How to Optimize Your Email Footer for Better Branding

What is an email footer?

An email footer, also known as an email signature, is a section at the bottom of emails that includes your business' contact details, legal disclaimers, social media links, a direct link to your business website, an unsubscribe link, and more. You can even feature a simple message in your email footer that appeals directly to your customers and tells them more about your brand's mission.

Generally, professional and highly engaging email footers help set the foundation for long-term business success. Pair them with proven email templates to take your email campaigns to the next level.

Why are email footers important?

Email marketing should always be a vital part of your marketing communications, and optimizing your email footer or email signature can keep you way ahead of your competition. Take a closer look at a few of the top reasons why:

1. Reinforce your brand identity: Don't forget to include your company name and show off your company logo in your email footers to remind customers on what your brand is all about. Choose a specific color scheme and add a tagline with every message sent. Highlight your social links and website link, so your customers can connect with you on other platforms. In general, a well-branded email footer can help customers recognize you with ease.
2. Build trust: Including contact information, such as your company's registered office address and phone number, demonstrates transparency on your behalf, allowing your business to appear more credible and trustworthy. Emails that appear unprofessional can even end up caught in spam filters.
3. Easy communication: Having clear contact details available for your customers, including your company's physical address, social media channels, and phone number, can also help them get in touch more easily. This can improve customer satisfaction by shortening order inquiry timelines and allowing for more brand-customer interaction.
4. Legal compliance: The CAN-SPAM Act and other laws depending on where your company is based mandate that unsubscribe links and other required legal information should always be included in your email footers. A legally compliant email footer can keep your business out of trouble.
5. Social media promotion: Adding social media links encourages your email recipients to follow and engage across other channels—increasing potential leads and conversions further down the line. It can even help you gather social proof.
6. Drive website traffic: Including a website link generates more clicks and traffic for your business. Adding a navigation to your website's homepage, FAQs, and store can make it more likely for email recipients to pay you a visit.

Optimizing your email footers and email signatures can give you multiple advantages when promoting your business among existing and potential clients alike. Make sure you take a look at the best email footer examples and start making upgrades to your own.

How to optimize your email footer

If you're looking to get the most out of your email footer, then optimizing it is key. Here are some best practices that will help ensure your email footer looks its absolute best:

Feature your logo

Your logo should be front and center in every message you send to reinforce your brand's mission and identity. Make sure the graphics look sharp and high-quality. They should be sized properly for whatever device it's viewed on.

Keep it simple and consistent

The design of your email footer should match up with the rest of your brandings—use the same fonts, colors, and imagery across all of your email footers. Keep in mind that a neutral background color or simple pattern makes any links or text stand out more clearly.

Make it easily viewable on mobile devices

Make your email footer mobile-friendly. Since most people open emails on their smartphones, it's crucial to make sure all information is displayed correctly, no matter the phone screen. Avoid using small text or images and utilize tel:links for phone numbers, which enable easy dialing directly from smartphones.

Be mindful of hierarchy and spacing

Organize the content in your email footer by utilizing different sizes, colors, and formatting to create a hierarchy. By providing adequate spacing between individual elements, your customers will be able to scan through essential information quickly and effortlessly.

Include a Call to Action (CTA)

Enhance your email footer even further by including CTAs that relate directly to your company's campaign objectives. Invite your customers over to your social media platforms, ask them for feedback, or redirect them to product pages. You can even ask them to view a popular blog post on your website.

Test different versions

Ensure success through A/B testing, which allows you to identify what elements are working well in various versions of the footers. This can help you vastly increase user engagement.

Use tracking and analytics tools

To gain valuable insights into your website's traffic sources and user behavior, make sure to enable tracking tools and trackable links. This information can guide your future marketing decisions and help you understand your audience better.

Additionally, closely monitoring key metrics such as open rates, click-through rates, conversion rates, and bounce rates is critical to making data-driven adjustments and improving your overall performance.

Keep it up-to-date

Stay on top of the ever-changing email marketing trends and meet the needs of your customers by ensuring your footer information is up-to-date. From new compliance requirements to a company-wide branding update, stay in the know and adjust accordingly.

3 exceptional email footer examples

A professional email signature is crucial when it comes to your email marketing campaigns. As mentioned previously, not only does it provide essential contact details and legal information, but it can also act as a great branding tool. Here are four well-designed email footer examples from different industries that demonstrate email footer best practices.

Airbnb's email footer example

Airbnb's email footer is a great example of effective design. It not only looks visually pleasing, but it's also optimized for mobile and easy to navigate. The primary goal of this email footer is to encourage users to download the Airbnb app, and it does this seamlessly with quick access to both the Apple Store and Google Play shop.

WeWork’s email footer example

WeWork's email footer exemplifies the importance of hierarchy and spacing in design. By grouping information into easily digestible chunks, customers can quickly find the specific information they are looking for. Additionally, the footer prominently displays the company's slogan, providing customers with a better understanding of WeWork's mission and values. The strategic placement of the slogan reinforces brand recognition and helps establish a deeper connection with the customer.

Have you checked out National Geographic's email footer example?

Not only is it modern and stylish with their iconic black and yellow color palette, but it also aims to engage with their customers. The email footer encourages you to share your thoughts in a survey through a bold CTA and even provides easy-to-find links to their social media channels, including Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

Plus, they thoughtfully highlight the unsubscribe link, making it hassle-free for anyone who wants to stop receiving emails. After all, leaving a good impression means never frustrating your users.

Take your email marketing campaigns to the next level

Optimizing your email footer is a key component of any effective email marketing strategy. From featuring your logo prominently to keeping it simple and consistent, there are several email footer best practices that can help you achieve better branding, engagement, and conversion rates.

If you're looking to harness the benefits of effective email marketing and a well-designed email footer, Mailchimp is the perfect solution for you. With Mailchimp's email marketing software, you'll have access to a robust set of tools for creating and delivering personalized welcome emails and other targeted messages to your audience.

To get started, take a look at our comprehensive email marketing guide or get some inspiration from our expert insights.