Font-size: 0 - is this going to be a problem?
Hey guys,
I am putting together new triggered (transactional) emails for the company I started working with.
I found out not long ago that the ESP (Pardot) requires an unsubscription link even in transactional emails for same weird reason.
(If these triggered messages are received regardless of the prospect opted out or not why does it require the presence of an unsubscribe link?
I don't think its logical at all and in any case by law they wouldn't need one anyway.)
Of course I don't want to show this unsubscribe link in the email but it needs to be in the code.
I thought just having it as a "font-size:0px;" text it would not show up. And it does not indeed.
However I am slightly worried that this might be viewed as a bad practise and some email clients might not like me hiding things. Do you know of any problems I might encounter later because of this?
Thanks a lot for any comments on this.
This is an interesting case, and could get confusing due to how Pardot is organized and handles emails and templates. There are two different concepts of emails in Pardot: emails and email templates. When creating a new email, you should be able to mark it as an operational email, in which case the unsubscribe link isn't required. However, if you're setting up an email template, then an unsubscribe link is required. At least that's my understanding of it.
While I would caution against using
font-size: 0;as it seems shady and could trigger spam filters, our email marketing manager Matt pointed out that you can 'trick' Pardot into thinking the unsub link is present without it being visible. All you need in there is the%%unsubscribe%%merge tag, so you could just put that in an empty link tag, like so:The link will be there, but no one will see it and you can go about your day. I think he ran a quick test using this method and it worked out well, but test it on your end just to be sure. Hope that helps, let us know if you figure anything else out, or drop a line to Pardot's support, as they probably have a few other ideas, too.
Thanks Jason for your feedback.
You are correct. The problem is that triggered emails (autoresponders) can only be Email Templates as far as I know, not normal "emails". So choosing it to be an operational email is not an option unfortunately.
I like your solution. Easy and elegant. It should be good to trick this not very well thought-out system.
ps. already talked to Pardot support they were ok with my solution but I had my doubts so thats why I came to the real professionals :)
Glad to hear that helped! Report back and let us know how it goes after your triggered emails are live for a bit. I don't expect an empty tag like that would adversely affect deliverability, but keep an eye on everything just in case.