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Email Newsletter Dimensions (What Works In 2023?)

Get the latest best practices for email size dimensions for perfectly designed emails.

Email newsletter dimensions seem trivial, but they are a big deal.

Your campaigns will misfire if you ignore the best practices for email newsletter sizes. Like a stuttering engine that huffs and puffs, never reaching its full potential, your emails won’t have maximum impact if the dimensions are wrong.

Why bother with email newsletter dimensions in the first place?

Without the ideal newsletter dimensions, your best content fails.

Email Newsletter Sizes: Why Bother?

Is email design worth all the time and financial resources creators pour into it?

Email newsletter dimensions matter because:

  1. A wrongly sized email template is ugly and turns off users. Poor aesthetics irk users, leading some to dump your email without reading it.

  2. An incorrectly sized email newsletter can hide important information. If your email hides vital info, you won't be able to communicate your message and meet your business goals fully.

  3. An email with the wrong dimensions is terrible for user experience. It makes it hard for subscribers to navigate the email and find what they want.

  4. A poorly designed email hurts your brand’s reputation. People won’t take your brand seriously if you send emails with substandard layouts.

I’m sure you’ll agree when I say you don’t want this for your brand.

The good news?

Flip the above negatives, and you get the benefits of getting your email sizes right. Ideal email sizes matter because:

  1. Nice-looking emails delight and engage users.

  2. Perfect-sized emails display all vital info correctly.

  3. Right-sized emails make it easy to find all the essential information.

  4. Good email design bolsters your brand image.

Indeed, email newsletter sizes are crucial to the success of your newsletter.

Let’s get into the finer details.

Dimensions for Email Newsletter (Best Size For 2023)

Here’s a chart with the exact dimensions for an email newsletter.

Template Width: 600 px

Email design best practices peg the ideal email newsletter width size at 600 pixels. This number has been the standard for many years.

It’s no secret that most people now open emails on mobile devices.

That said, many users still open emails on desktops and tablets. According to the mobile screen resolution stats worldwide from StatCounter in October 2022, these are the six most common screen resolution sizes for desktops, mobiles, and tablets:

  • 1920 x 1080 (9.92%)

  • 1366 x 768 (6.32%)

  • 360 x 800 (5.88%)

  • 1536 x 864 (4.21%)

  • 390 x 844 (3.94%)

  • 414 x 896 (3.74%)

How do you reconcile all these numbers as an email marketer? It’s simple. You find the sweet spot that caters to every device. That magic number is 600 px. Yes, your email template can be wider and still display on some devices, but 600 px is the safe bet if you want your email to render correctly on most devices.

Here’s an excellent example from The Boston Globe.

This email newsletter width is 670 px, which perfectly fits the standard size range.

Template Height: 1500 px

Next, let’s look at the template height.

As a rule of thumb, stay within 1500 px for height or length.

While you can go up to 3000 px, the longer your email, the higher the chance of drop-offs as readers disengage. Besides, the longer the email, the more your recipients must scroll to get to the end. It's more work to keep recipients engaged for a long time.

For those unique campaigns where you must knock on the 3000 px ceiling, make sure your message is fascinating enough to engage readers throughout so they read your entire message.

Here’s a case study from Payload.

Instead of manually setting the height of this newsletter, Payload used the code height="auto" to adjust the height so that the content displays correctly automatically by adapting to the pre-set dimensions.

Email File Size: 75 KB

Another crucial email dimension is the email file size or weight.

Your email weight is vital because email systems aren’t made to transfer large data files. The heavier the HTML code of your email, the longer it takes to load and display in your subscribers' inboxes. For instance, Gmail clips messages at 102 kb.

Conversely, the lighter your email, the faster it loads.

Keep your email weight under 100 kb, and you should be fine.

Email Header Height: 70 px

Before we talk about header sizes, let’s look at the preheader.

In case you are wondering, the email preheader is a short text that appears next to the subject line. It supports the message of the subject line. Preheaders should be 20 to 60px high, while the width equals the template’s width.

Below is an example of a preheader.

Headers can be anything from 70 to 200 px.

Content Blocks (Total): 800 px

Now we go to the core of the email-content blocks.

Content blocks are layout containers where you put your content.

Your content blocks can contain words, CTAs, images, videos, or GIFs. Use only a few large content blocks because sustaining the subscriber's interest in a lengthy email message is challenging.

All your content blocks must range between 800 px to 1200 px. Each block should be around 200 to 300 px high.

As an illustration, here’s a newsletter from Milkroad.

The newsletter has three blocks: copy, image, and more copy. Shorter blocks make it easier for subscribers to consume the content.

Image

We now look at the image in your email.

What’s the right size?

Well, it depends. There are no standard sizes for newsletter images. Your goal determines the dimensions you use. Your image width is the same as your newsletter’s width and as high as your campaign demands.

Email Banner: 600 px 730 px

Next up, it’s time to look at the banner.

A unique banner draws readers into your email. An email banner is a prominent attention-grabbing image at the top of the email. It's typically filled with any of the following: copy, company logo, or a CTA.

Publish Press used its email banner to good effect.

The banner is a clickable animated GIF showcasing the company’s branded merchandise. Subscribers who click the banner go straight to the sales page.

CTA

Every email has an overarching goal.

The call to action, or CTA as it’s popularly known, embodies that goal.

Whether you want to drive subscribers to your premium content, courses, or another resource, your CTA takes them there.

Publishers and content creators usually present the CTA as a hyperlinked text or button. While CTA button sizes differ depending on the campaign type, there’s a range to shoot for.

According to Research Gate, the perfect size for easily clickable buttons on mobile devices is between 42 px and 72 px or around 11-19mm. Another study by Really Good Emails falls within the same range and puts the average height of a CTA at 47.9 px.

Email Newsletter Size Guidelines

Now that we’ve covered all the newsletter dimensions from top to bottom, let’s tie everything together visually.

Here an image that captures all the latest email newsletter dimensions.

Nail Your Email Newsletter Format With beehiiv

In beehiiv, you can easily customize your newsletter’s sizes and designs.

You can edit every element of your newsletter including the size, colors, spacing, font, alignment, header, CTA button, etc.

Email Newsletter Dimensions (Key Takeaways)

To wrap up, when it comes to your email newsletter format and sizes, keep these three key points in mind:

1.Brand StyleChoose email template sizes that suit your brand’s style.

2.Campaign goals Let the specific campaign you are working on guide your email size choices. Don’t be rigid. Email sizes aren't one-size-fits-all; they are campaign-specific.

3.Mobile responsivityIn a mobile-first world, it pays to invest in mobile-responsive email templates. Nowadays most people read email on mobile devices, so if your templates aren’t mobile-responsive, you won’t reach most subscribers.

All in all, remarkable content is pivotal.

No matter how precise your email newsletter dimensions are or how brilliant your design is, if your content sucks, your campaigns will bomb. Excellent design enhances your content, but it doesn’t replace it.

Ultimately, precise design and stellar content are a formidable team that’ll make your newsletter content sparkle.

With beehiiv, you can adjust your email newsletter sizes with a few clicks.

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