So, in this tutorial, I’ll share everything you need to know about email headers, from ideas and examples to best practices.

Email header design requirements

Let’s start off with some design tips to help you create an effective email header.

Recommended email header size and dimensions

Although there’s no one-size-fits-all rule for header size, these guidelines have worked well for me across a lot of email header templates:

Over to you: We have a dedicated article on maximum email size and how to optimize it. 👀

Key elements of an email header

A professional email header should clearly reflect your brand and make it easy for readers to jump in. So, depending on your email goal, here are some essentials you may want to include:

• Brand logo or name for instant recognition.
  
• Simple navigation (e.g., “Shop” or “Blog”) if it’s a newsletter header.
  
• A short hook that supports your subject line.
  
• A call to action (CTA) if you want to encourage clicks right from the top.
  
• A subtle background color or image to make it visually engaging, but keep it clean and avoid distractions.

Mobile responsiveness

Avoid fixed header heights because they may look fine on your desktop device but may appear misaligned on cell phones or tablets. And let’s be honest: a great deal of people open their emails on mobile devices nowadays.

So, use fluid design blocks because they adjust automatically based on the screen size, which maintains visual consistency. 

How to design an email header

There are two main ways to build a good email header. One’s quick and simple; the other gives you full control. 

Option 1. Customize the email template

If you want to save time without sacrificing style, use pre-made email templates. You can easily tweak the logo, colors, and layout to match your brand without any coding skills or HTML knowledge.

Option 2. Design from scratch

If time is not the issue for you, if you prefer to do everything yourself and want to have full control over the creative process, you can use an HTML email builder:

1. Set your canvas: Start with a 600–700px wide layout for compatibility across email clients.
2. Add your logo: Place it top-left or center for quick brand recognition.
3. Pick a clean background: Solid colors or subtle patterns work best, and avoid anything too loud or shiny.
4. Insert a headline or message: Keep it short and aligned with your email’s purpose (e.g. “50% Off on All Products” for a fashion brand’s discount launch).
5. CTA: Add a simple call-to-action (optional).
6. Make it responsive: Use flexible layout blocks that adapt on mobile without fixing heights.

Email header design examples and templates

Now let’s look at some email header examples to understand how you should approach yours. 

1. Minimalist and bold email header design

This template example keeps things simple with a bold red and white background, clean text, and a high-contrast layout that immediately grabs attention. The headline Stay Connected is short, clear, and encourages readers to take notice.

2. Basic but sleek email header design

This example from Sephora nails the balance between aesthetics and strategy. Right at the top, you can see their famous logo, and next to it is a simple navigation bar which links to popular sections like “Makeup” and “Skincare.” That makes it super easy for users to go straight to what they want.

And the fun, casual headline Hey Good Lookin’ sets a friendly tone right from the start.

3. Bright and promotional email header design

This vibrant header from PosterMyWall is perfect for a high-energy promo. The green and yellow colour scheme shouts summer vibes, while bold CTAs like Up to 80% Discount and Exclusive Offer get the message across instantly.

Email header design ideas & inspirations

If you’re still feeling a bit stuck, don’t worry. Here are a few quick ways to get fresh ideas and start your email header design:

• Subscribe to competitor email newsletters known for excellent marketing.
• Search for inspiration on Pinterest with keywords like “email header design” to get tons of trendy visual ideas.
• Explore and use email design tools to search for pre-built header templates for an initial idea and customize them according to your email campaign goal and brand colors.

Email header design tools

You don’t have to be a pro to create an email header design that converts. What you need are the right tools:

1. Postcards by Designmodo 

Postcards, developed by Designmodo, is a drag-and-drop email builder and an extensive library of pre-made templates, which you can customize to create your email headers within minutes.

• Top features: Drag and drop builder, pre-made email templates, export to major email platforms
• Pricing: The starter plan is free, the plus plan costs $16/month, and the pro plan costs $28/month
• Best for: Designers, agencies, developers, and even beginner-level marketers who want flexibility with less to no coding

2. Canva

Canva provides multiple templates to help you create visuals and generate creative ideas. 

