Beefree blog

Email Marketing Design Best Practices to Boost Engagement

Beefree team
Beefree team
Jul 5, 2023
Email Marketing Design Best Practices to Boost Engagement
Email Marketing Design Best Practices to Boost Engagement

Email marketing is one of the marketing techniques with the highest potential for revenue - for every $1 you spend on email marketing, you can expect a return of $42. But that word “potential” is important - some email marketing campaigns will rake in the big bucks and others will flop. It largely depends on one thing: skillful and strategic email design.To thrive and cook up a campaign that’s worthwhile, you have to keep up with the ever-changing email design best practices. As long-standing experts in the email marketing field, we’re here to help. We’ve created this guide of the top email design best practices for 2023.

What is email design?

Email design is the development of an email through strategic designing that ultimately engages and resonates with your business’s target audience. Your email design should be eye-catching and optimized for all email subscribers. Effective email design can be the difference between an email that wastes away unread in inboxes and one that compels readers to click and make a purchase. At the risk of sounding dramatic, the revenue potential of a well-designed email is practically limitless.

Benefits of effective email design 

Strong email design has the ability to significantly impact your email marketing metrics. An engaging, attention-grabbing email brings plenty of benefits to your business including:

  • Increasing audience engagement and excitement
  • Building brand awareness and recognition
  • Establishing credibility with the audience
  • Boosting conversion rates

Strong email design is a win-win, bringing your audience a more engaging and useful email and bringing your business more revenue. But how do you make your email design effective, exactly? Let’s dive into practical tips you can start using today.

Email design best practices

Expert graphic design skills aren’t needed to create impactful email designs and templates, simply follow along with these best practices, and you’ll be on your way to reaping the benefits that we shared above.

Choose an email layout that suits your email’s goal

The way you lay out your email will depend on what type of message you’re sending. A transactional email, an email newsletter, and a DEM email (direct email marketing) are all very different, and your layout for each one should create a visual flow that leads readers toward the goal of that email.While every email’s layout will be unique, there are several common types of layouts that can each suit specific purposes and goals. These include:

  • Inverted pyramid layouts
  • Gutenberg diagram email layouts
  • Z-pattern email layouts
  • F-pattern email layouts

There’s no singular email layout that’s more effective than the others; it all depends on the situation and what you’re trying to accomplish. Let’s talk about each of these layout types and what they can do for your email design.

Inverted pyramid email layout

An inverted pyramid email uses an upside-down triangle as its guide: It grabs your attention with a broad headline, explains more with a few lines of copy and then narrows in on the main CTA. This MealPal email showcases an inverted pyramid layout.

Subject line: STOP waiting in line and get 40% off

inverted pyramid email layout

Gutenberg diagram email layout 

The Gutenberg diagram divides your email layout into a grid with four sections — primary optical (top left), strong fallow area (top right), weak fallow area (bottom left) and terminal area (bottom right). People’s eyes generally move in this pattern as they read, so using the Gutenberg diagram can ensure your email is easy to skim.

Gutenberg diagram
Source image

Z-pattern email layout

The Z-pattern email layout is effective because the zigzag pattern follows the path most readers’ eyes will take. Z-pattern messages are a great option for simple emails without much copy where you’d like to highlight the CTA. Here’s an example of a Z-pattern:

Subject line: Load up on all your grooming essentials

z-pattern email layout

F-pattern email layout

Another common scanning pattern is the F-pattern, in which readers’ eyes move across the page in the shape of an F. With this pattern, people tend to catch the top headline, any bullet points on the left side of the page, and subheadings across the page.

Subject line: New arrivals | Sets to love

f-pattern email layout

Email layout is an essential step in email design best practices. Choosing the right layout can make an enormous difference in how likely your customers are to convert.

Additional layout tips

Here are a couple more tips to keep in mind as you consider your email layout options:

  • Modular structure. An email with a modular structure is mobile responsive and adaptable. It ensures that recipients can view the message on any device.Pro Tip: Your email should also be no more than 600 pixels wide so people don’t have to scroll horizontally.
  • Rule of three. Another way to keep your email layout simple and skimmable is to focus on three main email design elements.

