Hyde & Hare Email Review

Inbox placement is in good shape

This is the part that decides whether emails reach the inbox at all, and it is fine. The design changes below are about load speed and clicks, not rescuing deliverability.

0.3%

Average bounce rate

Under 2% is healthy

0.04%

Highest spam complaint rate on any send

Google flags 0.1%, blocks at 0.3%

196

Words of live text per email (typical)

Enough copy; no need for more

87KB

Largest email code size (Rug Sizing)

Gmail cuts off emails at 102KB

On image versus text balance: about half of each email's scroll is photography. That sits right at the edge of the usual 60/40 guidance, and the copy carries its weight, so we would not cut photos for deliverability. We would make each photo far lighter (section 03). One watch-out: Rug Sizing's code is 87KB before Klaviyo adds tracking links. Over 102KB, Gmail hides the end of the email behind a "View entire message" link, including the unsubscribe link, which is the one thing that can push complaints up.

Use the website's button in the emails

The email buttons are pale beige (#EEEAE3) on cream (#FCFAF2). The words are readable, but the button shape itself is only 1.15:1 against the background, where accessibility guidance asks for at least 3:1. On a phone the eye slides straight past it. The website already solved this in a way that is entirely on brand: a solid near-black Add to Cart button with white capitals and square corners, and a plain underlined link for the secondary action.

Now · Rug Sizing email

Current email: body copy with a pale beige Shop Rugs button that almost disappears into the cream background

Button vs background: 1.15:1. And it is an image, so it vanishes when images are off.

Already on hydeandhare.com

Hyde and Hare product page: solid black Add to Cart button with white capitals, and an underlined More payment options link

Fill #111111, white capitals, square corners, 50px tall. Secondary action is an underlined text link.

Recommended · same email, site button

Everyone does the same thing. Arms out, squinting at the gap beside the sofa, trying to picture it.

So we've drawn all four sizes against the same three-seater. Stop guessing, and sink your toes into soft sheepskin sooner.

Shop rugs

Button vs background: 18:1. Text on button: 19:1. Built in live HTML, so it shows in Outlook and with images off.

Recommended · product tiles

Sheepskin rug in Vole draped over a chair

Sheepskin Rug - Vole

£79.00

Shop now

Quatro shearling rug in Moonlight on a stone floor

Quatro Shearling Rug - Moonlight

£295.00

Shop now

Tiles use the site's underlined link, so the one black button per email clearly leads. The photo stays clickable too.

Element	Spec for Klaviyo
Primary button	Fill #111111 · text #FFFFFF · uppercase · letter-spacing 2px · square corners · at least 48px tall · Klaviyo Button block (live HTML), not an uploaded image
How many	One black button per section at most; ideally one main button per email, repeated once at the end on long emails
Secondary links	Product tiles and "Shop all": underlined text link in #111111, at least 44px tap height
Button font	`Baskervville, Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif`. Apple Mail shows Baskervville when set as a web font; everyone else gets Georgia

Make every image about ten times lighter

Every email we measured downloads several megabytes of images, and the heaviest download 50MB. On mobile data that means photos still loading while the reader scrolls past them, and Gmail on a phone often shows grey boxes first. Nothing here needs fewer photos. Three export habits explain almost all of it.

Images downloaded per emailIncludes an animated GIF1MB target

Summer Sale Final Day 31 Aug

49.7MB

Summer Sale Final Hours 28 Aug

49.7MB

Cosy Corner Soft Launch 9 Oct

26.4MB

Venetian Pantry SLS 23 Aug

23.1MB

Our Favourite Autumn Rugs 26 Sept

22.7MB

Spotlight on: The Pouffe 10 Sept

19.0MB

3 Ways to Style Rug in Living room 19 Aug

16.5MB

Room Reset: 5 Pieces that Change the Feel Fast 7 Sept

14.9MB

This Seasons' Edit 24 Aug

13.5MB

End of Summer 5 Sept

13.3MB

Textural Layers 2 Sept

11.6MB

Summer To Autumn Decorating 15 Sept

11.1MB

Wool Month Intro - Why Wool 2 Oct

10.9MB

Where Our Wool Comes From & HWB's 6 Oct

10.1MB

Officially Autumn 23 Sept

9.8MB

Socks (in stock colours) 9 Oct

6.9MB

Seat Pad GWP 09/26 17 Sept

4.2MB

Rug Sizing 15 Oct

3.6MB

The Softening 29 Sept

3.5MB

1. Product photos come from Shopify at full sizeTiles 280px wide in the email load the original upload, up to 3,000px and 4MB. Add &width=1200 to Shopify image links (or ?width=1200 if the link has no "?"). Same photo, roughly a tenth of the weight.

