Email Not Displaying Correctly in Gmail: Fix Default Image Blocking Layouts for Campaign Monitor for WCAG Accessibility Violations
Accessibility failures prevent screen readers from navigating templates, isolating disabled subscribers and increasing unsubscribe rates. Below is the targeted integration guide to fix Default Image Blocking Layouts inside Gmail Web (Desktop) templates when using Campaign Monitor.
Technical Breakdown
Gmail Web (Desktop) uses the Goog/WebKit Layout Engine which lacks support for standard rendering rules. This causes Default Image Blocking Layouts elements to break or collapse when rendering templates.
Campaign Monitor Behaviors
Campaign Monitor wraps custom blocks in dynamic edit tags, which can break the column flow inside Outlook. Ensuring correct class names is essential. Inject correct table roles (role='presentation') and keep color pairings above the WCAG AA contrast threshold of 4.5:1.
Remediation Code Block
To resolve this, always define explicit width and height attributes on your images to preserve their layout boxes when blocked. Add robust alternative (ALT) text styled with CSS font-sizes and colors, and encode vital brand logos directly as Base64 data URIs. In your Campaign Monitor campaign manager, make sure you configure your links to run via [unsubscribe].
<img src="data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAADIA..." width="150" height="40" alt="Company Logo" style="display: block; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px; color: #111111; font-weight: bold; border: 0;">Live Code Sandbox Test
How to Deploy inside Campaign Monitor
Copy the fixed VML or table wrapper code block from the remediation box above.
In Campaign Monitor, click the 'Source' button on your selected editable text region, or edit the template code files directly. Ensure you append the 'class="cs-editable"' flag if you need inline editing later.