• Top features: Drag-and-drop editor, branded kits, image library
• Pricing: Free version is available, and the Pro plan starts at $55/user
• Best for: Individuals, freelancers, or marketers who are not experts in designing

3. Mailtrap Email Sandbox

Email Sandbox lets you inspect and debug emails in staging, dev, and QA environments before sending them to recipients.

• Top features: Email preview, spam score checker, inbox testing
• Pricing: Free version is available, and the basic plan costs $15/month
• Best for: Developers, QA teams, and email marketers who focus on deliverability and consistency

4. Figma

Figma is a professional-level design tool for creating highly customized email header designs.

• Top features: Real-time team collaboration, design systems, component libraries, vector editing
• Pricing: Free with limited functionality, and the professional plan starts from $5/month
• Best for: Since it has a steep learning curve, it is most suitable for experienced designers who want pixel-perfect control and collaboration features.

Email header design best practices: Checklist

I’ve listed some easy-to-follow practices used by the best in the business you can follow to make sure you design eye-catching email headers.

Use brand colors strategically

Brand consistency contributes to 10-20% of revenue growth. And color is a major part of your brand’s identity, which maintains consistency in all marketing materials.

For those in the early stages of building a brand, there’s room, and even value, in experimenting with your color scheme. At Selfnamed, we’ve seen new skincare brands use this flexibility to gradually shape a visual identity that feels cohesive across their packaging, website, and emails, rather than locking into one too early.
– Daria, Marketing expert at Selfnamed

Think of Spotify’s green or Coca-Cola’s red; they instantly feel familiar. So, use your brand colors in the same way to create consistency across emails, websites, and social media channels.

Add a visual hierarchy

Visual hierarchy guides your readers from your logo to the headline and your CTA or navigation links. You need to design it strategically to provide a user-friendly experience and make your reader’s focus remain on the email’s main content. 

Here is a formula for a smooth visual hierarchy for an email header:

(Logo → Headline → CTA/Navigation link)

For example, Sweaty Betty used a minimalist header design in this email that shows mostly their logo and a clear navigation menu. 

Source: Sweaty Betty

Avoid image-only headers

Images can fail to load or may not be accessible to all users. So use HTML-based designs with styled text and ALT text to make sure your message still comes through, no matter what.

Test on all devices

Your email might look perfect in Gmail, but what about Outlook, Apple Mail, or other random Android mail apps? Each email client renders code differently, so a perfect header on one could break on another. 

To avoid this, use tools like Mailtrap to preview and test your emails across devices and clients so your design shows up exactly as you intended on all devices.

Include fallback fonts

I always recommend defining fallback fonts just in case the user’s device doesn’t have the preferred font installed within the email content.

Fallback fonts help you to keep your design clean and legible. I’d also suggest sticking to reliable font stacks like Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif, Georgia, Times, and serif to ensure consistency across email clients.

Optimize load speed

Slow-loading emails can kill engagement, so make sure to compress your header images using tools like TinyPNG to reduce file size without losing quality. You can also use vector graphics (SVGs) for sharp visuals at smaller sizes or consider lazy loading for heavier assets.

Link header elements

Link header elements like logos directly to the right landing pages to boost your user experience. You can generate a logo that should take users to the homepage to get more website traffic, whereas CTAs should lead to relevant pages that align with your email or website content. 

You can also place UTM parameters on these links to get detailed analytics and measure the performance of your email marketing strategy. It will also help you track UX as you can create heatmaps of how users navigate through your emails, from the headline to the buttons.

Personalize where possible

Go beyond names and add dynamic elements like location or product recommendations. In fact, one brand, Doggyloot, saw a 750% boost in click-throughs by personalizing emails based on pet info.

What’s next?

And there you have it folks, we’ve come to the end of our email header design checklist!

However, an email header is only a part of the bigger picture, that is, a complete email design. Luckily, we’ve got a plethora of articles on the topic, such as:

• Responsive Email Design Templates
• HTML Email: A Complete Tutorial
• Responsive HTML Email Template Development
• Email Design Trends: What to Expect and How to Stand Out

Or, you can also check out how to make AI to the heavy lifting for you and design emails in your stead!

