Lack of interest How can we improve email notifications without messages?

[Brent W]

Right now they are more annoying than helpful to get people to click to view the message if you are using Gmail.



After the first email all the rest are hidden by default because Google assumes they are the exact same content. (Which they are). Is there anything that can be done to keep this setting while not having a terrible user experience in the process?

 

[DeltaHF]

With Gmail's dominance, this is a very significant issue which has a larger impact on click-through rates than most people would ever realize, and I've been looking for ways to handle it.

The easiest solution is to simply assign a random ID to the various objects within the email's markup. For example:

<div id="asdfjkl123">
<p id="asdfjkl123">
</p>
</div>

Apparently, this is enough to "trick" Gmail into thinking the content is new and unique and thus will not hide it.

It would be great if this was handled by the XF core.

 

[Brent W]

With Gmail's dominance, this is a very significant issue which has a larger impact on click-through rates than most people would ever realize, and I've been looking for ways to handle it.

The easiest solution is to simply assign a random ID to the various objects within the email's markup. For example:

<div id="asdfjkl123">
<p id="asdfjkl123">
</p>
</div>

Apparently, this is enough to "trick" Gmail into thinking the content is new and unique and thus will not hide it.

It would be great if this was handled by the XF core.

Thanks. This sounds easy enough. Thoughts @Mike ?

 

[Brent W]

I know this says lack of interest but wondering if XF2 changes anything here to prevent this?

 

[DeltaHF]

I can't find where I read this, but I seem to recall email templates will be easier to customize in XF2...?

 

[Mouth]

I can't find where I read this, but I seem to recall email templates will be easier to customize in XF2...?

https://xf2demo.xenforo.com/threads/email-style.432/post-1830

 

[Dad.]

I doubt xenforo would do something like obfuscate, I mean Google is trying to find comparisons so the experience is better for the user.

I think people would be more upset that it didn't work properly than anything else.

 

[DeltaHF]

Hiding the entire content of the message is certainly not a "better experience" for the user. Sure, it's a nice feature for long email chains, but this is a perfect example where it needs to be helped along.

According to Litmus analytics, over 60% of all webmail emails are opened within Gmail. That's a lot of emails being hidden, and a lot of lost traffic for XenForo sites.

 

[eva2000]

Hiding the entire content of the message is certainly not a "better experience" for the user. Sure, it's a nice feature for long email chains, but this is a perfect example where it needs to be helped along.

Actually some users have reported that emails sent with content which has blacklisted domain names mentioned in the emails, led to their server ip being blacklisted by spam databases and email delivery ending up in spam boxes. So a forum member could post a link to a domain name that is blacklisted and then email watch subscription to that thread would email out that to forum members and you end up with your server ip blacklisted and email in spam boxes. URIBL.com and SURBL.org are two very useful sites that you can use to determine whether your links or domains mentioned are blacklisted.

If the email notification has hidden content, that lessens the probability of a forum member posting a blacklisted domain or link.

 

[DeltaHF]

I'm not sure I understand your perspective, or how this is related to posting blacklisted domains. Gmail "hiding" the entire body of the notification email won't prevent or discourage people from posting those links. The entire message — links and all — is still right there behind the three little dots. This "hiding" is only a cosmetic convenience for the user; the presence of bad links could still get you blacklisted.

I have disabled the body of posts/messages in my XenForo for that very reason (along with a few others). Maintaining a high email sending reputation is extremely important and often overlooked.

 

[eva2000]

I'm not sure I understand your perspective, or how this is related to posting blacklisted domains. Gmail "hiding" the entire body of the notification email won't prevent or discourage people from posting those links. The entire message — links and all — is still right there behind the three little dots. This "hiding" is only a cosmetic convenience for the user; the presence of bad links could still get you blacklisted.

I have disabled the body of posts/messages in my XenForo for that very reason (along with a few others). Maintaining a high email sending reputation is extremely important and often overlooked.

Not sure if it has changed but AFAIK, the only time emails end up like @BamaStangGuy original post is when you hide the email content option in XF and the email subject and contents (which is just a link to the thread) is the same. When you unhide email content, it doesn't end up like that screenshot as the actual reply email content differs

 

[Brent W]

Not sure if it has changed but AFAIK, the only time emails end up like @BamaStangGuy original post is when you hide the email content option in XF and the email subject and contents (which is just a link to the thread) is the same. When you unhide email content, it doesn't end up like that screenshot as the actual reply email content differs

This is my experience.

 

[Chris D]

Have you tested this in XF2 yet?