Deep link your Email Signature

Businesses rely on Emails for communicating with clients. Smartphones are widely used to read and respond to Emails on the go. This article will help you transform your email signature into smart and actionable elements.

An email signature is typically made up of Brand Logo, Name, Designation, Company, Address and Contact Number of the sender. Email being a web-based service, inherits the benefits offered by the world wide web: Hyperlinks, Deeplinks and Inline images.

I. HYPERLINKS

A hyperlink is a Uniform Resource Identifier made up of URI Scheme, Authority (optional), Path, Query (optional) and Fragment (optional). Depending on the URI Scheme of the hyperlink, different actions are initiated. Listed below are few useful URI Schemes:

1. https: used to create a hyperlink to an existing website (https://www.dhirubhai.net/in/swarupselvaraj/). This eliminates typing or copy pasting long urls into browser.
2. tel: used to create a hyperlink to a telephone number (tel:+91XXXXXXXXXX). This eliminates typing or copy pasting phone numbers into dialler.
3. sms: used to create a hyperlink to a mobile sms (sms:+91XXXXXXXXXX). This eliminates typing or copy pasting phone numbers into messenger.

II. DEEPLINKS

Deeplinks are a subclass of hyperlinks which redirects to a particular page within a website. Few use cases are explained below:?

Google Maps Navigation is used to replace the entire address with a single navigation link (https://www.google.com/maps/dir/Your location/Mahabalipuram). The syntax for creating a Google Map based Navigation deep link is given below

https://www.google.com/maps/dir/<origin>/<destination>

The origin and destination can be latitude, longitude pair or just the name of the place. You can also use Your location to get the user's approximate location. Try it now!

Teams Chat link is used to redirects to a chat with one or more users with a predefined topicName and message (https://teams.microsoft.com/l/chat/0/[email protected],[email protected]&topicName=Deep+link+your+Email+Signature&message=I+like+your+article).

A simplified syntax for creating a Teams Chat link is given below

https://teams.microsoft.com/l/chat/0/0?users=<email address>

The topicName and message are completely optional and require some idea on URI component encoding. Try it now!

III. INLINE IMAGES

In addition to being lightweight (~2kB per icon), Portable Network Graphics (.png) images of size 40x40 pixels will look good for this purpose as shown in the above image.

IV. TRANSFORMATION

Please use a desktop client like Outlook, Mail for Windows 10, etc. This is because most email service provider will not allow usage of tel:, sms:, and other non-http URI Schemes for hyperlink creation in their web version.

1. Compose a New email
2. Insert the icons into it
3. Click on each icon
4. Select Insert => Link
5. Enter appropriate URI

Once you are satisfied with your work, copy the contents, and paste it into your Email signature settings.

When done right, this will save your recipient's Time (the most valuable resource) and make them happy.