Outlook 2003 TO block external HTML content

Outlook 2003 TO block external HTML content

By default any external links in HTML messages are blocked in Outlook 2003. Despite what you may have read HTML email messages are received and displayed in Outlook 2003. But only the text and formatting in the message itself is displayed - any links to external images don't show up.

According to Microsoft this blocking is to stop spammers using so-called 'web bots' to see if your email address is valid. These 'bots' are usually just a tiny (1 pixel by 1 pixel) image link into the spammers server. Outlook 2003 by default, will not go out to get that image.
Blocking web-based images will certainly prevent most of the unscrupulous spammers and email harvesters from tracking the recipients’ movements and determining whether their email address is 'live', however, to the annoyance of many, it may also block some of the acceptable and 'wanted' content as well, such as online marketing statistics and images within permission-based newsletters, and as a result may serve to frustrate just as many users and companies as it helps.

Problems arising from this new feature:

It is estimated that approximately 50% of all business users use Microsoft Outlook as their email client, and many will need to be able to view linked images as part of their job.
Another side-effect which will emerge, is spammers giving up on linking images and deciding to just attach or embed images into the email itself instead, which will only serve to eat up even more of our bandwidth and cause further frustration.
Many online businesses rely on ‘web bots’ to gather valuable information regarding their visitors' habits and progress through their site; this feedback allows the company to streamline useability and improve navigational elements, which ultimately serve to benefit customers and enhance their experience. Many marketers, as well as businesses are concerned that this will affect their ability to develop a relationship with their recipients.
Legitimate, permission-based newsletter providers who do not also offer an online 'web-version' of their html based campaigns may also suffer as a result of this decision, so it is important that if you produce a html based newsletter, you begin to take steps now to ensure that you provide an alternate way for your campaigns to be viewed, otherwise you run the risk of losing branding, logos and html rich content within your emails in the future.

Solution:
It is important that you do not simply send your email out without providing an alternative viewing format. Therefore, a new feature of Ezemail’s, will enable an automated link on both HTML and Text versions of your emails to be created. When a subscriber clicks through to the online version of the newsletter/campaign, the personalisation points are carried over as well as the statistical reporting ability, allowing you to view accurate reports on each and every campaign, whether the recipient has viewed the email in Text, HTML or Web format.

Tips for sending out your newsletters:

In addition to using Ezemail’s new automated link feature, we recommend that you:

Ask the recipient to add you to their “Trusted Sites” list. To do this your client will need to open up Internet Explorer and select Tools > Internet Options > Security Tab > Trusted Sites > Sites, then enter http://www.123campaign.com, or if you are hosting your images on your site, http://www.yoururl.com. From this point on, all images hosted on this site will appear in your emails and within your Outlook preview pane.
Get Whitelisted with your recipient. AOL, Hotmail and Yahoo are all employing whitelisting with their systems. I addition to the above, suggest that they add you to their Address Book. It is crucial that if you suggest this method, then you need to make sure that all correspondence/campaigns are sent from this same email address.
Make sure your brand or ezine name is prominently featured in text. Try to rely less on links embedded in images to elicit reader actions such as feedback, forwarding and unsubscribing.
Use best practices to avoid looking like spam to an Outlook/AOL filter: Watch the use of "spammy" words and phrases; use capitalisation and attention-getting punctuation sparingly; keep your HTML formatting as simple as possible; show your ezine name or brand prominently in "from" and subject lines.

Kath Pay is Marketing Director of Ezemail, an innovative company that provides comprehensive email marketing solutions. For more information on how easily email marketing can be implemented, please contact Kath at kath@ezemail.com.

©Kath Pay 2004