Email Development
Do your readers know exactly who in your organization to contact and how to reach them when they have specific questions? Do you? With mailto links, your subscribers can click the link and ask the perfect person their questions. Contacting specific departments is easy! You can adjust your mailto links to direct messages to specific members of your sales team or let your subscribers easily provide feedback.
Mailto links are a great tool to use in your email marketing campaigns. Since we’ve explained why no-reply emails are a terrible idea in a previous article, it’s likely you’re already sending out emails with proper reply-to addresses monitored by a designated team or email marketing associate. But are you using mailto links yet?
What if you’re running several campaigns and want to keep all the replies straight? It’s difficult to manually separate general queries from specific conversations about your latest promotional deal. What’s the solution? Mailto links!
Create an HTML code for an email link to let your readers get in touch. Not quite sure what email links, or mailto links, are? We have your back.
We’ll explain how to link to an email by coding an HTML mailto link that’s prepopulated with fields like subject line, “to” address, carbon copy (Cc), blind carbon copy (Bcc) email addresses, and an email body. We’ll also review the advantages and disadvantages of using a mailto link.
Mailto – that’s not a real word, right? Like the usual jumble of acronyms and seemingly made-up email words, yes, it’s a real word.
“Mailto” is HTML code that adds a link to a web page or email – anywhere you can insert HTML. When your readers click on the mailto link, it opens an email message in their default email client, like Gmail, Microsoft Outlook, or Yahoo Mail.
In its most basic form, a mailto link looks like this:
<a href="mailto:joandoe@emailonacid.com">Get in touch!</a>
We’ll unpack this soon in our code tutorial and discuss other parameters you can specify, like subject lines and “to” addresses. That’s right, with mailto links, you can direct conversations to the right individuals in your organization.
Make it easy for your subscribers to contact the person ready and capable to help them with their specific questions and needs. After all, as any email marketer will tell you, good marketing strategies revolve around starting conversations with customers.
As we mentioned, mailto links are a great way to direct readers’ messages to the right recipients in your organization. But there are even more reasons to use mailto links. Here are some benefits of using mailto links:
So, what’s the catch? Well, here are a few reasons why mailto links might cause issues:
Let’s explore some parameters you can code into your mailto link (and why you should). Here are some of the fields you can specify:
Now that you know why you should use mailto links and the disadvantages to be aware of, it’s time to learn how to code a mailto link in your email template with HTML and CSS.
In this section, we’ll cover how to code:
We know you’re itching to dive in, but let’s get some housekeeping out of the way. For the following tutorial, you’ll need a working knowledge of HTML and CSS. Check out our email coding basics and some code review best practices to catch up to speed.
Alternatively, check out Parcel’s mailto code generator to hit the ground running. This code generator helps you start with code snippets you can use in your email template.
Check out this basic mailto link:
<a href="mailto:joandoe@emailonacid.com">Get in touch!</a>
Let’s break it down:
<a>
: is an HTML tag defining a hyperlink.href:
is an attribute of the HTML <a> tag used to specify a link’s destination.mailto
: precedes the “to” email address. This designates the person responsible for responding to specific queries as the recipient email address that opens up in your reader’s default email client.Pretty simple, right? Let’s mix it up.
To add more than one “to” email address, simply separate them with commas:
<a href="mailto:joandoe@emailonacid.com, johnsmith@emailonacid.com">Get in touch!</a>
Let’s build on the basic mailto link and add two parameters:
For example, we’ll set the “to” address as joandoe@emailonacid.com. Then, we’ll Bcc joansmith@emailonacid.com and janiedoe@emailonacid.com. We’ll also Cc johndoe@emailonacid.com.
<a href="mailto:joandoe@emailonacid.com?bcc=joansmith@emailonacid.com, janiedoe@emailonacid.com,&cc=johndoe@emailonacid.com">Get in touch!</a>
Remember how we said adding a subject line is a great idea? It’s time to set up our game and learn how. We’ll build on the basic mailto link and add one parameter to set a subject line:
subject
: allows you to specify the subject line of your message. All text must be URL-encoded, meaning you’ll represent spaces as %20.Okay, let’s try it! We’ll set the “to” address as joandoe@emailonacid.com. Then, we’ll BCC janesmith@emailonacid.com and set a subject line of “Email Testing Tools.”
<a href="mailto:joandoe@emailonacid.com?bcc=janesmith@emailonacid.com&subject=Email%20Testing%20Tools">Get in touch!</a>
Finally, this is the last piece of the puzzle! Adding these parameters will integrate mailto HTML body links:
body:
enables you to specify your email body. You can add some text to help your subscribers start their message. Just like the subject line, all text must be URL-encoded, and you’ll represent apostrophes with %27.Let’s set the “to” address as joandoe@emailonacid.com. Then, we’ll specify a subject line of “Email Testing Tools” and a body of “I’d like to know more about….”
<a href="mailto:joandoe@emailonacid.com?subject=Email%20Testing%20Tools&body=I%27d%20like%20to%20know%20more%20about%2E%2E%2E">Get in touch!</a>
And that’s a wrap! You should now have a firm grasp on how to use mailto links in your email to create better customer engagement and make your life easier. Of course, mailto links aren’t the only things people will click on in your email campaigns.
Your calls to action (CTAs), newsletter links to your latest content, and body copy links to key landing pages are all super important to the inbox experience. A 404 or the wrong link could really derail your efforts. Plus, you’ve also got to worry about UTMs for tracking. Sinch Email on Acid is here to simplify the process with the URL validation step in our Campaign Precheck automated workflow.
Before you hit send, don’t forget to test your email! Why leave the success of your email marketing campaign up to chance when you can be sure your email will display and work exactly as you intend with Email on Acid?