Coordinate each element of your email structure

Each element of your email’s structure will play a part in how effective your email design is. They need to all coordinate with each other to create the on-brand, compelling effect you want. Let’s look at each element in a well-structured email and how to optimize them.

Subject line and pre-header

Your subject line is the bold title of your email that readers see in their inbox, and the preheader (AKA preview text) is the text readers see below or next to that bold subject line. Depending on the email program a reader is using, it will look something like this:

optimized subject line and preheader

As you can see, the subject line and pre-header are the only pieces of information (other than your name) that a user has when they decide whether to open the email. These pieces need to be enticing and clear, grabbing readers’ attention and giving them a reason to click. Think about who your audience is and what appeals to them most.

Body

The body text of your email should be engaging and personal, accurately representing your company’s personality and making a connection with the reader. Be clear about what you’re asking the reader to do and stay focused on your main message.

Remember, your reader is bombarded with messaging all day every day. If you want to stand out in their memory, make your email body creative and relatable while keeping it concise and on-brand.

CTA

The header and body of your email should lead the reader straight to the CTA button. Create a sense of urgency if you’re having a sale, and prep a specific landing page for this CTA. When you design your CTA button, make sure it’s bulletproof so it will render correctly in any inbox.

As much as possible, stay focused on the message you want to send with your CTAs. Multiple CTAs in an email can actually hurt your conversion rate — having too many choices is overwhelming. Think about your primary goal for conversion (is it most important to you that people visit your website or social media?) and use that as your CTA.

Keep in mind that using descriptive CTA text instead of a generic phrase (“click here”) can encourage readers to act. Moleskine uses the words “Personalize now,” which helps the reader envision themselves purchasing the customized product.

Subject line: Unique notes

email cta example

Footer

For brands, an email footer usually includes social media links and the business’s physical address, as Groove Life does here. Solopreneurs or CEOs might craft their footer as more of an email signature with personal contact information. The footer of your email is also required by law to include a visible unsubscribe link.

optimized footer for emails

Learn more helpful footer tips in our blog post outlining best practices for email footer design.

Be strategic with visual design elements 

When the structure of your email is ready to go, it’s time to consider what design elements to include.

Typography

Typography is an important part of your company’s visual branding. For the body of your email, use a font that’s easy to read. Consider font color, spacing, and size. Don’t use more than two fonts in order to keep it on-brand so customers read it as professional. If you decide to use a custom font, make sure to preview the email on multiple devices. We love the simple but effective typography in this Tuft & Needle email.

Subject line: Save 10% on new sheet covers

email font design idea

Color

Color is essential when it comes to how your customers view your brand. Use a non-white background color to make your email look like one cohesive image. Then choose accent colors (such as the shade of your header or CTA button color) based on your brand colors and the email’s overall color scheme. For example, MealPal uses a pale blue background and adds a pop of color with the orange CTAs (which match the company logo at the top).

Subject line: NEW: groceries for 40% off with MealPal Market!

email cta design

Animated content

GIFs and videos are popular when it comes to email design best practices. Animated GIFs can grab a reader’s attention with humor or they can demonstrate how to use your product. If you choose to include video in your emails, create educational content and post it on your website or YouTube. Many ESPs don’t allow videos to play in messages, so sharing the video link in the email is best.

Optimize Your Email Design 

Your job doesn’t end once your email is structured and designed. You must also optimize your email settings, test your emails, and check that they are accessible to everyone.

Personalization

It’s natural for your customers to pay more attention to information that is more relevant to them, and you can signal that your email is relevant by personalizing the design. This doesn’t mean you have to hand-customize every email that goes out - there are ways to automate this in a practical way.You can use simple strategies like adding the customer’s name in the email and including suggested products in the email based on the customer’s purchase history. You can also create several versions of your email designed for different segments of customers, like one version for customers ages 18-30, another for those ages 30-45, another for those who are 45-60, and so on. Adjustments like these make your emails more personalized and relatable.

Responsive email template design 

A responsive email template design ensures that your message will change size to be viewed on any device. Since nearly half of all email opens, take place on a mobile device like a smartphone, creating responsive emails is essential. Here at BEE, we have hundreds of responsive email templates that you can use to make sure your email design is mobile-first.