But do you know what exactly goes into creating a newsletter? And, more importantly, how to design a newsletter that looks top-notch? Let’s break it down and take a look at some newsletter examples!

Why is good email design essential for driving engagement?

Regardless if you’re sending out newsletters, promotional emails, transactional emails, or other types of emails, as part of an email marketing strategy, the design of the messages sent can make or break your email performance. 

Why is this the case? Well, you see, email design goes hand in hand with the effectiveness of email marketing campaigns and the amount of engagement they receive. 

So, if an email is well-designed, it will be visually appealing, responsive, and all other things that facilitate a great user experience. And if an email recipient has a good user experience, chances are they will engage with the email and take the desired action.

How will you know if you nailed your email design? Besides how the email looks visually to you and your team, the following performance metrics should be a good indicator:

• Deliverability rate: The number of emails delivered divided by the total number of emails sent multiplied by 100
• Open rate: The number of unique email opens divided by the number of emails delivered multiplied by 100
• Click-through rate: The number of unique clicks on links within an email divided by the number of emails delivered multiplied by 100. 
• Conversion rate: The number of conversions generated from an email campaign divided by the number of unique clicks on the email’s call-to-action (CTA) multiplied by 100. 

What are the top characteristics of a well-designed newsletter?

When it comes to creating your email newsletter, you don’t just write and send it impulsively. First, you learn what makes a newsletter well-designed, among other things, and then you invest time and effort into planning and bringing it to life.

Here are some well-designed newsletter characteristics to keep in mind:

It’s readable 

Newsletters should be a quick and easy way to get information, so if a newsletter becomes difficult to read, it will lose its appeal and effectiveness and won’t engage the audience.

To avoid this, in every newsletter, include plenty of white space, clear and concise content, a well-structured layout, appropriate font and font size, headers, subheaders, and proper formatting.

Tells a story

Your newsletter content should, first and foremost, make sense. And once you have that covered, you should make sure it has a storytelling aspect to it. 

You can achieve this by adding a narrative structure, captivating introduction, conversational language, emotional appeal, real-life examples, visuals, continuity, and cohesion. Paragraph generator is a useful tool as it helps you generate narrative style paragraphs or you can turn your existing content in similar structure. After that, you can use the content right away!

Focuses on the audience

Like all content created for your brand or business, a newsletter should be valuable and beneficial to your audience. This way, it will establish trust, build relationships, and become a trusted source of information and insights. 

Relevant, informative, personalized, and actionable content is what your newsletter should feature if you want it to be truly audience-focused.

Also, to catch the reader’s attention, you can adjust your writing style and use first and second-person pronouns in your copy.

Includes CTAs

What action do you want your audience to take? Maybe read new product announcements or purchase a product on your eCommerce store? Regardless of what the action is, to push the audience toward it, create your CTA button so it’s eye-catching and easy to understand.

What are the five elements of a well-designed newsletter?

With the characteristics of a well-designed newsletter out of the way, now it’s time we cover its basic elements. These elements are:

1. Attention-grabbing subject line

The email subject line is the first thing that your recipients will see, so it’s crucial to make it interesting enough to encourage them to open your email. A good subject line should be concise, informative, and create a sense of urgency or excitement, just like this one from Crate and Barrel:

2. Engaging content

Sparking curiosity, evoking emotions and participation, as well as building a loyal audience are just some of the things engaging content can do. 

To turn your content from a boring block of text to an engaging piece of writing, you should incorporate interactive elements within your visually-appealing design, ask thought-provoking questions, nail your storytelling and a conversational tone, as well as add some personalized recommendations.

If you need ideas for engaging content forms, case studies, customer success stories, quizzes, how-tos, BTS content, updates, and so on, are always a smart choice.

3. Great layout

What’s the point of crafting great content if reading and navigating it is a struggle? For this reason, it’s crucial you apply design principles to lay out all the elements of the newsletter in a way that allows a balance between whitespace, headings, and organized sections of content. Not only will this be visually appealing, but it will also be easily scannable.

