Email Marketing & Publishing June 2004

Best Practices
Newsletter Design

As a former magazine editor, I recall some splendid design seminars put on by the annual Folio conference in New York that focused on timeless principles. Fortunately, much of this wisdom also applies to email publishing, and for a good reason: people read essentially the same way regardless of the medium.

The eye of a typical reader follows the path of a "U". That is, they start at the top left, move down, traverse to the right and then back up. An important detail to keep in mind when designing your newsletter and deciding how to mix editorial and advertising. The three most common design templates for email newsletters are:

  1. Vertical mix of editorial and ads - i.e. editorial followed by ad, editorial followed by ad, etc.

  2. Two column format - ads on the left, editorial on the right

  3. Two column format - editorial on the left, ads on the right.
Deciding which to use depends on the content you want emphasized. A classic Inbox template is the two column format with ads clearly separate from editorial. Readers expect this demarcation because quality newspapers and magazines have practiced it for more than a century. There should be no confusion about what is an ad and what is an article. We also advise giving the premier spot - the left column - to editorial just as we have done with this newsletter. The reason? Your readers probably subscribed to your editorial content rather than your marketing messages.

What are the implications for ad performance? A recent ClickZ column referenced a large test that compared performance differences between having ads on the left vs. on the right. Predictably, when placed in the premier position on the left, ads averaged a 10% greater CTR than when they appeared on the right. However, they also had a 20% lower conversion rate. Ads placed on the right delivered a superior CPM.

The bottom line? If you want reader respect, give your editorial content top positioning and the ads will sell themselves.