Specs and Terms

Standard Ad Units

Print Ad Units

Home Page Intro Ad

Rich Media

Text Link

Lead Generation

E-Newsletter

Dedicated Emails

Video

Terms & Conditions

Dedicated Emails

HTML Email

  • E-mail delivery begins at 10a.m. and 1p.m. on the scheduled date. Wednesday delivery only. Morningstar needs content seven days prior to mail date.
  • The advertiser will see test samples of all versions of the e-mail campaign for approval prior to the mail date.
  • E-mail is sent via Multipart—HTML/Text combination. The recipient's browser settings determine which version is served.
  • All dedicated e-mails include a text version for those who are unable to view HTML.

    Guidelines:

  • Build HTML for email clients (ie: Outlook, Yahoo, Gmail, Hotmail, AOL, Lotus, Entourage, etc.) not Internet browsers (ie:IE6, IE7, IE8, FireFox, Chrome, Safari).
  • Improper DOCTYPE may cause layout issues.
    The DOCTYPE declaration affects the way some browsers and clients render HTML content. As a default, you should use XHTML 1.0 Transitional: http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd.
  • Use only inline CSS styles.
  • Use tables for layout instead of CSS.
  • Make sure your content resides inside the <body> tag.
  • Use <div> tags instead of <p> tags to wrap blocks of text.
  • Reset margins on divs via inline styles, use padding for spacing.
  • Use embedded <font> tags in conjunction with inline CSS to format text.
  • For more consistent layout, set height and width attributes only on elements.
  • Do not use images for border effects. The better approach is to use a background color on a td element. For example: . Do not use shorthand hex values (#000).
  • Avoid nesting more than two tables in your layout.
  • No more than 25% of the real estate in your email template should be image-based. At least 3/4 of the email should be readable without images.
  • Do not use transparent spacer gifs.
  • Do not use images for borders.
  • Add alt attributes to images that feature important content.
  • Avoid white space between table cells. Spaces between the closing tag of one cell and the opening tag of another should be removed to avoid gaps and layout issues.
  • We recommend you provide a link in your email to view an html version of the creative via a browser. HTML does not render the same way in every client or browser which might result in some variation of the final display.
  • It is recommended that the width of the email be around 600px-800px. Vertical height can vary. Email size should be kept under 500KB. No animation is allowed.
  • Subject line character limit: 50 including spaces.

Text Email Format

  • Line Spacing:
    Use carriage (hard) returns at the end of each line.
    Use blank lines to separate paragraphs.
  • Font Type:
    Monospaced font—Courier (not Courier New)
  • Font Size:
    10 pt (one uniform font size for entire document)
  • Footnotes:
    Use only standard typwriter keyboard letters, numbers, and symbols.
  • Tab/Indentations:
    Avoid tabs/indentations whenever possible. If required, use spaces instead of tabs, knowing that they might not line up.
  • Tables:
    Avoid use of tables.
  • URL Formatting:
    Please make sure the http:// is included. The URL cannot wrap to a second line. AOL URL formatting automatically done via Morningstar.com e-mail process.
  • Symbols:
    Monospaced font—Courier (not Courier New)
    One font size, 10pt
    Use only standard typewriter keyboard letters, numbers, and symbols
    Use a number (1,2,...) or an asterisk (*)
    Avoid high ASCII characters:
    Registration Mark ®
    Copyright ©
    Service mark ℠
    Trademark™
    Quotes “
    Apostrophes ‘