If you’re unsure how to gauge your creative’s holiday health, here are some criteria to measure against:

Speed is key
If your template isn’t easy to update and turn around, you may be missing out on some opportunities. Here are some turbo-boosting tips to speed things up:

• Use existing product image sizes, HTML text, and HEX colors in your email design. This will allow production artists to revise the template quicker, or make easier, on-the-fly updates.
• Coding the template effectively will allow your designers to concentrate more on new creative, rather than fixing rendering problems on existing campaigns.
• Design the template to allow account management resources to make last minute updates to creative without needing a creative resource.

Form follows function
Once your email is able to be updated without requiring the efforts of multiple designers, an art director and half of the coding department , you can continue down the path of presenting the main content:

• Pay attention to how the content is presented above-the-fold (the top 420 pixels of the email).
• Widen your template to 750 pixels to provide more space for content, graphics and copy.
• Have a clear visual hierarchy with defined sections for the user. Vary the size of the feature section, product slots, and secondary content enough to allow the user to quickly understand the structure of the email.
• Use graphical calls-to-action to improve user interaction with the email.

Innovate where it makes sense
Don’t add bells and whistles just because they’re different. Make email design innovation play a supporting role to the content. Here are some popular trends this season:

• Since most emails today require the user to scroll vertically, test out one that scrolls horizontally. We’ve seen several of these come across our review table that redefine the way the user interacts with the email. Not sure if this is something that should be tested within the holiday season, but it’s definitely innovative and catchy.
• Countdown clocks that automatically display the time left within a given timeframe are perfect for the holidays. They can tell the user how many days they have left in a sale, or until free shipping is over.

While a good looking and highly interactive template is important for the brand, the user will focus more on the products being offered, sales and promotions and overall message. Having a template that can swap out these elements quickly, efficiently, and most importantly, repeatedly, is paramount to a successful holiday run.

A recent design trend that I’ve been intrigued by is the use of textures, uneven edges and off-kilter layers to create a more organic feel to email campaigns.

American Eagle has really been at the cutting edge of this trend. Their campaigns use all three of these techniques, plus handwritten fonts and drop shadows (rather than frames), to make their imagery stand out in the inbox. The innovative use of curled photographs and plaster background textures add even more intrigue to the design. I love the way the background texture blends into the white naturally.

Going one step further, American Eagle’s sister brands are getting in on the fun as well. 77kids utilize a linen-style background rather than a plaster one, along with heavily distressed photo borders and paper clips. It’s a unified look for the master brand and the individual brand, and manages to look home-made yet modern.

Taking a step back and looking at these designs through the lens of history, they remind me quite a bit of popular print advertising from the 1990′s, known commonly as “grunge” style. Grunge was not just associated with music and fashion in the 90′s, but was also made popular by designers such as David Carson. Even companies as straight-laced as Nike and Coca-Cola experimented with grunge visuals during the 1990′s.

If the fading retro-electro design trend of the past 10 years reminded us of the 1980′s, it makes sense that we should expect to see a renaissance of 1990′s style in email and elsewhere in the next decade.

NFL shop.com did a great job with not only the creative, but the subject line, the time they sent the email, and the segmentation. As far as I can tell only those with a preference set as being a Viking fan received this email.

The subject line was: Your Minnesota Vikings Just Won – Order Now & Get Free Shipping Over $75

Camping World's email template before the redesign.

Recently, Experian CheetahMail’s Creative Services team worked with Camping World in a multi-variant creative test of its monthly product email template. Our main challenge was to deliver 3 finished designs that adhered to creative best practices and incorporated learnings from historical campaign data, and then test these three designs against a control version over the course of two campaigns.

As with all redesign projects, our first step was to analyze historical performance data to identify any  strengths and weaknesses pertaining to the existing navigation and content layout. We then generated several wireframes to clearly map out the navigation, content organization, and product area layout options that the new designs would encompass.

One of the key areas of Camping World’s email template targeted for improvement was the main product section. Traditionally, this section loosely grouped items in a grid-like structure without considering product type or cost. We also found that the feature section took up too much vertical space within the template, pushing the main product section down below-the-fold.

A careful analysis of Camping World’s email campaigns pre- and post-creative redesign showed that the new template earned a 32% higher average order value and 18% more unique clicks than the control message. Even though these results are strong, the fact that each of the 3 designs tested presented content slightly different allowed Camping World to really hone in on the best layout to use moving forward.

Camping World's redesigned template earned higher performance metrics.

You can read the entire Camping World case study by downloading it from the Experian CheetahMail website.

If you stop and think about it, it’s a logical statement – that’s how the email loads and is presented to the user. Therefore, what you want the user to see first should be placed at the top of the email to grab their attention and inspire interaction. This sacred area of your email template is called the “above-the-fold” area and can make or break a design.

Since you only have, on average, 400-450 pixels of vertical space, this area doesn’t give you much room to toy with the images and copy needed to truly feature your content. Factor in some additional space for a logo, main navigation bar and perhaps a refer-a-friend link, and your header section is starting to resemble a layer cake rather than an email that’s designed to attract the user.

With so much going on at the top, it’s easy to get caught up in the technical aspects of the “template” rather than the creative, eye-catching promise of the “design.” To help gain some critical distance and assess the challenges properly, let’s review some examples of above-the-fold sections. Each sample below has been vertically measured at 420 pixels which is a good average number of what the user will see before they have to scroll:

Lego does an excellent job at building an efficient and good looking above-the-fold area. Not only is most of the main featured section displayed in the preview pane, but a smaller sub-feature section makes it in there as well. Utilizing a clean design with minimal copy and navigation, Lego’s template works harder than most at getting the user to interact from the start.

The header template from Under Armour is very aggressive in providing the user with multiple call outs about their free shipping offer.

There’s also a short sentence at the top describing the promotion along with a call-to-action. While not very eye-catching to desktop users, those on mobile devices will appreciate this line of copy since it loads quickly, and can be used to give a brief summary of the rest of the email. One small critique Under Armout could test is editing down and condensing the header content to give the main feature section more space. Since most of the content above the main feature doesn’t change, condensing this area will help the template remain “visually fresh” with a different look for each campaign.

Oakley’s monochromatic mailing takes header optimization for mobile devices a step further.

Their email header has a headline for the email, a link to the hosted page, and HTML navigation including a Forward-to-Friend link all within a section seemingly devoted to mobile devices. While this content quickly renders and is easily accessible by mobile users, it pushes the rest of the content down, forcing those viewing on desktop machines to scroll to uncover the rest of the feature section.

Pay attention to the above-the-fold section, and your users will appreciate it. Whether your header area is geared towards mobile users, desktop users, or a mixture of both, it’s important to test out what’s working, and throw away what’s not. Good luck and happy designing!