Another thing to keep in mind is your font choice and color palette choice, as well as the visuals you go for, as this affects how effectively your message is being communicated and the reading experience in general.

4. Clear call-to-action

A clear CTA encourages readers to take a specific action. This could be visiting your website, making a purchase, signing up for a service, or following your social media pages. 

When coming up with your CTA, pay attention to how clear and concise the language you are using is and how prominently placed the button is. Other things to think about include the button’s size and color.

This is how we do CTAs at Mailtrap:

5. Personalization

Personalization is achieved through the use of the recipient’s name, location, and other relevant information and aims to build a relationship with your audience and increase engagement. 

And if you’re thinking about whether skipping on personalization is possible, the answer is “no”. Why? It’s simple! 

People nowadays are constantly bombarded with emails on top of emails from all kinds of businesses, and any non-personalized attempt at communication, be it a company newsletter or something else, might come across as mass emailing or, even worse, spam. Your newsletter should serve as an electronic business card, making each recipient feel individually addressed and valued.

How do you structure a newsletter?

Email elements are like puzzle pieces, meaning they should be put together carefully. Still, there are many ways to structure a newsletter, and how you should structure yours will depend on your goals.

As a general example, here is the structure of a traditional newsletter:

• Newsletter header: This typically includes your newsletter’s title and logo. Along with this, the header may also include a title or number for the specific newsletter issue.
• Introduction: Here is where you tell your readers what to expect in the newsletter content. Do keep in mind that you’ll have new and old email list contacts reading, so the newsletter introduction will play an important role in making sure nobody is confused.
• Core content and its sections: We’ve covered core content a bit earlier in the article, so we won’t go back into the same topic again. The only thing we will note is to break up the piece of content that is your newsletter into a few sections once it’s written to help with readability.
• CTAs: Depending on your goals, you may have multiple CTAs sprinkled throughout your core content. In other words, sticking to one CTA towards the end of your newsletter is, of course, not a must.
• Footer: Last but not least is the spot where you put things like contact information and links to your website and social media. Here is also where you should include an unsubscribe link in order to be compliant with data protection laws and regulations.

Steps for designing a newsletter 

Planning the newsletter

The first step in designing a newsletter is, you guessed it, planning the content and overall structure of the newsletter. Here you will make decisions on some “creative” details, such as the tone and style of writing, as well as some “basic” details, like the sending frequency of the newsletter.

Take as much time as you can to complete this step, as a well-planned newsletter can help establish brand authority, increase engagement, boost conversions, and reap the other benefits that come with newsletter sending. 

For some help, watch our video on the 10 newsletter content ideas for achieving different business goals:

Deciding on your target audience

A target audience is a specific group of people that you want to target with your newsletter. This could be past customers, potential customers, or just a specific demographic. 

Once you know who this audience is, you can create content that is highly relevant and engaging specifically for them, and thus, increase the likelihood of conversions.

Choosing the appropriate software for your newsletter

Email-sending software should allow you to create, distribute, and track the performance of newsletters. And when it comes to options, there are plenty available, each with different features and pricing structures. Just keep in mind to choose something that meets your specific needs and budget. 

If you need some recommendations, here are the top 5 email newsletter software solutions on the market:

• Mailchimp
• Constant Contact
• Brevo
• ConvertKit
• ActiveCampaign

Deciding on the conversion action for the newsletter 

For each of your newsletters, you’ll want to have a specific action (a conversion action) that your readers should complete during or after reading your newsletter. This could be purchasing, signing up, or simply visiting your website. Creating a landing page that effectively converts visitors into sales can have a significant impact.

By clearly defining a desired conversion action, you can tailor your newsletter layout and content to encourage readers to take that action. 

Choosing a layout

For your layout, you can choose to use an email newsletter template and then customize it or come up with one from scratch using code or a drag-and-drop editor. 

When deciding on the layout, go for something visually appealing that will also present your content in the best way possible while directing readers toward your CTA.

