't have images load by default)?

[elwell]

Um, I'm pretty sure he was joking.

[eli]

shrug

Quite a few people do exactly that.

[rurounijones]

LOTS of game related companies use the "image map" method because, as we all know, games are audio/visually awesome and cannot possibly be represented by plain text emails.

In my case the result is: Big red placeholder image and copyright text /unsubscribe link underneath it.

[xerophtye]

and alert saying "There are images in the mail that have been blocked for your safety." and an option "Unblock Content"

[crisnoble]

This might work for one off emails where your user base is expecting it. But try to A/B test the headline, or better yet customize it for each subscriber, now you have to make many variations in photoshop -> export -> map -> send. You could imagine this getting out of hand fast.

If you get a HTML template you can use mailchimp or exact target to put custom html to each subscriber / subset and do A/B tests. It takes more time up front, and limits what you can do (er outlook / gmail limits that) but if you get it right it will pay off down the line.

[tn13]

How does it work in Gmail / Yahoo etc where images are blocked ?

[buckbova]

This was pre-image blocking. Not sure how this would work now.

I assume there's a big empty table where the image would go and some text+links above and below the image.