Marketo emails don't render properly in MS Outlook app for iOS

[Tyjen_Conley]

Hi community,

Marketo Design "customized" some email templates for our organization as part of our Launch Pack, but these templates fail to render properly in the MS Outlook app. After opening cases with Support, they've told us that they don't handle HTML coding and that we should purchase their deliverability powerpack?! I've tinkered around in the HTML, but that results in breaking the modules we're trying to keep streamlined for user-friendliness.

We're a small nonprofit and sinking extra costs into an already really expensive program is untenable. Any advice?#outlook rendering‌ #mobile view‌

Thanks,

TC

[SanfordWhiteman]

At the very least you'd need to post snippets of (not the entire) HTML, highlighted using the Advanced Editor's syntax highlighter, and different screenshots showing the disparity.

[Tyjen_Conley]

Thanks, I'm new here. What's the Advanced Editor?

[SanfordWhiteman]

If you click on the title of your post, that'll open the "single post view".

Then when you reply, you'll get the option to Use Advanced Editor.

In Advanced Editor, when you paste code, highlight it and use the syntax highlighter as shown in this recording:

[Anna_Leary3]

Tyjen Conley‌ - have you used something like Email on Acid or Litmus to see how its rendering across all Outlook as well as other email clients and browsers? Unfortunately, you'll find that Outlook throws errors in a lot of emails and special code outside of HTML needs to be added into the email template for Outlook to render somewhat correctly. For anything with Outlook, the simpler the email look the better. 

[Alex_Baumgarten]

We experienced the same thing when setting up Marketo for our business. We had several emails that Marketo built that were fine but never really acted quite the way we needed them to and had issues across email clients (outlook on PCs was a big issue for us).

Ultimately we found it a better use of time and resources to outsource the building of email templates to Email Monks or Revenu Pulse. Both of these companies allowed us to create emails that were more true to our brand, met design objectives, were easy to use. We have also been able to easily manipulate the code provided by these companies in Marketo even with minimal coding experience.

[Pierce_Ujjainw3]

Thanks Alex! We always enjoyed working with you!

[Anna_Leary3]

I agree with Alex above - utilizing an outside resource that knows email template code for Marketo would be the best solution and also would allow for customizable emails with modules.

One thing to note any time with manipulating any code on an email in Marketo is that it will break it from the template which in turn could cause formatting and other issues on various email clients and platforms.

[Scott_McKeighe2]

We're a small nonprofit and sinking extra costs into an already really expensive program is untenable. Any advice?

If creating a customized template is a priority for your organization, then I would join the chorus here and suggest you find a developer or agency resource that fits your budget. Bulletproof, Marketo-compatible emails are worth their weight in gold. Having used another of Pierce Ujjainwalla's offerings (Digesto!), Revenue Pulse seems like a great place to start.

However, if it isn't a priority or your budget is $0, I would step back and evaluate the free template resources you can find in Marketo's library. A lot of these have already been tested cross-client. If there's something close to what you need, see what you can do to customize it further to fit your brand best. Not having access to your code, I can only speculate about which—of the many—Outlook-specific gremlins are chewing up your email.