Alt tags can help you tell your email story when readers disable images or read email in the preview pane. This article gives you several ways to use this HTML code.

HTML "alt" tags are used to display a text description of an image when either the image does not display or when a mouse is scrolled over a displayed image. Using alt tags in your HTML emails is important for a couple of reasons:

• Recipients using dial up or other slow connections may not see images for a few or several seconds. Displaying alt tag text can at least convey a sense of what is to come, while the recipient waits for the image to load.
• Many email clients (Outlook 2003) and email services (AOL and the soon to be released Gmail) have images disabled by default, or display a warning message asking the user if they'd like view the images.
• A sample alt tag that would display Email marketing solutions looks like this: "< img alt="Email marketing solutions" src="http://www.emaillabs.com/image/01.gif" border="0" >"

Tips on using alt tags:

• Newsletters: For logos, headers, section titles and other uses of images, describe the logo and image, but as appropriate consider adding a brief teaser that explains that section of the newsletter further. For example: "Optimzation - Strategies for improving email marketing performance."
• Ecommerce Emails: Include short but complete descriptions of product photos. If the image includes banners such as "50% off", include that as well.
• Charts and Graphs: Include enough text to explain the value and contents of the chart or graph, such as: "Chart: Open Rates from A/B Split Test."
• Gmail Snippets/Preview Text: Use an appropriate image in your header to display key teaser info. For ecommerce emails the information might expand on special offers mentioned in the subject line, reinforce Free Shipping or promote additional products. For newsletters, consider mentioning additional articles beyond what is in the subject line, or expand on the existing topic.

While this may sound like a lot of work, at most it probably adds 5-10 minutes to the production of your email. Most importantly though, by not using alt tags correctly, marketers risk seeing lower open and click-through rates resulting from recipients deciding not to display images or take further action.

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