Email Banner: A Beginner's Guide with Examples

Looking for a way to up your email marketing game and increase your email click-through rate? Maybe it’s time you stopped looking at subject lines, email sender names, or CTA positions.

Having an engaging email header can hook your readers and turn them from viewers to buyers. But designing an email banner isn’t the easiest thing to do, especially when you have to compete with hundreds of other emails landing in your recipients’ inbox.

Fortunately for you, we got some excellent tips and email header templates that you can add to your email banner ideas and turn them from nay to yay. What are you waiting for? Let’s get started!

Click to jump ahead:

What is an email banner?
What to include in an email banner
11 Email banner examples & templates
How to create an email banner
6 Email banner design best practices
FAQs for designing email banners

What is an email banner?

An email banner—also known as email header—is an image that goes on top of your email. It helps introduce your business and set the tone for the email.

It’s important not to confuse email banners with email signature banners, which are at the bottom of an email and often contain, well, your email signature, as well as links to your social media handles, the Unsubscribe button, and more.

Here’s an example of an email banner:

The name of the company “Connex Ecommerce Solution” is printed nicely on the left of the banner, and there are several icons that point out what the email is about.

You can customize this email banner template to announce your latest blog post, the newest discount on your e-commerce store, and more.

What to include in an email banner

An email banner can be as simple as this example from The Hustle email newsletter:

which literally is just the name of the newsletter. Here’s how it looks when it’s paired with the email introduction:

Or it can be as complicated as this one from Kwizig:

which uses lots of icons and illustrations that are Halloween-related as well as marketing copy to promote the Premium upgrade discount.

This all goes to show that it varies as to what goes in an email banner and it very much depends on the industry, the type of email as well as the email recipient. That being said, there are certain elements you should consider adding when creating an email banner.

Brand name & logo

Like the email from The Hustle, you can keep your email banner minimalistic by using just your brand name. Make sure it’s prominent and noticeable so people know whose email they’re reading (it should be obvious from the email sender, but it’s always good to reiterate your brand).

Include your brand logo as well, unless it’s also your brand name (like The Hustle’s case).

Related:

Brand colors

Your brand probably has a palette of colors that makes it distinct from the competitors. If you want to make sure that your fans or customers know that it’s you, then your email banner should always scream your brand colors.

This also helps new brands and businesses to increase brand awareness of their growing customer base.

It’s easy to apply your brand colors to your email banner when you’re designing using Venngage. My Brand Kit will automatically extract your brand colors and logos:

And you can just apply your branding elements to your email banner design in one click:

Link to your website

Make sure your banner image links to your website, or link to the product/promotion in the case of a special promotion or announcement of a new product.

Even better, you can add a CTA (call to action) button in your banner image to encourage clicks, like in this example:

New product/promotion

This is specific to emails promoting a new product launch or announcing a promotion.

It’s always good to include some product photos as a snippet of what to expect. If you’re announcing a promotion, make sure you stress the discount to it captures the readers’ attention and entice them to click, like in this example:

Of course, always make sure that the banner image links to the new product page or the promoted items.

11 Email banner examples & templates

Here are some email banner examples with templates for you to customize right away and add some pizzaz to your email campaigns

Business email banners

Customize this template if you want your email banners to include simple website navigations as well. The color codes make different parts of the email stand out and also make the whole banner image on brand.

If you’re a design or email agency, you can use this banner for any email campaigns targeting both future and existing clients. The nice contrast between the background and the font color makes the email header easy to skim.

Here’s another example of a general business email header that can go on almost any of your newsletters. This one includes a link to the organization’s website as well.

Sending a new report or survey results to your email subscribers? Customize this email banner template. Replace the icons if necessary and add your brand colors for a consistent branding experience.

Customize this email banner for your weekly email newsletter campaign. You can change the background to any images you’d like as well.

Email banners for holidays

This free email banner is the best of both worlds: it adds a seasonal element to a general business email header:

Or if you just need general email banners for holiday celebrations, you can customize the two templates below:

Email headers for sales promotion

A simple email banner for non-designers, you can use this email as is, especially if your brand color palette is also yellow and black.

Need a custom email banner for Cyber Monday? This one is perfect for you.

If you’re a travel company, here’s the email banner that can go on top of virtually any email message. It also includes links to your social media handles. There’s mentioning of a flight ticket discount, but you can always delete that and replace it with your company’s slogan or brand purpose.

How to create an email banner

You can create an eye-catching email banner in 5 simple steps using Venngage’s Banner Maker.

Step 1: Register for a FREE Venngage account.

You can create an account using your email, Gmail or Facebook account.

Step 2: Pick an email banner template that fits your purpose.

Choose from our library of dozens of email banner templates:

Or you can choose from our email newsletter template library. These email templates already include email banners in them:

Step 3: Add necessary information and customize your icons, illustrations or images.