Test emails

Don’t send your email without testing it first to make sure you catch any mistakes. Testing your email can confirm whether your message is mobile-responsive. It also gives you a final chance to take in your color choices, images, and text all together. When you design with the Beefree, you can easily test your email when you’re through designing by sending it to yourself or previewing it on mobile (both found under the “Actions” tab in the upper left-hand corner of the editor). Most ESPs have built-in testing options too.

A/B test

In addition to testing your email with an internal review, consider running A/B tests where two groups of subscribers receive slightly different emails. By doing this, you can see which variations of the message get the highest open rates, conversions, and other performance metrics.A/B testing is a powerful strategy because no two audiences respond the same way to the same emails, so these tests can show you what works best for your specific audience. You can conduct A/B tests on nearly any element of your emails: the subject line, the preheader, the body, the CTA, and so on. Just be sure to only have one differing element in each A/B test so you know what caused one version to perform better than the other.

Accessibility

Many people consume online information in different ways due to varying physical, mental, or developmental abilities. For example, someone might use a screen reader that verbally reads the text on the screen. To make your emails accessible to everyone, use real text instead of images and structure the layout of your message so it’s simple and easy to read. Use these tips to ensure accessibility:

  • Size all text to 14px or larger
  • Add alt tags to your images to accommodate anyone who might not be able to see the photos or graphics; this text describes your images and is visible when the image cannot be shown (as shown in the image below). 
  • Keep your contrast high so it’s easy for readers to distinguish the elements of the messages. Who Can Use, a tool that shows you how people with visual impairments view different colors can be a huge help in making your emails accessible.

One other email accessibility best practice is to keep your image size small (around 600px). You don’t want your email to be too “heavy,” with large images that might not load on all devices and ESPs. Small images are best.

Enhance inclusivity in email design

An inclusive email is one that takes into account the many ways in which your audience is diverse — from gender and race to ability, culture, age, and more. Your customer base isn’t made up of just one type of person, so your marketing emails shouldn’t address only one type, either. Do your photos show people of different races, genders and abilities? Does your language reflect the reader’s location and any potential cultural differences?

If you’re not sure, find someone who can look over the emails and let you know.

Your company can also focus on hiring people with diverse backgrounds to help create content that’s truly made for everybody. In addition to testing your email with an internal review, consider running A/B tests where two groups of subscribers receive slightly different emails. By doing this, you can see which variations of the message get the most opens.

Optimize your email design with Beefree

Ready to create effective marketing emails? Try Beefree. Our thousands of drag-and-drop, customizable email templates can give you a launchpad. Or opt for a blank template to design your own email from the ground up — no coding knowledge required. Put the email design best practices you’ve learned into action and start designing today.

Editor’s Note: This post was updated on July 2023 to ensure accuracy and comprehensiveness.

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Why Pardot Users Choose Beefree for Better Email Design

Pardot’s email builder slowing you down? Learn why teams across industries turn to Beefree to create stunning, compliant emails—then export to Pardot with one click.
Beefree team
Beefree team
23 Apr
2025

If you’re using Salesforce Account Engagement (formerly Pardot), you’ve likely hit a wall with its native email editor. Whether you’re a nonprofit, a growing SaaS company, or an enterprise with multiple brands, the common complaint is the same:

"Pardot is just way too restrictive for our needs."

"The collaboration part just isn’t happening smoothly. It is too hard to involve writers and designers effectively."

 "It isn’t like we were doing anything overly creative—it just doesn’t give us the flexibility we needed."

Let’s face it: as powerful as Pardot is on the automation side, its design capabilities often fall short. And Salesforce doesn’t seem in a rush to improve them. If you’ve been trying to get more from your marketing emails—faster, better, more on-brand—it’s time to consider a better way.

Beefree isn’t a replacement. It’s the perfect addition to your workflow

The good news is that you don’t have to abandon Pardot. It is excellent at what it’s built for—automation, CRM integration, lead scoring, and financial compliance. 

