Using Columns in Your E-Mail Marketing Messages

By John Arnold from E-Mail Marketing For Dummies, 2nd Edition

Using columns to organize your e-mail marketing messages creates a recognizable pattern that helps your audience prioritize and locate different groups of content as they scan through your e-mail. Choosing a column-based layout depends on two factors:

The number of groupings of related content your e-mail contains: Group your content into categories before you choose a layout to determine how many columns you need as well as where to place your visual anchors in relation to your content. Content groupings include
- Articles of similar size with similar layouts
- Multiple events and other lists
- Promotions and offers with similar layouts
- Groups of closely related links, such as a group of website links
- Groups of similar announcements, such as recent news headlines
- Testimonials and quotes relating to the same offer
- Advertisements and graphics that stand alone
The content grouping you most want your audience to see: Choose a layout that emphasizes your most important groupings by keeping your most important content grouped in a single column.

A single e-mail should include closely related content. If your content groupings can’t be tied under one main theme, divide your content into separate e-mails instead of separate columns.

Columns can be hidden or difficult to read on some mobile devices. The newest smartphones can read columns, but if your audience uses older devices, stick with a single column layout.