If you’re announcing a product, make sure you include a photo of it. Change the text to reflect your promotion.

You can upload your own photos using our drag-and-drop editor, or choose from our library of 40,000+ icons and illustrations or 3+ million stock photos.

To replace an icon, simply double click the icon and choose its alternative:

Step 4: Brand your banner.

Apply your brand colors, brand fonts or logos to your banner design.

Step 5: Download your banner and add it to your email.

You can share a public link for free or upload to a paid plan to download your email banner. It comes in PNG, PDF, Interactive PDF or HTML format.

6 Email banner design best practices

Let’s take a look at several design best practices you can apply when creating your email banner.

Use crisp and sharp images for your email banners

Whether you use images to advertise your new product or just generally to set the tone for your emails, always make sure the images included aren’t blurry or pixelated. You don’t want your potential customers to squint to see what they can buy, right?

You can upload your own photos to Venngage, or choose from our library of 3+ million stock images. If you want to replace an existing photo in a banner, simply double click the item and choose a new one:

Keep your email headers on brand

In order to do that, include your brand colors, brand name and logo in your email banners. You can easily apply brand colors to any email banners using My Brand Kit.

Go minimalistic on your email marketing banner

Design 101 will always tell you that less is more. Apply that rule to your email banner design, and you are going to go a long way!

It may get tempting to cram every angle of your product, a photo of your store, seven different font styles, and three layers of filters. But please don’t do this for the sake of your viewer’s eyes. The truth is, trying to put so many elements and information in such a small canvas does the opposite effect. It actually confuses viewers, and they leave without understanding your message.

This email infographic, for example, uses a very simple and straightforward banner that still manages to deliver the gist of the email content:

Use negative space wisely in your email banner. Try to keep font varieties to just one or two. The same goes for color and images; just focus on the main one and use the others in a minimalistic way.

Create reusable email banner templates

You don’t want to spend too much time brooding over your email banners, especially when there’s a message you want to get out the door ASAP. Create a bunch of email banner templates can help you save time and effort thinking of exactly what your banner should be every time you send an email.

Understandably, it can be difficult to create an email banner layout from scratch if you don’t have design experience or don’t have the budget to hire a professional. This is where solutions like Venngage come in and help.

From our dozens of email banner templates, choose the ones you think fit your brand the best. We offer email banners suitable for business or for personal use. You can also start by creating a full email from scratch—our email newsletter templates already include the email header:

A Venngage for Business account will let you save your banner or email marketing infographic as PNG or HTML to use with your email delivery service:

Add a countdown

If you are having a product that launches in a few days, a good trick is to create a teaser. In this case, an email countdown timer.

Timers always create a sense of buzz and excitement whenever someone sees them. These nifty devices never fail to pique one’s curiosity. Try to make the countdown prominent and tease your audience with an image or words that give a sneak peek of what is about to come.

Here’s an example of how it goes in an email from GoodFood, teasing about a discount. Notice how the banner still includes the brand’s logo in addition to the timer:

This is how the first part of the email looks like (until the call to action):

Got a promo? Use it on your email banner design!

If you have a promo, flaunt it! People love a good deal, so if you have a good one, make sure that it is placed prominently on your email banner.

Use fonts that are strong, bold, and clear, and try to make your promo text dominant on the layout. This way, it gives people a better perspective of how big this offer is.

Another good tip would be to use bold colors, like red. (Did you know that bold colors are predicted to be part of the 2022 graphic design trends?):

In color advertising psychology, red gives viewers a sense of vigor, impulsiveness, and urgency. That is why using a white font over a red backdrop screams great deals and fiery sales!

FAQs about designing email banners

What is the ideal email banner size?

Your banner should include the most important information you want your recipients to get away with when they open the email, but it should be too long that part of the banner image gets cut off when opened on a smaller screen.

Generally, you should opt for a dimension of 600px – 700px (width) and 20px – 200px (height) for a desktop screen. Make if half for mobile screens, so maximum 350px (width) and 100px (height). You won’t need to create two separate headers for different devices if you make your emails responsive.

What is the footer of an email called?

Your email footer is often referred to as the email signature or the email signature banner.

Generally, your email signature banner should contain your brand name, logo, social media handles, Unsubscribe/Subscription management and/or other legal information.

A professional-looking email signature goes a long way in establishing trust among your readers. You can do this quickly with an email signature creator tool like WiseStamp.

In conclusion: Create an eye-catching email banner that captures readers’ attention and drive sales

Emails have been used as a way to advertise for a long time. Whether it is for a legitimate business, a scam, or unsavory spam mails, email marketing remains an effective way to get noticed. And it all starts with the email banner. Do this right, and your sales should spring up. By the way, if you got tired of spammy email, you can use a temporary email.

Anyone can start customizing Venngage’s professionally designed email banner and email newsletter templates even if they have little to no design experience. It’s free to get started.