The email footer might be the most neglected part of your message template. It’s a mistake to overlook your footer because it can affect everything from your customers’ impression of your brand to your ability to reach the inbox itself.
What is an email footer?
In email terms, the footer is the section of copy at the bottom of an email message. Some also call it the “admin footer,” the “admin center,” or just “the admin” because it can include legally required information, links to help customers manage their subscriptions and accounts, and other administrative information.
A well-designed email footer can round up all kinds of information that would be distracting elsewhere in the message. Examples include store hours or a find-a-store link or a link to the brand’s customer’s loyalty account.
Why the email footer matters
Email footers are more than just places to put everything that doesn’t fit anywhere else in the template. They can give customers the information they need to ask questions or resolve problems. They can help customers connect more deeply with your brand through other channels such as social media. Detailed contact information and third-party agency ratings help build trust.
Most importantly, they can affect your ability to reach the inbox. Most brands put their unsubscribe link in the footer, often in tiny type that blends in with the background color. That can be a big mistake that could put your deliverability in peril if subscribers don’t take the time to track it down when they want to get off your list. We’ll explain why it matters further down in this guide.
What to include in every email footer
These are the items that every commercial email footer should include no matter who sends it: a company, a non-profit organization, a school system, sports team. Anyone sending a promotional, triggered, or targeted email should include these items if laws regulating commercial email require it:
Contact information including street address
This is required by law in most countries that regulate commercial email. In the United States, for example, where email is not as heavily regulated as in Canada, the UK, or the European Union, it’s one of the few mandated requirements.
Unsubscribe link
Most countries also require the unsub link, and most templates put it at the bottom of the email in the admin or email footer. It can be a text link, call-to-action button, or blank data field. The only legal requirement is that the link must work.
Company logo
Many brands also will include a smaller branding item, such as a logo or mission statement, in the email footer. It can make this type-heavy section of the email easier to read and also link to the company’s homepage.
Legal or regulatory info
The UK is one country that requires commercial email senders to list their company registration information in the footer. This includes the company name, address, registration location, and registration number, as in this email from Farfetch:
Link to the privacy policy
While it’s not a mandate, adding a privacy policy statement and link can help build trust or allow customers to learn how you will use their data.
Email footer best practices
One of your first steps toward building a better email footer is to learn how your subscribers are using it. Audit your footer to check click rates and trends on every link in your footer from the unsubscribe to your “About Us” page and your social media channels. If you have access to heat maps and focus groups, use those, too. If time is short, or you want just a quick response, send your email to 10 to 20 friends—the less they know about email, the better! Ask them to test out your footer and give you their honest opinions.
Also, make sure those links are working! Sometimes template or website updates can break email links, especially the utilitarian ones in your footer. If your spam complaint rate is going up and your unsub rate is going down, that’s a big alarm that your footer link needs attention.
Learn more about email metrics to track in this MailCharts blog post: 21 Metrics to Include in Your Email Marketing Report.
Avoid the river of gray type
In reviewing hundreds of footers on emails in the MailCharts database, we found lots of darker gray lettering on lighter gray backgrounds. That might help the footer stand out from a colorful message, but it can make important links—like the unsubscribe—harder to read. Use white space, images, and a high-contrast typeface color to help key functions—again, like the unsubscribe—stand out. For more tips on creating an unsubscribe experience subscribers will use instead of the spam button, read this post on the MailCharts blog: 10 Email List Management Best Practices and Tips.
Share your business’ personality
Your company’s brand voice should be loud and clear here. That’s more engaging to customers than a stream of copy that sounds like the lawyers or ChatGPT wrote it. Keep reading to discover how Moosejaw’s irreverent brand voice permeates down to the last line of the footer.
Avoid “click here”
“Click here” is a terrible CTA everywhere, but especially in the footer. A CTA button with “Unsubscribe” or “Manage email preferences” tells subscribers exactly what will happen, and it stands out more than “click here” as an itty-bitty text link. Use a “bulletproof button“—a button image that renders even when images are off.
Add branding elements
As we said earlier, these add white space and call attention to important information. But they can also subtly remind your customers and subscribers about your brand vision and missing, your value proposition and other unquantifiable but helpful reminders about your company.
Link to email preferences
If you allow subscribers to change their email addresses, change frequency, or update their content preferences, link to this option as part of your unsubscribe section.
Watch email length to avoid clipping
In some of the emails we reviewed, the footer was longer than the email copy (and also a prime example of the unwanted river of gray type). This can be a problem if you send long email messages because the footer can get clipped in email browsers like Gmail. That means subscribers won’t see your unsubscribe or preference link.
