What does the way forward for electronic mail have in retailer for senders, subscribers, and electronic mail geeks such as you? It’s a query we appear to ponder on a perennial foundation. However this yr at E mail Camp, we heard from one of the crucial revered thought leaders within the business on the subject of the place electronic mail is heading subsequent.
To be extra particular, Mark Robbins from Parcel joined us to offer some ideas on what a brighter future for electronic mail might appear to be.
We kicked off Day 2 of E mail Camp: Mission Management with the always-insightful electronic mail developer/software program engineer. Mark Robbins’ keynote presentation took us on an electronic mail odyssey throughout electronic mail improvement’s current and future…or you might say, to infinity and past.
Take a look at an on-demand presentation under and maintain studying for extra insights on the way forward for electronic mail.
The way forward for electronic mail accessibility
For the second yr, Mark and the crew on the E mail Markup Consortium examined over 300,000 emails throughout a number of languages, industries, and geographic areas by means of Parcel’s Accessibility Checker.
And for the second yr… 99.9% of the emails failed. We will do higher.
Actually, solely 5 manufacturers handed each one of many 56 checks within the take a look at. Due to the arduous work and dedication of the dynamic duo of Megan Boshuyzen and Julia Ritter, we’re proud to say that Sinch Mailjet and Sinch E mail on Acid had been amongst these manufacturers
The most typical coding failures the E mail Markup Consortium discovered:
- Lacking lang attribute, which permits worldwide campaigns to be learn and rendered by display readers within the right language for the subscriber
- Lacking dir attribute, which determines the path of language, in order that right-to-left languages like Arabic or Hebrew will be learn and rendered accurately by display readers for worldwide audiences
- Lacking alt attribute, which describes the pictures in an electronic mail for display readers to learn aloud
“These are easy, fast issues so as to add. It’s a really small quantity of code that makes no distinction in rendering. We at all times wish to blame electronic mail purchasers and know-how, however more often than not, it’s our angle that’s the issue.”
Mark Robbins, Software program Engineer and E mail Developer
The way forward for electronic mail accessibility doesn’t need to be time-consuming, or add numerous code to your emails. It begins with considering extra deeply about accessibility—even if you happen to’re utilizing a drag-and-drop electronic mail editor—and coding in a means that works for everybody.
“We have to take it again to fundamentals. One thing I feel we’re going to see a whole lot of sooner or later is best accessibility instruments, and I’m seeing increasingly more folks shifting into semantic-first electronic mail coding, which is well-supported and absolutely accessible.”
Mark Robbins, Software program Engineer and E mail Developer
You’ll be able to learn the complete EMC accessibility report to study extra in regards to the 2023 findings.
The way forward for Outlook electronic mail improvement
One factor that’s always on the minds of electronic mail builders is coding for Outlook. Mark Robbins thinks it’s time to rethink our priorities. And that’s a giant mindset shift for a lot of electronic mail geeks, nevertheless it makes numerous sense. Right here’s how he defined it when it comes to accessible electronic mail code.
“Cease placing Outlook first. Once I first began constructing electronic mail, I used to be at all times fascinated with Outlook and including all of those workarounds to make it work. If you happen to flip that on its head and begin prioritizing semantic code, you possibly can add fallbacks for Outlook later, which finally ends up with a lot much less code, far more dependable code, and far more future-proof code that simply works.”
Mark Robbins, Software program Engineer and E mail Developer
There are some good causes to be Outlook obsessed, particularly for B2B electronic mail entrepreneurs with a big proportion of Outlook customers. But when 10% of your electronic mail opens occur on Outlook, you shouldn’t compromise the opposite 90% of your customers.
There’s excellent news about the way forward for Outlook electronic mail improvement. As you would possibly know, the desktop model of Outlook use Microsoft Phrase as a rendering engine. Because of this coding for Outlook is such a headache – and why we’ve been shaking our fists to the sky asking “Whyyyyyy???” for years. Lastly, 2021 is the final yr for Outlook to make use of this wack-a-doodle rendering engine, and assist might be dropped October 2026.
However don’t assume you possibly can cease previewing emails in Outlook and adjusting your code simply but. Mark reminds us that it takes time for previous know-how to trip off into the sundown.
“Realistically, we’re in all probability not going to see it drop off all of a sudden, however I’m optimistic that by 2030, we will begin chopping off assist, and we’ll begin to see a downturn in Outlook shopper utilization from earlier variations.”
