The Perfect Email Layout

Is there an optimal way to layout email marketing campaigns to get the best results? Put simply, there is a template that the big marketers use that gets great results. Best of all the layout is very quick and simple to create and use for your Mailchimp email campaigns.

Email Campaign Template Examples

I always recommend to my Mailchimp class attendees that they subscribe to email marketing from large organizations in similar industries to theirs. It’s important to then critique those email campaigns to learn what will best work for their specific marketing needs.

Below are email campaigns from Uber and Pepsi. The layout of both is typical of what works very well in email marketing. Although where the elements are placed (e.g. the image) differs the layout is much the same.

The Uber email campaign has the layout; logo, image, header, text, button, terms, footer.

The Pepsi email campaign has the layout; logo, header, text, button, image social media, terms, footer.

A few things to note in both campaigns:

• Neither are full width.
• Logos are to the top left.
• Each have a single but simple to understand image (besides the logo).
• Both are single column.
• The text is a teaser. The reader is then encouraged to click the button to read more.
• Text is large (paragraph text for Uber is 20px and Pepsi is 16px).
• Pepsi uses Ariel font (web-safe fonts ensure consistency!)
• There is a single news item on each of the campaigns.
• Pepsi display social icons however more organizations are now removing these from email marketing.

The Email Marketing Template You Should Use

Below is a simplified display of the layout that Pepsi and Uber (and many other major organizations) use. It is very simple to create the same layout in Mailchimp by using the Mailchimp provided single column layout (template).

The Best Layout For Email Newsletters

Fortunately, the email newsletters that get the best open and click rates use the same layout as “single story” campaigns but with the layout repeated. This makes creating email newsletters very simple.

As below, you’ll notice how the heading, image, text and button content blocks are repeated for each story of your email newsletter.

In summary, forget about complicated layouts. Do what the organizations getting the best results do; keep it simple!