But when it comes to design and collaboration, the limitations start to pile up. Whether it’s because of its clunky editor, lack of customization, or the time spent fixing buttons and web fonts (insert eye roll). 

Pairing Beefree with Pardot doesn’t just improve how your emails look, it transforms how your team works. This pair is especially perfect for: 

  • Healthcare & Financial Services: where compliance and approvals are non-negotiable.
  • SaaS, Consumer Brands, and Professional Services: where keeping brand consistency across touchpoints is critical.
  • Higher Ed, Manufacturing, Real Estate: where teams juggle multiple departments, audiences, and localizations.
  • Nonprofits: where lean teams need to move fast 

Teams from all walks of life all come to Beefree looking for the same thing: a fast and flexible email design solution that seamlessly integrates with their tech stack (without slowing their team down).

(source)

From chaos to control: Why teams choose Beefree

Now that you know what Beefree is, it’s time to talk about how it can help. 

When email production feels scattered (we’re talking files everywhere, last-minute edits, branding inconsistencies), it’s not just frustrating, it’s risky. It opens the door to real mistakes: off-brand messaging, broken layouts, missed approvals, or worse, emails that get flagged for non-compliance.   

1. Keeps your team organized with Workspaces

Instead of one cluttered space where everyone shares the same templates and folders, Workspaces allows you to manage email assets across brands, departments, and regions in unique environments. 

  • Create separation without silos: Marketing ops can manage everything in one platform, while individual teams work independently within their own workspace. It’s the best of both worlds.
  • Prevent cross-team mixups: With workspace-specific templates and permissions, there’s no risk of someone accidentally launching a healthcare email from the real estate workspace.

2. Allows you to move faster without sacrificing brand integrity

Beefree empowers teams to scale production while keeping every email perfectly on-brand.

  • Style Kits: Automatically apply your brand’s fonts, colors, and design settings to every email in a workspace
  • Saved Rows: Save your most-used content blocks (like hero sections, testimonials, or product features) and reuse them across campaigns.
  • Synced Rows: Make a global update, like changing your holiday promo footer or legal disclaimer, and Beefree automatically applies it to every email using that row. 

3. Helps you catch mistakes before they go live

Beefree helps your team build error-resistant emails with features designed to catch issues before they go live. 

  • Smart check: Beefree’s Smart Check automatically checks your designs and alerts you of any red flags, such as missing links, heavy images, and large HTML files, so you can fix them before they cost you. 
  • Built-in approval flows: Ensure the right eyes are on every email. No more chasing approvals in Slack or email threads.

Learn more about sending error-free emails with Beefree: https://beefree.io/blog/error-free-emails-beefree

4. One click export from Beefree to Pardot

With Beefree’s native Pardot integration, your team can export emails with confidence. What you see in Beefree is exactly what your audience gets in Pardot. No weird spacing. No layout issues. No surprises.

Real results: How USC Marshall scaled campaign production with Beefree

In 2020, Dwayne Rice, Senior Associate Director of CRM Management at USC Marshall, was juggling comms for 11 graduate programs. Each had its own drip campaigns, deadlines, and unique audiences.

“I needed an efficient process to crank out emails,” he said.“But Pardot’s editor was slowing us down.”

By switching to Beefree, Dwayne’s team was able to build reusable templates and modular elements—cutting production time and removing the need for third-party vendors.

“Beefree has enabled us to create content efficiently enough to bring multiple processes in-house and discontinue relationships with several vendors, saving time and money.”— Dwayne Rice, USC Marshall

Read the full case study

Stop letting Pardot’s email builder hold you back

From higher ed to healthcare, SaaS to nonprofits—teams across industries are making the switch to Beefree not to replace Pardot, but to complete it. With Beefree you can:

  • Design polished, responsive emails in minutes
  • Collaborate seamlessly with writers, designers, and stakeholders
  • Export to Pardot with full confidence

Start building better emails for Pardot today — Try Beefree for free

Or if you're a non-profit, apply for a $1,000 annual credit!

(source)

Frequently asked questions about using Beefree with Pardot

1. How does Beefree integrate with Pardot?

Beefree serves as an external email design tool that integrates seamlessly with Pardot. Users can design emails in Beefree and export them directly to Pardot as new templates or update existing ones. This integration streamlines the email creation process by allowing for more flexible and visually appealing designs than Pardot's native editor.

