They say that “two heads are better than one.” Well, how about three? I was excited to be part of a developer Q&A session to close out Email Camp 2022 with a couple of fellow email geeks. We’re bringing that panel discussion to you here as a special live edition of Notes from the Dev.
The second day of Email Camp 2022 was all about email development. It included a live coding tutorial with Jay Oram, and some deep dives into dark mode as well as interactive email ideas. I also joined Avi Goldman from Parcel to talk about ways to majorly improve the efficiency of email design systems.
Of course, this developer Q&A session was sort of like our grand finale. Anne Tomlin of and Shani Nestingen, a lead developer and designer, joined me to answer some big-picture questions from the community. Then, we also took a bunch of bonus questions from the live, online audience. (Our charismatic host/DJ joined us as well.)
Getting to pick the brains of your peers always reveals awesome ideas and insights, especially when the brains belong to people like Anne and Shani. You can watch the entire session below.
And… if you want to be there for real next time, make sure you . We’ll let you know about dates, speakers, and more – because Email Camp 2023 is only going to get better.
Notes from the email developer Q&A
Shani, Anne, and I kicked off the developer Q&A with a few topics that get a lot of discussion in the email geek community.
We’ll give you the TL;DW (too long didn’t watch) if you’re more of a reader, but you’ll hear everything we had to say if you check out the video. So, scroll back up and hit that play button.
What designs are frustrating and time-consuming for devs? How can designers make our lives easier?
The big takeaway from this question… loop the developer in as soon as possible.
Most email developers don’t mind a bit of a challenge. But, there are some things that are pretty close to impossible to pull off in the inbox. So, consider including marketers, designers, and developers in those campaign brainstorming sessions. Then, let your Japan Business Email List devs get a look at your email designs with plenty of time before you pass them along for coding.
“Use us as consultants very early on. If you have an idea, talk it through with us. Because we can avoid many of those pitfalls…”
~ Shani Nestingen
Get more on in a round-up of advice from a bunch of folks in the email world. Plus, find out how an automated email pre-send .
How should we optimize for lean emails?
Keeping your emails lean and clean is important for several reasons, an important one being that Gmail clips messages that are more than 102kb large. Anne and Shani provided these quick tips:
- Think lean from the start: Try to limit the code you need to use at the beginning of the process so there’s less to clean up later.
- Streamline your tables: The more HTML tables you have the more it adds to your load.
- Keep your CSS clean: Take advantage of reusable styles and classes.
- Keep your images as small as possible: That 102kb limit in Gmail does not include images. However, huge graphic files will cause loading problems in the inbox.
- Be aware of your ESP: Is the platform you’re UAE Cell Number using adding unnecessary code and causing bloat?
“If you don’t need to add that extra bit of CSS, don’t add it. Because that could be the one thing that puts you over the edge, and now your footer isn’t showing in Gmail.”
