Email Not Displaying Correctly in Gmail: Fix Padding & Margin Collapsing for Brevo (Sendinblue) for SaaS Product Operations
SaaS communications (onboarding guides, product updates, dashboard reports) require clean tech-first typography and functional UI component layout rendering. Below is the targeted integration guide to fix Padding & Margin Collapsing inside Gmail Web (Desktop) templates when using Brevo (Sendinblue).
Technical Breakdown
Gmail Web (Desktop) uses the Goog/WebKit Layout Engine which lacks support for standard rendering rules. This causes Padding & Margin Collapsing elements to break or collapse when rendering templates.
Brevo (Sendinblue) Behaviors
Brevo's rendering system injects inline spacing helpers to support their responsive editor, which can cause column overlaps in Outlook. Using explicit table alignments is required. Verify that your dashboard report layouts use nested tables. Flexbox layouts will fail in legacy Outlook clients used by enterprise software buyers.
Remediation Code Block
To ensure spacing works reliably, apply all structural paddings directly to HTML td elements inside tables. Do not apply paddings or margins to raw divs, as Outlook will strip them. For vertical spacing, use explicit spacer tables or empty rows. In your Brevo (Sendinblue) campaign manager, make sure you configure your links to run via {{ unsubscribe }}.
<table role="presentation" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="100%">
<tr>
<td height="20" style="font-size: 1px; line-height: 1px;"> </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="padding: 15px; background-color: #f1f1f1;">
Content with padding and margin
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td height="20" style="font-size: 1px; line-height: 1px;"> </td>
</tr>
</table>Live Code Sandbox Test
How to Deploy inside Brevo (Sendinblue)
Copy the fixed VML or table wrapper code block from the remediation box above.
Open Brevo's template canvas, select the element you wish to configure, click 'Edit HTML' or insert a standalone 'HTML' content block, and paste the code.