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HomeWhen you’re planning your email layout, think of it as an experience. What do you want customers to focus on? How do you want them to read it? How do you guide them to complete the objective of your campaign?
Layout isn’t just about looking visually good - it’s about influencing your customer into making an action or decision.
Who your customers are will dictate your email layout.
If you’re a consumer brand, such as a fashion company, your users are much more likely to be browsing on their mobile devices, so make sure that your email layout is designed mobile-first.
However, if you’re a B2B SaaS company, you’ll know that your consumers are much more likely to be working from desktop-based emails, and a more traditional email layout works best here.
Email layout, as a general rule of thumb, is broken into three key sections - your header, body and footer.
Header: This is your platform to display the core message of your campaign. Bold fonts, big imagery and stand-out messaging are key. The trick here is that less is more - keep your message simple, and focus on delivering one core message.
Body: This is where the main content of your campaign lives. Use this section to promote any secondary or supporting messages, as well as to feature any products or imagery. Make sure you keep your images to text ratio around 60:40 - this enables you to keep clean, easy to digest content.
Footer: This is the final section of your email. Use this to include any links to social media channels, as well as your legal policy, contact details, address and an unsubscribe link.
Your email layout should guide a user's eye throughout - think of it as a journey for customers as they scroll down your design.
Top Priority: Place the most important information, such as your main message or offer, at the top of the email. You want customers to read this first!
Supporting Details: Secondary messages and supporting information should follow - treat these as ‘nice to haves’ but not critical to the main message.
Call to Action (CTA): Ensure your CTA is easy to find and prominent. Use visual cues, such as arrows or contrasting colours, to draw attention to it.
Using the inverted pyramid method—starting broad and narrowing down to a specific action—can improve how readers process and respond to your email.
It also helps to stagger your image and text left & right. This helps keep the weighting of the email even and creates an easy email to digest.
Email layouts are all about balance. Gone are the days of bright, flashy headers, bold colours and information overload.
Cluttered layouts overwhelm readers and reduce the chances of engagement. Instead, aim for usage of:
White Space: Leave areas around text, buttons, and images empty to avoid a cramped feel. This doesn’t mean making your email sparse; it’s about giving elements breathing room to stand out.
Visual Balance: Keep sections evenly spaced. If your header is bold and large, balance it with smaller text or subtler elements in the body.
Content Density: Avoid cramming too much into one email. If you have multiple messages to communicate, consider sending separate emails for each purpose. Every email should have one singular, core message.
The ‘fold’ is how much of your email can be seen when a user loads it on their computer or mobile without scrolling. This is the most important part of your email, as this is what draws a customer in and makes them decide whether they want to continue to engage with your email.
Make sure that your core message is seen above the fold and that customers can digest the most important content without the need to scroll through your email.
It’s easy to treat mobile as an afterthought - especially when designing your emails on desktop. However, over 50% of email opens are actually on mobile, so it’s important to make sure your mobile layout is responsive and dynamic.
Your designs should reformat into a clean, single column layout on mobile - avoid side by side content that could appear cluttered or shrink awkwardly on mobile.
This also applies to fonts - use at least 14pt font for body text and larger, tappable buttons to make interacting with the email easier.
Breaking up the key sections of your email helps prevent it from feeling overwhelming and draws customers to important areas of information. There are a few ways to do this:
Horizontal Rules or Line Breaks - these are quite simply thin grey lines that act as dividers between sections on your design.
Background colours - these can be used to identify the key sections of your email - but keep these subtle! Light greys, beiges and pastel colours are advised - you want to subtly divide sections, not create super bright distractions!
Imagery & Spacing - something as simple as a full-width image or white space can be enough to break up a section of your email without overcomplicating its layout.
In your emails, you have the option to change the alignment of your images and text by adding padding or margins. Make sure this is consistent throughout - this looks clean, polished and professional.
For large amounts of text, we recommend left alignment. This makes it easier to read, especially on mobile devices.
Centred alignment can be used sparingly for key elements like headlines or CTAs to create focus.
An email that looks great on one device or platform might not work as well on others. Always test your layout before hitting “send”:
Devices: Preview your email on both mobile and desktop to check responsiveness.
Email Clients: Test how the layout renders on popular clients like Gmail, Outlook, and Apple Mail.
Load Time: Ensure the email loads quickly, especially if you’ve used images or graphics.
