4 Things I Bet You Didn't Know About Sending Emails to Your List (Not Even You, Steve)

Turns out?

The comma in email marketing is a very, very, very sneaky little troublemaker. A scoundrel. A rascal. A wolf in sheep's clothing!

Do you realize that, apparently, to people reading my emails on Apple Mail have been seeing my sender name inverted this entire time?

So, instead of: "Yo, it's Ash!"

They were seeing: "it's Ash! Yo"

Which embarrasses me to no end, mostly because these poor, poor people probably think I am one of those gun-slingin' rapscallions running around the internet starting sentences with a lowercase. I hope you already know the truth about me:

I. Would. Never.

Not in the 4th grade. Not now.

So, important information!

When you use a comma in your sender name, some email clients automatically parse it into (Last, First) format. As if this were Excel.

But also, I figured I stopped saying "yo" about fifteen years ago, so I could probably retire it. Unless I'm saying, "Yo, I'm going to bed." That might be one I still use. Because I do go to bed early, ummm, a lot.

So, that's email marketing face plant No. 1!

You know what face plant No. 2 is?

I discovered this gem yesterday when I got emails from a few of you telling me that my new email template looked like absolute trash in dark mode. The news isn't so much that my email looked like absolute trash in dark mode (that was a quick fix, at least I hope), but rather the ground-breaking new discovery that THERE ARE REAL AND ACTUAL PEOPLE OUT THERE USING THEIR PHONE IN DARK MODE.

As in, all the time. Dark mode 24/7. Dark mode phone party. Dark mode for everyone.

Who are these vampires?

I never, ever thought to turn dark mode on.

Now I feel left out.

Why didn't it ever occur to me to test my emails on mobile in dark mode? What an absolute amateur hour! Therefore, I spent this morning getting a real education in dark mode. 🌙

Do you know that Gmail is a real jerk about dark mode? Gmail automatically recolors your emails in dark mode and there's nothing you can do about it. If you're reading this in dark mode in Gmail right now, my accent color probably looks like "little girl purple unicorn bedroom." (Which I'd absolutely name a paint color, were I in charge.) But actually? It's hot electric blue. Like a hyperlink.

So, yeah, that's a little bit like picking your outfit and then having someone wrap you in a paper bag. BUT OKAY.

Know what else I learned?

It is a very poor idea to use the same subject line every week if you're sending out a newsletter. Not that I do this. Would be super ineffective. But, I was about to do this with my new RSS digest set-up, set to go out Saturday mornings with that week's posts, for people who want a digest. (See delivery preferences below.)

But, guess what?

Gmail will crush your bones if you do this. Your literal, actual bones.

Because Gmail?

Collapses + hides email threads that have the same sender + subject line. 😱 It thinks it's the same message. So by week twelve, it will show something like "Sender Name (12)." And then collapse everything behind the .... (you know what I'm talking about, right?!)

So that's a real picnic.

And, last but not least?

Preview lines get a lot more air time these days. You know the little extra line of text under or next to the subject line? The "muahahahaha" I put today?

First of all, you should always edit those, no matter what, because otherwise it'll pull the first readable text it finds in the HTML, which is why you always see the whole "view this email in your browser." That company really needs to edit their preview lines. 😃

(Kit makes this easy. Here's what my editor looks like.) 👇

But, secondly?

There are A LOT of email clients that are showing two lines of preview text now.

Apple Mail. Superhuman. (What I use.) Outlook.

Which means that if you only put a 40-character preview line—the zone that survives every email client—then that means the inboxes displaying TWO rows of preview lines will show your first 40 characters....

...and then STILL SHOW the "view this email in your browser." (Or equivalent to whatever's in your HTML.) The rest of your preview line doesn't just go blank. Instead, it adds a jumble of words and looks wonky.

The lesson?

Write way longer preview lines than you thought. Go ahead, be long-winded!

This way, you're using all your real estate.

Especially for the people reading who can see two lines. :)

(Unless, of course, they have Apple's "summarize message" feature turned on. Then, no matter what you write, Apple will summarize your message in the preview line and say something horrible like "Email formatting issues discussed," and we will all walk into the ocean.)

(Side note: if you use Apple Mail, you can turn that off by going into Settings > Apps > Mail > Summarize Message Previews and toggling off. Because honestly? This is one place I'd rather have the human. 😆)

So, now I need to know:

Who are the people who have been seeing my sender name as "it's Ash! Yo" for all these years? 🙈 Hit reply if you are one of the lucky ones, hahaha.

And, hit reply anyway and tell me if my email looks fine or weird in whatever you're using? It should be better now—I fixed several things like the internet handywoman I am—but it's alllllllllll an experiment. And, I'd love to have more data.

As long as it doesn't include the color "little girl purple unicorn bedroom." Ugh.