The structure and layout of your design plays an important part in how and if your email is read, but excessive styling can waste lots of time.
A well structured email will always include images on the right hand side of the page, with clear precise articles, a top preview panel to include the main promotional message and call to action and a footer section at the bottom of the design.
Graduated fonts are also essential for emphasising different elements of the design. For the top preview panel text use a large heading font up to 22px in size. Any larger can increase your spam score. The introduction text should be around 18px and of a contrasting colour and the click through link at 16px can reflect the colour of the main heading.
For articles, start with a larger font for the heading, usually 14px, with the main content text slightly smaller at 12px. Link text should be kept the same size as the content but made bold and underlined to push the recipient to click through.
Images should be kept small and of a consistent size, perhaps 100 x 100px, with any large banner image placed at the bottom of the design near the footer. This ensures the text content will be visible for all recipients, even if images are not displayed.