I have purchased quite a few e-mail templates from ThemeForest and each one of them have disappointed me. While they are beautiful in a web browser, they render badly or inconsistently where it counts most (in e-mail apps, specifically the native Android Gmail app, Outlook 2010/2013 and occassionally Gmail.com). This is particularly true for a lot of “Stampready” templates. They all claim compatibility with “major” e-mail readers, but when I do a test send there always have alignment or consistency issues. Does Envato test all e-mail templates in major e-mail readers before approving them?
I guess the better question is, can anyone please recommend a modern/business e-mail template (preferably with a diverse set of content “modules” so I can mix and match content types) that actually works as advertised in most major e-mail readers (i.e. in the top 10 e-mail readers, that includes native Android Gmail App, Gmail.com and Outlook 2010/2013)? Thanks!
M7amadSa3ed, thanks for replying! I was actually looking at their “Select” e-mail template for a project I was working on. Which template(s) did you purchase? Did they display consistently / nicely in native Gmail App, Google.com and/or Outlook 2010?
Actually, I realized why I didn’t go with the “Select” e-mail template last project, it says in their description “Gmail App for Android is not Supported.” At least they are honest about it, a lot of other e-mail templates say they are “compatible” with everything but then end up looking bad. I guess Gmail App is not very friendly with advanced templates? Or just not many people use it so authors ignore the faults of Gmail App on purpose?
We’ve bought around 30 email templates here and nearly all have needed some tweaking but this guy, this team and these have been the best we’ve used. (haven’t checked all their compatibility recently).
Unfortunately it is hard even for the authors let alone reviewers to really make emails work in every client properly and many are tested (correctly) using things like Litmus and while it is a good tool it is not a substitute for the proper clients themselves - which is of course too beyond reality to try and do.
Thanks, charlie4282! I love nutzumi’s stuff. The “Koble” template was actually one of the first e-mail templates I’ve bought, but like many “StampReady” templates there are serious issues with 3-column sections, alignment issues or text touching the edges (both in Gmail App and Outlook 2010). I have not tried the other 2 you suggested, but I will check them out.
I think a common problem is that a lot of e-mail layouts try to be as visually appealing as possible, but ignore 20-40% of compatibility issues as a result. I can’t really ignore 20-40% of end-users, especially on corporate projects, just to have a fancier-looking layout that only 60-80% of receivers can see as intended.
I suppose the only solution is to simplify as much as possible, I’ve seen lots of great corporate marketing e-mails from large companies with 95-100% compatibility. I guess a good side-question would be, are there any ultra-simple corporate e-mail layouts on ThemeForest that aim for 90%+ compatibility?
