Issue #186 All About Email

Hi, friend. 👋

Welcome to Issue #186 of All About Email!

Last week, as the dust began to settle (it’s still very early days), we revisited Google’s big Merchant Centre announcement for email and addressed some remaining questions.

This week, we take a look at Gmail clipping, but with some insights you may have never seen before and lots of free tools to help you.

Let’s go! 👇

Clippity Clip

I’ve recently helped a colleague with a very frustrating Gmail clipping issue.

If you are a regular reader, you will know that I’ve been wanting to discuss Gmail clipping for a few weeks. So the time has finally come!

💡 Many of you will be familiar with Gmail clipping, but if not, simply put, it’s an email that is 102KB or larger in your inbox, which Gmail clips (shortens), and you won’t see the full message until you click a link.

🚨 Determining your email size can be tricky (more on that later). You can send yourself a test email, download the email ** and check the file size, but note:

• ESPs can add additional information (code weight) to emails that isn’t included in test emails, e.g., one-click unsubscribe headers, as just one example.

• ESPs can also modify your code (there are legitimate reasons for doing this) when sending your final email.

⚡️ ** The file size of your downloaded email is often not the actual size of your email. Your computer's or device's operating system (OS) typically adds information to the file, making it slightly larger.

This email, for example, is:

• 118KB in Chrome

• 121KB downloaded on my Mac

• 88.7KB when checked in Parcel - this is the one that matters for clipping.

What Is Impacted By Gmail Clipping?

Unless you have an ESP like Klaviyo that allows you to move your tracking pixel, you can lose out on valuable subscriber data.

🐝 I use Beehiiv for my emails, which automatically places the open tracking pixel at the top of emails. However, (other ESPs are the same), a clipped email can still impact click data.

🚨 Aside from tracking pixels, clipping can also be problematic for several other reasons (and this is only some of them):

• People don’t see the whole email: Gmail clips anything over 102 KB, hiding content behind a "View entire message" link, which, let’s be honest, most people won’t click.

• Key content might get missed: If your CTAs, promotional details, or unsubscribe link are below the clip, there’s a good chance they’re not seen. This hurts engagement and can cause legal or compliance issues if you include that text at the bottom of emails.

• Layouts can fall apart: Clipping “can” break HTML structure, especially if it cuts through a table or a section. You end up with weird formatting or broken designs.

• Styles may not load: Gmail removes <style> tags from the expanded version of a clipped email, so the layout can look totally off when someone clicks to view more.

• It can affect deliverability: Clipped emails “might” be flagged as spam.

How Can I Prevent Gmail Clipping?

🤔 You may be wondering at this point how we can prevent Gmail clipping. To keep your email under the magic 102KB number, I’ve got you covered with some suggestions:

• Minify your code - Remove extra line breaks, comments, and unnecessary spaces from your HTML to optimise performance. Smaller code = smaller file size.

• Avoid nesting too many tables - Nested tables can make code heavier (and more difficult to read). Keep your structure clean and lightweight.

• Use linked styles instead of inline where possible - Too many inline styles bulk up your code quickly. External stylesheets won’t help Gmail directly, but cleaning up repeated inline styles can still reduce bloat.

• Cut down on unnecessary content - Be intentional. Don’t overload your emails with content you don’t need, and link out if you have to. This applies to emojis, white space, content breaks, and so on, not just your text.

• Watch out for reused templates - Reusing bloated templates repeatedly can accumulate hidden code. Clean or rebuild your templates periodically.

• Test before you send - Send test emails to Gmail (desktop and mobile) and view the full message source to check the total size. **

• Encode Special Characters - in your HTML. Think of the Copyright symbol as an example: ©

⚡️ ** Remember my advice from the start of this email: determining email size can be tricky, and every character counts (each character of HTML is approximately 1 - 2 bytes).

Free Tools To Help With Clipping

💡 All of these tools are free, and I either actively use them or have tested them. If I’ve missed a tool you would recommend, friend, reply to this email and let me know.

Plain Text

You can use keyboard shortcuts to copy and paste plain text, but I’ve also included a free online tool:

• Online Text Editor

• Mac keyboard shortcut: Option + Shift + Command + V (or ⌥ + ⇧ + ⌘ + V)

• Windows keyboard shortcut: Ctrl + Shift + V

Minify HTML

If you are using a code editor tool like Parcel, this has built-in code modification, but I’ve some online tools that have you covered:

• HTML Minifier (Google recommended)

• Minifier

Both tools above can help you minify your CSS if needed.

Character Encoding

• HTML Decoder & Encoder

Email Size

If you use an ESP, such as Klaviyo or Beehiiv, it may warn you if your email is likely to get clipped.

But if your ESP doesn't, then these tools will help (they also do a lot more than tell you about your email’s size):

• About My Email (One of my favourite tools)

• Mailtester

• Parcel (another one of my favourites)

(Tools like Litmus and Email on Acid can also help with this.)

Did You Know?

So, friend, maybe you’ve not learned anything new about Gmail clipping? Let’s give me another three chances.

Gmail Mobile App

🧠 Did you know that the email size limit on mobile devices “can” vary, ranging from approximately 20KB on iOS to around 75KB on other mobile devices when using the Gmail?

Email on Acid has more information on this, but don’t get too hung up on it unless the majority of your readers use the Gmail App on iOS.

✅ Just keep those emails below 102 KB, and you should be OK.

Subject Lines

🚨 Make sure your subject lines are unique. Duplicate subject lines can trigger clipping. If you send multiple emails with the same subject line, Gmail may automatically clip them.

Images and Video

🤔 There’s a myth that adding images and video will make your email too large and cause it to be clipped (as you can see from this email); that’s not true!

⚠️ Whilst it’s technically not true (as your images are hosted somewhere else, e.g. a CDN or external host), don’t go stuffing multiple 10MB images into an email.

Your subscribers opening emails on a mobile device won’t be happy with their data usage, and good luck getting that email to load before they lose interest. 🤦‍♂️

✅ Compress and optimise your images, people.

Sponsorship Opportunities

🚨 If you’re interested in sponsoring the “All About Email” newsletter, you can find all the details in this Google Doc. I currently have “Classified” slots and a Main Sponsor slot available.

That’s It For This Week 👋

⏭️ Next week, I have an exciting announcement and will be taking a break from my usual weekly email format.

It may or may not be related to the results of this poll. 🤭

See you next week!

Email Marketing News & Tips

This week's excellent and insightful email news & tips:

• Cheat Sheet - “MAGY“ sender requirements. (Al Iverson)

• Email - The Tech Channel That Testing Forgot, but We Can Save. (Kath Pay)

• Question… - How should we handle character entities in the alt attribute? (Sarah Gallardo)

• 🤩 Amazing! - The Complete Guide to Email Deliverability. (Sarah McNamara)

• Email Boutique - Sharing insights and stories about email design and development, and more. (Annett Forcier)

• Roasted - The #1 Thing These 3 Newsletters Got Wrong (and How to Fix It) — Newsletter Roasts Vol. 2. (Growth in Reverse)

• Industry Developments - Are companies abandoning email marketers? (Megan Boshuyzen)

• Top 7 Tools - Track Email Deliverability Like a Pro. (House of Email)

• Community Celebration - Email Advice from A Friend with Chris Behrens. (Des Brown)

• Very Cool 😎 - How to Create a “Scratch Off” Effect in Email HTML (cc Action Rocket). (Email on Acid)

• Deliverability - Remember when you were a kid and you thought if you couldn’t see someone, they couldn’t see you? (Alison Gootee)

If you have a question about this email or email marketing, reply, and I will answer you as soon as possible.

I hope you have a great week! 👋