What email vendors (and one e-publishing expert, Ralph Wilson) say about sending PDF newsletters as attachments

[Aug. 20, 2003 issue]

The consensus is "Don't do it." Many people won't open attachments.

Plus you lose the ability to track response to your newsletter if you send it as a PDF.

Instead, provide a link so recipients can decide for themselves whether to open and download your PDF. - DW


QUESTION

"We recently conducted a survey of our email newsletter readers. When we asked how they felt about certain improvements, PDFs were the hands-down winner. But if you talk to any email broadcast vendor, they tell you to avoid PDFs due to SPAM filters blocking emails with attachments. However, I don't seem to have problems sending/receiving attachments from my personal email so why would an email vendor suggest that would be a problem? Any thoughts on this?"

Alex Beal, Marketing Manager, Accenture Institute for Strategic Change

ANSWERS

The real drawback to PDF e-zines, however, is the fact that they don't open automatically in current e-mail programs. They come as an attachment - and many people (myself included) think twice about opening attachments, even if they know the sender. Since PDF e-zine content isn't immediately obvious, too many just don't get read. And perhaps 20% of recipients don't yet have the free Adobe Acrobat Reader plugin needed to view PDF documents.

One compromise might be to use an HTML "wrapper" message to describe and outline the contents of the newsletter, teasing recipients to open a PDF attachment in the same way they might be induced to click on a link to read the full article online. If you can convince readers that the attachment is both full of excellent content and not a virus carrier, PDF e-zines can be a great medium.

Dr. Ralph F. Wilson, E-Commerce and Web Marketing Publishing and Consulting, WilsonWeb.com

PDFs are definitely a hands-down winner, as we've discovered with our own newsletter. When we started providing PDF links as well as full HTML links for our articles, our click through rates went up.

If you are using an email marketing vendor such as EmailLabs, you can send attachments with your emails of any kind. It is a feasible solution, but the largest downfall would indeed be SPAM filters. Every email system and ISP handles SPAM differently. Whereas one might allow documents with attachments, another might not. In addition, on a more individual level, we are trained often not to open attachments from unrecognized or non personal sources.

Plus you cannot track how many people open an attachment or if they click on any links within the attachment itself, which is one of the best features in email marketing.

A compromise: Provide your newsletter in email form as normal, but include a link to a downloadable PDF.

Jeannie Schuett, Marketing Manager, EmailLabs

You can still use those PDFs that your readers love, just do it with a link from your email rather than including the PDF in the email itself. Why? For one, the open rate of the PDF attached to your email isn't trackable. My advice is to talk up your cool PDF in your newsletter and provide a trackable click through link, so you can check out your reports to see who clicked.

By providing a link you are also giving your readers a choice of whether to view your PDF and/or download it rather than forcing the recipient to download it. When you send your email newsletter including a PDF, the size of the PDF is added to the size of your newsletter making it a larger file.

Many recipients are too impatient to wait for a large email to open. Since a lot of people still connect via a dial-up modem, and because even cable/DSL can be slow from time to time, the larger file size could cost you a click through.

Finally, it is true that some spam filters and some companies block emails with attachments. A PDF, although not as likely to carry a virus as .exe or a .bin file, can indeed be a virus carrier and will be filtered just like the others, and you may never know it happened. That means your readers would miss out on the PDF and the rest of your beautiful content. Why chance it? Go with that link!

Michelle Keegan, Email Marketing Diva, Constant Contact



1) Attachments are the the most common source of viruses - fewer and fewer people will even open them.

2) Many companies filter all attachments from external email. If you want your newsletter read, don't send an attachment.

3) The beauty of email is in part its speed. Why force someone to do more clicking before they get to your message? I am personally too lazy to open most attachments so I just delete them.

4) Some readers may not have a PDF reader installed; many more clicks will be required before they can even see your content.

5) You lose all interactivity (and therefore a fountain of knowledge about your readers) when they read your content from an attachment.

Lynda Partner, CEO, GotMarketing