[eli]

Another important one: optimize the design for display without images. Most email clients block images by default, so that's how most people are first going to see it. (The notable exceptions are Apple Mail and iOS Mail which load images by default.)

With the notable exception of iOS Mail.app and OS X Mail, virtually all email clients block images by default.

[radicalbyte]

Outlook displays (embedded) images too by default (that's why lots of people include them in their signatures).

I think that href images are (correctly) blocked, because they pose a security and privacy risk. That, and the only group who uses them are email marketers. If I want to see your catalog, I'd open your website.

You might have guessed, but yes, I do mark those image-mails as spam (and any mail where I can't find and 'unsubscribe' within 2 seconds).

I wonder if Americans have less trouble with this. When I was last in NY the quantity + obnoxiousness of the advertisements shocked me - we're more used to being blitzed by Germans, not by marketing. Compared to that having an inbox full of brightly colored marketing mails is restful..

[eli]

Embedded images don't have very good support across clients, which makes them pretty hard to use effectively. They will not appear at all in gmail, for example.

Also, it's not very nice to mark messages as spam just because you don't like their design (it affects other recipients). Unless it actually is spam, then mark away.

[neves]

Just a tip: if you authenticate your domain, GMail will display the images. See: https://support.google.com/mail/answer/81126?hl=en#authentic...

[eli]

I don't think that's actually true. I'm pretty sure the recipient has to reply to your messages before images will start loading by default.