Still, do keep in mind that the only way you’ll know if a specific layout will work for you is by putting it through some tests, such as A/B tests, preview tests, etc.

Creating good content and personalizing it

Content creation is a process different for each company, and each writer within it, so we can’t give many pointers on it. Still, what you should keep in mind is to follow common newsletter content creation best practices, add elements of your brand, and of course, add personalization. If you have multiple writers in your team, consider making use of content approval software so you can continuously review, comment and approve content.

Scheduling

When you schedule your newsletter to go out can also impact the engagement it receives. So, consider the time zones your audience covers, and based on that as well as the recommended times and days for newsletter sending, pick something that will work best.

We should note that your sending schedule is also an aspect you should test if you want to achieve optimal email newsletter performance, as your target audience might prefer receiving emails on days and times you were not expecting. 

Testing

Even though your newsletter might seem like it turned out perfect, this is rarely the case, especially on the first try. To spot and remove any errors, you’ll need to test your newsletter with proper email testing tools that can inspect and debug everything from the HTML email code, content, email headers, SMTP transaction info, mobile device responsiveness, email client (Outlook, Gmail, etc.) rendering, and more.

Other types of testing you can do are A/B testing, where you create different versions of the same email and compare their performance, testing different audience segments, testing different sending times, and so on.

Tracking results and making improvements

Tracking your results and analyzing them is the only surefire way to improve things for the better. So, after each email you send, keep an eye on its performance metrics to see what content, design, etc. resonates with your audience the most and make adjustments accordingly.

Best tools to design an email newsletter

Getting an email designed and ready to send can take a village. But, with a set of good tools, especially ones with automation features, one could even do it on their own.

Here are some tools to consider:

Placeit

Placeit is a cloud-based mockup, video, and design template generator for creating professional items quickly and efficiently. It offers a wide variety of assets that are easy to use.

• Pros: The Placeit subscription includes access to a huge library of customizable templates, including video templates and logo templates. And its pricing plans are simple with no hidden fees. 
• Cons: Requires an internet connection to use. Pricing plans may not be affordable for some users. 
• Pricing: From $14.95/month.

Canva

Canva is an online content creation platform that includes a variety of design tools. Among the assets Canva offers, you can find icons, shapes, stickers, charts, grids, and gradients for customizing images. 

• Pros: It’s easy to use, offers a wide range of design templates, and is affordable for small businesses. It’s also a great tool if you don’t know how to use professional editing alternatives like Photoshop.
• Cons: It lacks some professional-grade design features. 
• Pricing: Free or $12.99/month.

Adobe Express

Adobe Express is a free tool enabling users to create unique and custom newsletters online and with ease in just minutes. What’s more, using the tool requires no prior design experience.

• Pros: No design skills and no credit card required. Users of the tool have access to thousands of standout templates and libraries of free stock images, shapes, backgrounds, and fonts.
• Cons: Creation on mobile is not available in the free plan. 
• Pricing: Free or from $9.99/month.

Google Docs

Google Docs is a web-based word-processing software offered by Google. It allows users to create, edit, and collaborate on documents in real-time. 

• Pros: Google Docs is great for users who don’t need as many features as users of Microsoft Word. Also, sharing documents, real-time collaboration, and automatic saving of a document’s changes are huge Google Docs benefits.  
• Cons: It doesn’t offer advanced features for those who require more complex document and formatting options. It can be used for creating only low-level newsletters in terms of design and should not be used in case access to tools such as Canva is available.
• Pricing: Free or $18/month per user on a business plan. 

Envato

Envato is a convenient marketplace where you can find all sorts of creative digital assets. From graphic templates and product mockups to fonts and lifelike photos, you’ll find everything you need to design a click-worthy newsletter.

• Pros: Their library is home to over 16 million creative digital assets, and you get unlimited downloads when subscribing to any plan.
• Cons: Although it offers monthly freebies, the platform doesn’t currently have a free trial.
• Pricing: From $16.50/month.

