It has been bane of email marketing for designers and marketers for years, but it has just been revealed that background images can now finally display in Outlook 2007.

With a few modifications to the code, here is how to set it up:

First you have to add xmlns: v=“urn:schemas-microsoft-com:vml” to your html tag.

Secondly, within your style tag, add the following selector:

v\:* {
behavior: url(#default#VML);
display:inline-block;

Then finally, within your table cell, you must add:

<td width="600" height="402" valign="top" bgcolor="#000000" background="images/yourimage.gif">
<!—[if gte mso 9]>
<v:image id="image" style='position:absolute; height:402px; width:600px;top:0;left:0;border:0;z-index:1;' src="images/yourimage.gif"/>
<v:shape id="text" style='position:absolute; height:402px; width:600px;top:0;left:0;border:0;z-index:2;'>
<![endif]—>
<p align="center" style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; color:#ffffff; font-size:18px;">This is the text in front of the background image.</p>
<!—[if gte mso 9]>
</v:shape>
<![endif]—>

Suite26 now allows you to add special tags into your e-mail campaigns which will be replaced with actual values when your campaign is sent.

You can use these tags for adding in the day of the week, month name and year, among other things.

These tags can be added into your campaign by using the Insert Special Tag area when editing your campaign content.