Mark Robbins, Software program Engineer and E mail Developer
The way forward for electronic mail and AI
After all, we will’t speak about the way forward for electronic mail improvement with out mentioning that sci-fi elephant within the room: Synthetic intelligence (AI).
“We have now to speak about it. Is it good? Is it dangerous? I’m nonetheless break up on this. You’ll be able to ask AI something and it’ll confidently offer you a solution that could possibly be utterly made up, which is a giant threat. I feel one of many issues with the expansion of AI is that we must also see the expansion of QA, as a result of AI makes errors that individuals don’t make.”
Mark Robbins, Software program Engineer and E mail Developer
Ask any generative AI about electronic mail code and the solutions are fairly laughable. Whereas AI is an thrilling improvement for thus many components of our jobs proper now, coding isn’t one among them. However the greatest subject Mark takes with AI is that it’s studying from the loudest, greatest voices on the web, not essentially the perfect ones. And since we already know that 99.9% of emails fail a primary accessibility take a look at, utilizing AI to code electronic mail is probably going going to result in damaged code that received’t be making your emails higher.
That’s to not say AI for electronic mail builders is totally ineffective. To date, Mark has used AI to assist him brainstorm marketing campaign concepts, discover easy errors in code like a lacking bracket or comma, and scale back repetition. It helps to make use of a developer-focused AI program like GitHub’s Copilot to do that, because it learns from the code you’ve already written as an alternative of all the general public code out there.
“I feel AI is right here to help us, not substitute us. There’s rather a lot that you are able to do with it to hurry up our processes and get impressed with new concepts. The extra environment friendly we will be, then the extra we will spend time doing cool stuff proper? As builders, we wish to construct cool stuff, not the boring stuff. It’s evolving so quick, all the pieces I stated right here at this time would possibly already be outdated a number of weeks later.”
Mark Robbins, Software program Engineer and E mail Developer
Along with electronic mail coding, synthetic intelligence also can make life simpler for electronic mail entrepreneurs. For one nice instance, try the brand new AI Copy Generator from Sinch Mailjet.
Future-proof your emails with testing
E mail continues to evolve. The easiest way to keep away from the pitfalls of inconsistent electronic mail rendering? Future-proof your templates and campaigns with common electronic mail testing. Mark Robbins recommends a mixture of automated and handbook electronic mail testing, particularly relating to accessibility. That’s what helps you come as shut as doable to understanding how your subscribers expertise what you’re sending them.
“I feel folks have this coding mindset that it’s best to code prefer it’s 1999. And to be honest, this was true for a very long time, however we’ve moved previous it now. We have to be coding prefer it’s 2024.”
Mark Robbins, Software program Engineer and E mail Developer
Whether or not you’re experimenting with semantic-first electronic mail coding, nonetheless battling workarounds for Outlook, or wish to attempt enjoyable interactive options in your electronic mail campaigns like interactive electronic mail or countdown timers, you’ll want a testing platform that may do all of it.
With Sinch E mail on Acid, electronic mail entrepreneurs get limitless testing and accessibility checks, plus previews in over 100 completely different electronic mail purchasers and stay units, from Outlook 2016 to the new iPhone 15. (That features darkish mode electronic mail previews, too!).
Be a part of us at E mail Camp in 2024
We’re already psyched to start out planning subsequent yr’s E mail Camp. Keep up a correspondence whenever you signal as much as obtain updates and notifications about our 2024 stay occasion.
Missed this yr’s out-of-this world electronic mail advertising and marketing and coding shows? No worries. Head over to YouTube to view all E mail Camp 2023 periods on-demand. Hear from audio system like Anne Tomlin, Emily Benoit, Greg Zakowicz, and plenty of different electronic mail geeks.
Writer: The E mail on Acid Group
The E mail on Acid content material crew is made up of digital entrepreneurs, content material creators, and straight-up electronic mail geeks.
Join with us on LinkedIn, comply with us on Fb, and tweet at @EmailonAcid on Twitter for extra candy stuff and nice convos on electronic mail advertising and marketing.
Writer: The E mail on Acid Group
The E mail on Acid content material crew is made up of digital entrepreneurs, content material creators, and straight-up electronic mail geeks.
Join with us on LinkedIn, comply with us on Fb, and tweet at @EmailonAcid on Twitter for extra candy stuff and nice convos on electronic mail advertising and marketing.