2. Does Beefree provide analytics for email performance?

Beefree focuses primarily on email design and does not offer built-in analytics. However, once emails are exported to Pardot, users can leverage Pardot's robust analytics and reporting tools to track performance metrics such as open rates, click-through rates, and conversion rates.

3. How does Beefree enhance email design capabilities for Pardot users?

Beefree offers a no-code, drag-and-drop email builder that allows users to create visually appealing emails without HTML knowledge. It integrates seamlessly with Pardot, enabling users to export their designs directly into the platform, thereby overcoming Pardot's design limitations .​

4. What collaboration features does Beefree offer compared to Pardot?

Beefree offers robust collaboration features that surpass those in Pardot, including:

  • real-time design-specific comments
  • role-based permissions
  • approval workflows

all available directly within the email design environment. These tools make it easier for teams to co-create and review content without switching platforms. In contrast, Pardot’s collaboration tools are more limited and typically rely on Salesforce’s broader ecosystem for team coordination.

5. Does Beefree support features like AI copywriting or mobile optimization?

​Yes, Beefree supports both AI-driven copywriting and mobile optimization features. Its AI Writing Assistant enables users to:

  • generate email and landing page content or revise existing copy
  • create alt text for images
  • translate content to different languages

Additionally, Beefree's Mobile Design Mode allows for editing of mobile-specific styles, such as:

  • text alignment
  • padding
  • font size
  • and more

to ensure responsive and user-friendly designs across devices.

6. Can Beefree help maintain brand consistency better than Pardot?

Yes, Beefree helps maintain brand consistency more effectively than Pardot through its Brand Style Guidelines feature, which lets teams lock in brand colors, fonts, and content blocks across all email designs.

Users can also create reusable templates and design systems that ensure uniformity, even across multiple teams or clients. While Pardot offers some branding controls, it lacks the same level of built-in visual governance and flexibility found in Beefree’s design-focused environment.

Send Error-Free Emails with Confidence Using Beefree

Learn about the Beefree features that can help you and your team catch mistakes, streamline collaboration, and send with confidence every time.
Beefree team
Beefree team
15 Apr
2025

We’ve all been there: You craft the perfect email, hit “send”, and just as you settle into the satisfaction of a job well done, someone slacks you: “Hey, something doesn’t look right with that campaign.” 

If this sounds familiar, you should know that you’re not alone: According to the 2025 Really Good Email Survey “90% of email marketers say they have a history of noticing mistakes in their emails after they’ve hit the send button.

This becomes especially common when your team constantly juggles multiple campaigns or makes edits until the last minute. Sadly, even the smallest mistakes don’t just slip through the cracks; they cost you.

Luckily for us all, mistakes can be avoided. And no, not by lighting a Pre-Send Protection Candles™ and hoping for the best. But rather by equipping your team with the right tools that work with your team – not slow them down. Let’s talk about it!

Building your team’s safety net for mistake-free emails with Beefree 

When everyone involved in the email creation process is aligned and supported by smart systems, executing mistake-free emails becomes second nature. Instead of scrambling to do damage control, you’ll want to set up the tools and processes that help your team focus on what they do best: creating emails that connect, convert, and confidently represent the brand.

In this article, we’ll discuss how you can use Beefree to: 

  • Reduce human errors 
  • Implement systems of checks and balances 
  • Establish guardrails & frameworks for on-brand email design

1. Catch mistakes before they happen with Smart Check

Missing links that lead nowhere? Forgotten subject lines? HTML emails that get clipped in Gmail? It’s easy to make little mistakes that derail your campaign’s performance. 

Learn more about Smart Check → 

Beefree’s Smart Check automatically checks your designs and alerts you of any red flags so you can fix them before they cost you opens, clicks, or conversions. Think of Smart Check as your built-in QA partner who will catch:

  • Missing links
  • Heavy images that could slow down email load times
  • Missing subjects & preheaders that impact engagement
  • Missing alt text on images that hurt your email’s accessibility
  • Large HTML files that might affect deliverability (or get clipped in Gmail)

2. Keep every email on-brand with built-in guardrails 

Most of us don’t nail the perfect campaign on the first try. Great emails are a team effort. However, when multiple teams are involved in the email creation process, branding can quickly go off the rails. 