Of course, AI tools are also an option, and you can check out a list of the best free ones in our dedicated video:

Email newsletter design tips and best practices

Use high-quality images and graphics

While a quality, engaging copy is super important, images, graphic designs, and even GIFs keep things visually interesting and can provide essential context for your readers.

For that, you can utilize graphic asset libraries, which offer everything from location pin icons ideal for travel agencies to showcase exciting destinations to star graphics to highlight best-selling products in your newsletter.

So, in every newsletter you send, include high-quality stock images or original ones if you have them. 

Also, at all costs, avoid using pixelated, irrelevant or blurry images, as these can distract the reader, leave a bad impression, and pull attention away from the information you’re communicating. 

Using high-quality stock images or original ones can make designing your newsletter much easier and leave you with a beautiful email like this one from The New York Times. 

Don’t overdo it 

Going over the top with your newsletter design can be tempting, but a minimalist approach can often be more effective and less distracting. Just think how much more readable a simple newsletter is compared to one with a flashy design. 

Through simplicity, you allow readers to focus, thus improving engagement and the understanding of the key messaging.

Make your content accessible  

Having a newsletter with content accessible to people with disabilities can help you reach a wider audience and send more traffic to your product pages and landing pages. 

Here are just a few things you should keep in mind regarding content accessibility:

• Typically, sans-serif, web-safe fonts are best when it comes to font legibility. So, use them instead of complex typography and try to stick to a font size greater than 12pt.
• Using a color scheme with low contrast can make it difficult (or even impossible) for folks with vision disabilities to read or view content. To avoid this, use a color contrast detector and ensure you’re using a color scheme that provides sufficient contrast between text and background colors.
• When it comes to images and logos, make sure to include alt-text that accurately describes them when incorporated into the content.

Keep an eye on trends

While email best practices tend to stay the same, email marketing trends are ever-changing. And if you want to have your newsletter stand out from the rest, keeping an eye on the top trends as well as incorporating them into your email design is a must.

Summary

If done right, newsletters can have a massive positive impact on the relationship with your audience. However, you have to be aware of the effort that goes into creating the best email newsletter, starting from defining goals to perfecting the user experience.

Fortunately, with this step-by-step guide, you’ll know how to design a newsletter in no time!

In this report on email signature statistics, email signature generator MySignature will thoroughly analyze the findings of a recently conducted survey. MySignature will delve into the valuable insights and trends that have surfaced from the feedback of numerous participants and the email signatures of thousands of users of the service in 2023.

Key Findings on Email Signatures

• An overwhelming majority of users, 89.9%, have a single email signature, while 8.6% of users utilize up to 10 different email signatures.
• A significant percentage, 77.8%, of users check their email inbox more than five times daily. On the other hand, 18.1% of users check their inbox 2-4 times daily.
• A significant portion, 36.3%, of users do not utilize email trackers. Among the users who do, 25.1% opt for paid email trackers, while 14.1% prefer free alternatives.
• On average, users send a moderate volume of business emails, ranging from 11 to 25 per day.
• The most prominent industries that heavily utilize email signatures include marketing and sales, real estate and construction, agency and consulting, as well as e-commerce. These sectors recognize the value of professional communication and branding through email signatures.
• A considerable proportion, 44.4%, of users update their email signatures 2-4 times per year, indicating a commitment to keeping their signatures fresh and relevant. Additionally, 31.6% update their signatures once every few years.
• The primary goals for using email signatures are to maintain standardized signatures across the entire company (25.1%), enhance branding, and increase awareness (28.7%). These objectives highlight the importance of consistent and impactful email communication within organizations.

Let’s recap the key stats and see how email signatures can benefit branding and marketing.

Survey Demographics and Analysis

The survey encompassed the responses of over 250+ participants, including small businesses, solopreneurs, professionals in marketing and sales, freelancers, and real estate agencies. Additionally, data from 20,000 user accounts on MySignature was analyzed, providing a comprehensive view of email signature usage and trends.

The survey reached participants from various regions, including the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, Spain, and India. This regional diversity contributes to a more comprehensive understanding of email signature practices on a global scale.