Make it mobile-friendly
CTA buttons are easier to tap on than text links. Also, super-long email footers are impossible to navigate on mobile screens. Aim for a design that delivers information efficiently, and eliminates any links that get little to no traffic (per your footer audit as mentioned previously).
Things to test
How long has it been since you tested different iterations of your email footer? Here are some items to consider testing. You might have more depending on what your email audit turned up. We also included some email footer examples for some less-common footer inclusions. You can see these emails in full, and more emails, on our Email Footer Design list.
Social proof
Customer ratings and reviews are popular assurance-builders for many shoppers. Brands that use agencies like Trustpilot often add a dynamic link that displays the brand’s latest rating in the footer, as in this Zenni email.
Social media links
Social media and email go hand in hand. But are your links getting traction? Test whether a different location or organization might get better activity.
Refer a friend
If you have a referral program, add a link here. Just keep it away from your unsubscribe/email preferences buttons or links to avoid confusion or misdirected clicks and taps.
Payment options
These include images for buy-now-pay-later services like Klarna or Afterpay as well as the payment services you accept including credit cards, peer-to-peer like PayPal and Venmo, Apple Pay, and more. Test to see whether adding them in the email body or the footer leads or more or larger sales.
Customized email footers
Just as one size does not fit all, one footer does not have to rule the email template. For example, would inactive subscribers be more likely to either come back and shop or unsubscribe if you focused more on the value proposition or make your unsub link or button super-huge with copy encouraging them to click it?
BOPIS
Although many retailers have cut back on their “buy-online/pick up in or at stores” activity, it’s still a popular feature, especially for time-pressed shoppers during the holiday season. Test whether adding an image and link to your BOPIS information on your website would get any pick-up. Even if it doesn’t lead directly to a conversion, it’s another way to move shoppers to your website.
Sign up for texts/mobile app
Have you tested your mobile opt-in process lately? Add it to your footer to-do list. If you aren’t getting the results you expect, try changing the copy in your invitation to explain what people will be getting in exchange for giving you their phone numbers or installing your app. Maybe you just need to make it more prominent.
Secondary email signup
So, in theory, anyone getting your email is already signed up. Unless someone forwarded the email to them, or it’s in the footer for a triggered email, or they get your emails because they opened an account but didn’t sign up for marketing messages. Test an email opt-in link here.
App links
The QR code, which some people thought was a passing fancy, appears to be here to stay. Tech retailer Newegg puts one in its email footer that sends subscribers right to the appropriate download site. This could be a great test to learn whether people are clicking the dedicated app images or whether they’re going from the URL embedded in your QR code image. (Click or tap to view the entire email and full footer.)
Animated GIFs
If you really want to drive attention to your email footer, make it move. Test to discover whether adding animation to key icons increases clicks on those images. See an example in Applebee’s email, featured in the next section.
5 email footer examples we love
We viewed a lot of cringe-worthy email footers, but we also found masses of emails that show how to turn these organizational afterthoughts into useful admin centers. Discover which ones made the cut (so far; we’ll keep adding to it) on our curated Email Footer Design list Below are five of our favorites from the list.
Moosejaw
Okay, so we’re not wild about the tiny, light-gray type on the white background. Don’t do that. But we do like the contrasting colors for key functions like unsubscribing and opting in. Fun bonus: Click that last link in the email. The one about the giraffe. We promise you won’t see Rick Astley singing “Never Gonna Give You Up.”
Alaska Airlines
The brand image across the bottom of this email gives it more structure and visibility. We abridged it here—click the image to view the entire email.
Chipotle
Chipotle’s footer is a miracle of email footer design. It’s totally visual, has helpful info, gives readers easy ways to engage, and includes key points in high-contrast type. (Click to view the entire email.)
Chewy
When you have lots of links in your footer, you can either create a hard-to-use long list or convert them to icons. We vote for icons. We also dig that huge phone number at the top of the footer. Although we wish the unsubscribe was higher up in the email, we’re happy to see the contrasting type and white space that sets it off.
Applebee’s
Here’s that animation example we promised in the previous section. View the entire email to see how Applebee’s adds subtle movement to its standard footer for a promotional email.
Email inspiration from subject line to email footer
Did we get your creative juices flowing? We cover the entire email from the subject line to the email footer and everything in between with updated blog posts, curated email example lists, and data from thousands of ecommerce email brands. Sign up for free today and browse MailCharts email campaigns by industry, brands, lists, and journeys to inspire your next campaign.
