how many people can't receive HTML emails?

and how many can't receive Javascript in emails?

[Skyling]

Hi all,

I'm using an online app to send out our email newsletters. The app provides a breakdown of Opened, Bounced and Undetermined results, using Javascript in the HTML version of the email. On my first campaign, I got a 45% 'Undetermined' rate.

To try to explain why this number is so high, I'm wondering how many of the general public uses text-only email, and how many use HTML-enabled email but block Javascript? Does anyone have access to stats?

Thanks! :)

[encyclo]

There are a lot of users out there who are using email clients which block Javascript and/or remote images from received emails, although the acceptance of HTML emails is reasonably high. The number of users blocking Javascript is only going to increase, as the newer versions of Outlook and Outlook Express do so by default (if I remember correctly).

Also, the type of user agents (email programs) out there is far more diverse than the IE monoculture on the web side - although Microsoft products are particularly popular, there are a number of well-established alternatives with varying degrees of scripting, HTML and remote image support.

The stats given by your application will remain fairly inaccurate, and the problem may worsen (from your point of view) over time.

[Terabytes]

would "undetermined"...cover people not even opening their mail...deleting the mail based entirely on the subject line or the "from" address when it arrives?

I would venture to guess that perhaps the 45% ratio would be close, to cover people that don't open their mail. I'm sure the percentage is large nowdays.

I know I delete mail based upon the subject line...anyone else care to take a stab at this idea?

just my 2-cents...

[Krapulator]

You'll find that most corporate email systems will either bounce your emails because of the javascript or they will simply strip it out before delivering it to the user.

I would be surprised if there are many email/spam filters that would allow any kind of scripting in an email to pass through and as Encyclo says, current versions of Outlook block JS by default.

I personally wouldn't send any emails to anyone with javascript in them.

[SkyDog]

Usually AOL users cannot open an html based email message, maybe Yahoo too if you allow anonymous email subscribers. Too solve this issue, you can add a line in your mailer script to send the AOL people a text based message.

[TheDoctor]

"Can't" may also be the wrong word here. Many people (eg my good-self) will only read emails in text format. I suspect the proportion will grow over time, because it's a useful final protection against spam.

[nbrandt]

There are more factors you need to consider, PDA's liking txt emails and people turning off JS because of pop-ups and articles they read in the media.

Last time I checked out internet behaviour (http://nbrandt.com/web_page_design_standards_and_statistics.php) I found that 11% didn't have javascript enabled. Add all text-only recipients and you have a large percentage that can't recieve your mails so you should:

- Always send html *and* text
- Not depend on any other technological concept except for straight html.

And then to top it off you have an abundance of antispam servers and software blocking mails (they are trigger-happy) so you should make very sure that yor mails are formatted perfectly and that all headers, to, from and MX/DNS records resolves perfectly or else you have that much less chance of building up a succesful list in todays market.

Nick

[Skyling]

Thanks for your help, guys. Terabytes, I forgot about people who delete it outright -- that would certainly explain some of it -- thanks!

Does anyone have any specific statistics though? Specific numbers are what I really need.

nbrandt, I think the 11% statistic you gave was for browsers with Javascript disabled, which I don't think is going to be the same as email clients with Javascript disabled.

Thanks again!

P.S. My app sends a text-only version to people who have HTML disabled.