A misused font, clashing colors, or buttons that are too small to click don’t just make emails look disjointed—they can damage your brand’s credibility.

With Beefree’s Advanced Style Kit, you can set clear, predefined guidelines for fonts, colors, spacing, and more—so every design starts on the right foot. Once configured, all new emails automatically inherit your brand styles, reducing the need for constant oversight and minimizing errors.

Advanced user permissions let you lock down specific design elements, giving you full control over what can (and can’t) be edited. That means anyone on your team—regardless of design expertise—can confidently create emails that look and feel like your brand.

3. Empower your team to create with confidence with reusable content

When your team isn’t bogged down by the cumbersome process of creating content from scratch (or fear of going off-brand), they can move faster—and with far more confidence.

With Saved and Synced Rows, you can provide your team with pre-approved content blocks—like headers, footers, and other commonly used design elements—that they can use in their designs without creating them from scratch. That ensures design consistency, eliminates redundant work, and makes email creation a lot faster.

Learn more about Saved Rows → 

4. Ensure your team is aligned with centralized reviews and approvals:

Creating the perfect email often takes a team of designers, copywriters, marketers, and other team members working together. But when multiple people are involved, endless back-and-forth and feedback scattered across multiple conversations and channels can slow things down, lead to miscommunication, and ultimately cause mistakes. 

With Beefree’s built-in commenting, your team can collaborate and share feedback where the work is actually happening—right inside the builder. And if you’d like to involve external reviewers into the review process, you can do that as well. 

Learn more about commenting → 

Plus, with Beefree’s built-in Approval flow, you can ensure your designs are reviewed and approved by the right stakeholders. Stay aligned with real-time notifications on design changes, lock edits on approved content, and get a clear view of project status for smoother team collaboration and high-quality results.

Learn more about Approvals →

5. Need an additional pair of eyes? Use the power of AI to support your team

Take some weight off your team's shoulders and use AI to support them in the final stretch. Whether it’s catching typos, flagging inconsistencies, or suggesting optimization, AI can be a saving grace when deadlines are creeping in.

For those times when you can’t remember the difference between “there, their, and they’re,  Beefree’s  AI Writing Assistant is there to help. This eager-to-learn helper can  review your copy for grammatical errors, tone of voice, and even share suggestions for making it just a bit more compelling. Our AI Writing Assistant can also seamlessly translate content or automatically generate ALT text for images to enhance the accessibility of your emails. 

Learn more about AI-powered content creation in Beefree →

The tangible cost of email mistakes

Mistakes don’t just impact performance; they slowly erode credibility. What starts as a small oversight can be a massive inconvenience for your readers, sending them straight to the unsubscribe button. As for your team, mistakes chip away at their confidence. Instead of brainstorming for the next campaign, they’re scrambling trying to figure out how to do damage control.   

When done right, email is a powerful tool for connecting with your audience. But a single mistake can unravel that connection and undermine trust.

  • A missing or broken links can interrupt your subscribers’ journey to conversion, negatively impacting campaign performance.
  • A missing subject lines means your emails won't stand out in the inbox, hurting your open rate
  • An awkward typo might signal a lack of attention to detail
  • An off-brand design can make your brand look disorganized
  • An email that gets clipped in Gmail because it’s too big means some subscribers might never see the full email content.

Design error-free emails and send with confidence with Beefree 

Beefree helps teams of all sizes create polished, on-brand emails—without the risk of costly errors. With built-in safeguards, streamlined approval flows, and collaboration tools that keep everyone aligned, Beefree acts as your team’s system of checks and balances. From first draft to final sign-off, you’ll have everything you need to send with confidence, build trust, and get results.

Try Beefree's Business for free for 15 days and get access to all of Beefree’s tools that help you catch mistakes, streamline collaboration, and send with confidence every time. Or schedule a call with one of our experts to discover everything Beefree can support your team.

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