Blog · 9 articles

Email marketing blog for builders and senders. Outlook rendering guides, Gmail 102 KB clip limit, UTM parameter best practices, merge tag fallback syntax, and HTML email deliverability tutorials.

Deep dives on Outlook rendering, Gmail clipping, UTM hygiene, merge tag fallbacks, and the deliverability tradeoffs every marketer trips over eventually.

10 min readApr 25, 2026

Why your email lands in Gmail's Promotions tab (and the moves that change it)

Promotions is not spam. It is a sorting tier where 60% of marketing email goes by default and engagement runs half what it would in Primary. Here is what Gmail looks at, the levers that actually move messages between tabs, and when Promotions is the right destination.

gmailpromotionsdeliverabilitytabbed-inboxengagement
10 min readApr 22, 2026

Gmail and Yahoo's bulk sender requirements: what passes, what fails, what nobody told you

If you send more than 5,000 messages per day to Gmail or Yahoo personal addresses, you have to pass a short list of checks. The list is short. The enforcement is uneven. Here is the operational guide your ESP did not give you.

gmailyahoodeliverabilitysender-requirementscompliance
11 min readApr 15, 2026

BIMI in 2026: how to put your logo in Gmail, what it costs, and the failures nobody mentions

BIMI looks simple: publish a DNS record, get your logo in the inbox. The reality involves a $1,500 Verified Mark Certificate, a strict SVG profile, DMARC enforcement at full pct, and a list of edge cases ESPs will not warn you about.

bimibrandingdeliverabilityvmcgmail
9 min readApr 9, 2026

Apple Mail Privacy Protection broke open rates. Here is what still tells the truth.

Since iOS 15, Apple pre-fetches every tracking pixel through a proxy. Your open rate is now half Apple bots, half humans, and you cannot tell which is which. Here is how to read what is left and the metrics that still mean something.

apple-mailmppopen-ratesdeliverabilitymetrics
12 min readApr 2, 2026

SPF, DKIM, DMARC: the three records that decide if your email lands

Three TXT records control whether your email lands in the inbox or the spam folder. Most senders set up one, half-configure another, and skip the third. Here is what each does, the exact records to publish, and the order receiving servers run them in.

spfdkimdmarcdeliverabilityauthentication
5 min readMar 14, 2026

Email merge tag fallbacks, stop shipping 'Hi ,' to your list

Every email marketer has sent the dreaded 'Hi , welcome back!' with an empty first name. Merge tag fallbacks prevent it. Here's how they work across ESPs and how to design for missing data.

merge-tagspersonalizationemail-marketingvariables
7 min readMar 2, 2026

UTM parameters for email marketers, a no-nonsense reference

What UTMs actually do, which parameters matter, naming conventions that don't rot in Google Analytics, and when auto-tagging does more harm than good.

utmtrackinganalyticsemail-marketing
5 min readFeb 20, 2026

Gmail's 102 KB clip limit, what it is, why it happens, how to fix it

Gmail truncates messages larger than 102 KB and shows a 'View entire message' link. Your tracking pixel fires after the clip. Here's what triggers it and exactly how to stay under the line.

gmaildeliverabilityclippingemail-optimization
6 min readFeb 12, 2026

How to build Outlook-safe email buttons that actually render

Outlook's Word rendering engine ignores border-radius, padding on anchors, and most modern CSS. Here's the bulletproof table + VML pattern that works in every client from Outlook 2007 to Gmail mobile.

outlookhtml-emailbulletproof-buttonsVML