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When you send a ConvertKit email, sometimes you want to add a little preview text (that shows after the subject line, but before the ‘main’ email. Like so:

(You would be amazed at the number of people who reply to my emails to tell me that they love this little quirky bit about them!)

Anyway, I digress.

There’s no ‘official’ way to do this in ConvertKit, so I’ve got 3 nice workarounds for you.

 

Option 1: Alt Text in Your Banner/Header

If you have a banner/header image in your email template, you can give the banner a title (aka ‘alt text’).

e.g.

<img src="https://convertkit.s3.amazonaws.com/assets/pictures/4583/1474107/content_ConvertKit_Club_banner.png" alt="ConvertKit Club">

This would show ‘ConvertKit Club’ as the preview text, instead of the banner url.

This works for both banners in email templates and when you upload an image at the start of an email.

 

Option 2: Add some code to your custom email template

(The limitation of this is that you’ll have the same preview text for every email).

Add the following into the <style> </style> section of your email template:

.preheader { display: none !important; visibility: hidden; opacity: 0; color: transparent; height: 0; width: 0; }

And then this at the very top of the body bit of the email (above the {{ message_content }} bit):

<span class="preheader" style="color: transparent; display: none !important; width: 0; height: 0; visibility: hidden;">PREVIEW TEXT GOES HERE</span>

So they would see PREVIEW TEXT GOES HERE as… the preview text!

 

Option 3: Add some hidden text to individual emails

Firstly, switch to the html view of your email.

Then, right at the very top, paste in this code:

<div style="display:none;font-size:0;line-height:0;max-height:0;mso-hide:all">PREVIEW TEXT GOES HERE</div>

So again, they would see PREVIEW TEXT GOES HERE as… the preview text!

 

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Important Notes

Whatever you have in a custom email template will take precedence over what you have in the email. e.g. If you use Option 2 and Option 3. Both will show in the preview text, but Option 2 text will show first.

Unless you’re super particular, I would recommend setting something up and then forgetting about it (like I have with the ‘This email is really good!’). Life is too short to fiddle about with preview text every time you send an email!

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Please do let me know in the comments how you get on and if you think up any fun things to write!