"Badsender" of the week: Grey on white or blue on blue?

published on 22/05/2013,

updated on 19/12/2022

Where to start? At first glance, the FDJ newsletter is not unpleasant, however, while browsing it, many negative points come to mind. You just have to look at the checklist (which is far from being complete) to realize it, score: 2,5/8!Let's take all the points from top to bottom:

In the pre-header (which is still more than 100 pixels) the text is in gray ... on a white background! Hard to read !
Still in this preheader, the first sentence is a call to action which is excellent, unfortunately the link does not point ... in fact no, there is simply no link provided, we must thank your email client to have transformed fdj.fr in link automatically.
Let's go to the main content, with a beautiful link in blue on a blue background ... it would have been easy to change the color of the link so that it is displayed in white (for example).
Note also the signature "The fdj.fr team" in which Gmail (but probably also in other email clients) automatically transforms "fdj.fr" into a link ... so in blue on a blue background. A problem that could have been anticipated with a preview of the email in different email clients.
To follow, we find a visual under which hides a link pointing to a landing page, very good then ... except the lack of a visual call to action.
Good point, the conditions of the action are directly in the footer of the email!
On the other hand, below the conditions of the action, we find the information related to privacy, always in gray on a white background, and with a font size of 10 pixels. Impossible to read without squinting.
The unsubscribe link, even if it is hard to find, leads to a quality form, simple to fill out and with a one-question unsubscribe survey.
For everything else, there is the checklist below.

Identity cardGeneric email information:

Subject of the email Oscar, a week of Euro Millions offered exclusively on fdj.fr
From : FDJ via mail.fdj.fr
Preheader : Register and play immediately on fdj.fr !
Platform of routing : Neolane

Checklist :

Link to privacy : Bof
Link to unsubscribe : OK
DKIM : KO
Text version : KO
Text to Image Ratio : OK
List-unsubscribe : KO
Friendly reply : KO
Mobile ready : KO

Screenshot of the email

fdj-newsletter

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The author

Jonathan Loriaux

I've been involved in email marketing for over ten years, and my career path began on the technical side (email campaign integration) before moving on to sales (as an eCRM expert) and finally marketing consultancy. For the past 9 years, I've been the author of the Badsender.com blog. Emailing isn't just an expertise, it's truly become my passion, which is why Badsender is now my main activity, with the creation of an emailing consulting business linked to the site.

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2 responses

Chab
12 years ago
Hello,
I would be curious to know the real rate of deliverability because there are (too) many spamwords in the body of the email, but also in the subject of the email, and moreover no DKIM.
I doubt this email will pass the spam filters correctly.
There is a testing site: http://www.emailspamtest.com/ free and quite effective, but I can't test the fdj email as I don't have the original.
On the other hand, why Litmus is not listed here: https://www.badsender.com/ ?
Sincerely.
Jonathan Loriaux
12 years ago
I'll do the test when I have time (and if I don't forget).
As for Litmus, I try to limit myself to French-speaking providers, Getinbox and Returnpath should also be added.