Why Your Email Signature Could Be Hurting Your Business (And How to Fix It)

Is your email signature costing you business?

Many entrepreneurs make a critical mistake with their email signature: they use an image-only signature. Solo entrepreneurs often set those signatures up in Canva as an image file.

Here’s why that’s a disaster—and how to fix it.

The Problem with Image-Only Email Signatures

Your Signature Might Not Even Show Up

Most email programs block images by default due to security concerns. If your signature is just an image, recipients see… nothing. Your name, title, contact info—all gone.

It Kills Clicks & Engagement

A text-based signature lets people:

• Click on your website
• Copy/paste your phone number (or click to call if you have that set up)
• Easily save your contact details to their phone or computer

With an image-only signature, none of that works.

Spam Filters Might Block Your Emails

Spam filters often flag emails with image-only content as potential scams. This can lower your email deliverability, sending your messages straight to spam. Not just THIS message … it increases the likelihood that all future messages also go to spam.

It Looks Unprofessional

If someone can’t read or interact with your signature, it makes your emails look untrustworthy or incomplete.

Not everyone realizes that it’s only an image link that is broken … they may assume your entire email signature is broken. And not everyone understands how to make the change on their end to fix it to where they can see your image(s).

And it’s not just an email signature that is one single image that is an issue. Worse … some email programs attach each image from your email signature as a separate attachment to the email itself. So if your signature includes 10 images … there’s 10 attachments to your email. If you actually sent an attachment that your recipient needs to see, they may not even realize it’s there (because they’re ignoring all the spammy attachments).

How to Fix Your Email Signature (The Right Way)

✔ Use plain text for your name, title, and contact details.
✔ Make links clickable (website, social media, calendar) … but only have one or two as a best practice.
✔ Use a small logo image (if needed) but keep it secondary.

• Set up your email signature as an HTML table.
• Use image URL links for all images … this prevents them becoming attachments but they will be viewable in the signature. (This requires the image being hosted online such as on your own website).
• If you want to use “icons” I recommend also making those HTML friendly either as SVG images hosted on your website or by using another method.

A Winning Email Signature Format:

📌 John Doe
CEO, XYZ Company
📧 [email protected]
📞 +1 (555) 123-4567
🌐 xyz.com | 🔗 LinkedIn

(Small logo below)

Here are two samples of my email signatures – my primary one for clients and prospects, and a text-only version I use on some platforms or occasions.

Take Control of Your Email Signature

I’ve spent 30 years helping businesses optimize their marketing strategies—fixing small but crucial details like this that can impact professionalism and conversions.

Using best practices for everything in your business – especially something as often-used as an email signature – presents great benefit to your business.

Want help optimizing your business communication? I can create an HTML email signature for you, or even more for your entire business branding. 

Let’s chat.