2. Hero images are saved as PNGRug Sizing's hero is a 3.1MB PNG; one Autumn Rugs image is a 5.7MB PNG at 2,560px wide. Photos should be JPEG at 1,200px wide (twice the 600px email width, so it is still sharp on Retina), quality 75 to 80. Target under 250KB each.

3. Animated GIFs are 9 to 10MB eachThe honey-lolly GIF in Autumn Rugs is 9.4MB; the Summer Sale GIF is 9.7MB. Keep GIFs under 1MB: 600px wide, 8 to 12 frames, reduced colours. Or use a still image with a play icon linking to the video.

4. Text in imagesThe hero headlines ("Your Favourite Rugs for Autumn", "Getting the Size right") are part of the photo. Put the headline in live text directly under the hero, or as live text on a coloured block, so it survives image blocking and is read by screen readers.

What Outlook and image-blocking readers see

Outlook desktop and many corporate inboxes block images until the reader clicks "download pictures". Right now that reader gets a white email (the cream background is itself an image), no headline, no logo, and the main buttons as small blue links. The words survive; the sale does not.

Now · Autumn Rugs with images off

Headline, logo and main buttons all disappear. The template tags in grey are a preview artefact.

Fixes, all inside Klaviyo's editor

Solid background colour. Set the section background colour to #FCFAF2 as well as the background image, so blocked or Outlook views stay cream instead of white.
Live buttons. Section 02. Image buttons become blue alt-text links.
Live headline under each hero (section 03, rule 4).
Alt text on every image. The logo has none; Rug Sizing's four size drawings have none, so the actual measurements disappear. Give each drawing alt text such as "Double sheepskin, 65 x 180cm, shown beside a three-seater sofa". The social icons currently say "Button Text" and "Custom".
Font setting. Text blocks use the font name 'serif' in quotes, which no device recognises, so everything falls back to Times. Change it to Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif.
Dark mode. There is no dark-mode handling, so iPhone and Gmail invert the cream and beige unpredictably. Black buttons survive inversion far better than beige ones. Add transparent-background PNG logos so the logo does not sit in a white box.

Phones: fewer tiles, two across at most

Rug Sizing keeps three products across on a phone, so each tile is about 88px wide, names wrap onto two lines, and the buttons are 40px tall (Apple's minimum is 44px). It also has twelve tiles: three colours of each of four sizes at the same price. The email exists to help someone choose a size, and twelve near-identical choices pull the eye back to colour.

Now · three across, three per size

Rug Sizing email: three product tiles per size with small Shop now buttons

About 20 things to tap in one email.

Recommended

One tile per size, the bestselling colour, with the drawing above it. Four tiles, not twelve.
Link each drawing and tile to that size's collection (all colours), so colour choice happens on the site, where it is easier.
Two columns maximum on mobile, stacking to one where names are long. In Klaviyo, tick "Stack columns on mobile" in the product block.
Move the "Approximate sizes: these are natural fleeces" note up beside the first drawing, where the question arises.

Keep the sofa drawings. They are the best thing in either email: useful, distinctive, and something only Hyde & Hare would make. Worth turning into a permanent size guide on the site and in the welcome flow.

Smaller fixes

The honey-lolly GIF glitches

Animated GIF frame where the lolly appears as a misaligned rectangle

The GIF saves only the changed part of each frame, so some clients show a misaligned rectangle mid-loop. Replace it with a still image.

Also

Keep sale and stock emails on-site. Autumn Rugs ends on a "Watch the feature" link to Instagram, straight after the products, where buying intent is highest. Move editorial stories to their own send, or end with a text link.
The "View in browser" line is 10px and default blue in some sends. Use 12px in #6F675E.
Trust bar labels (Free worldwide shipping, Klarna and so on) are around 9px on a phone, and the bar is visually louder than the buttons. Use 12px live text under each icon.
Back up the scarcity line. "Last year, these four sold out before the season ended" will be trusted more with a detail such as the month they sold out.

For every send

A ten-point checklist before an email goes out

Images under 1MB in total, each photo under 250KB
Photos as JPEG, 1,200px wide, never PNG
Shopify links end in width=1200
GIFs under 1MB, or a still image with a play icon
One black #111111 button, built with the Button block
Product tiles use underlined links, two across at most on mobile
Headline in live text, not inside the hero photo
Alt text on every image, including logo, drawings and icons
Section background colour set to #FCFAF2, not just the background image
Preview in Gmail with images off and check the email is not cut off