How to Create HTML Email Signature in Gmail

Email Signatures in Google Workspace

Google Workspace Handbook  >  Email Signatures > How to Create HTML Email Signature

How to Create an HTML Email Signature on Google Workspace

HTML email signature is a great way to convey your brand’s message to the existing customers, partners and leads.

Not only will they show the world what your brand is about, but also they have a potential to make your email memorable. Moreover, it’s an additional channel where you can put banners and communicate temporary deals.

As an IT-Manager, or someone who is looking to standardize your email signatures as a Workspace user, you might already know that Google Workspace doesn’t have a built-in feature to create standardized email signatures.

However, there are several workaround to create email signatures on Google Workspace. In this article, we will explore each of them.

What are your options

If your organization uses Google Workspace for emails, there are several options for you. You can create a standard template on Google Docs and ask your employees to create their own signatures based on that template.

This is the most budget-friendly option. However, as you might have guessed, executing it can be quite problematic. It becomes challenging to keep track of which employees carried out the task and which ones require assistance. Additionally, enforcing your organization’s design becomes challenging.

Another option is to create email signatures using browser extensions. This may make the process easier for some users, but ultimately, you don’t have capability to control your company’s email signature and to enforce it to all users.

The easiest option that gives you more control and convenience is to use Google Workspace Marketplace plugins. BulkSignature is one example of a such plugin. The apps like BulkSignature help you to standardize your email signatures across all users who need email signatures. The benefit of those tools is that, once the template is created, the tools take care of the rest.

Keep in mind that tools like BulkSignature often require a monthly or yearly subscription, so if you are budget-conscious, they may not be suitable for you in a long term. However, you can still utilize the free trial functionalities provided by BulkSignature in a short term.

Lastly, there is also the most inconvenient option, and that requires programming skills. You can use Gmail API to standardize your Google Workspace email signatures. It requires several hours of coding.

Even if you are willing to find an in-house engineer who is willing to work on email signatures, in the long run, it might cost you more than using Google Workspace plugins.

Why HTML Email Signature?

You might send your email signature as an image attachment or as a text disclaimer. Both options are pretty easy to do. However, they both don’t look as appealing when you view from your email.

See for yourself. Here are 3 email signature examples for you.

Email signature created in HTML format:

As you can see your email signature aligns with the rest of the message, because it is in html format. You can also customize the html email signature with your own details like your name, your phone number and a company address.

Now what happens if you use a disclaimer on Google Workspace instead of an HTML email signature?

If you attach the disclaimer instead of an email signature, all of your users will see the same message. You will not be able to customize each email signature to the employee’s personal and job details. Therefore, your options of using employees name, job title and address will be limited.

If you choose to use the Google Workspace’s disclaimer feature for email signatures, it’s better to use it for banners.

How to add a banner as a disclaimer on Google Workspace

Go to  Apps > Google Workspace > Gmail > Compliance menu. Click configure on append footer section.

On the next screen, name your footer in the first text box then insert an image using the insert photo icon:

Adding Disclaimer to Google Workspace

Put the url of your banner. If you don’t know where to host your image, you can always upload your banner image to your website or you can upload an image to your Google Drive.

Click save and this is how your banner will appear on your messages.

If you use email signature software for your business, it can do both customized email signatures and also banners. If you don’t use the email signature software, then you might only be limited to using banners or attaching your email signature as an image.

Email Signature as a Static Image

If you want to attach the email signature as an image, follow these steps. First, design an email signature for yourself and then upload it into a publicly available domain. You can use your organization’s cdn, website or you can use your google drive.

Next, go to Gmail Settings, signature and click attach the image button:

Uploading image in settings

Now click on the image and modify the size to make it large. The original size will probably be too large.

Now watch your email signature appear as a static image in your emails.

Email Signature as Image

As you can notice from this example, the image signature doesn’t align well with the rest of your message. It is very hard to make the font sizes appear in the same way as the rest of your message.

As a web-master or an IT manager, you can develop instruction for your colleagues to do the same.

However, as you might see, this can be quite time-consuming.

Can I use Canva to create email signatures?

Canva is great for creating the visual aspects of your email signatures. However, you as a webmaster or a Google Workspace admin, you will still need to figure out a way to standardize the signatures.

This might be a lot of training and a lot of hours of manual work from each employee.

How to create an HTML company-wide email signature

  1. Signup for a BulkSignature’s free trial account by following the Google Workspace marketplace link

  2. Login to BulkSignature and Import your users

  3. Create the html template on “Manage Signatures → Create a Custom Signature” menu and save as a draft

BulkSignature diagram
  1. Choose the org. units, groups or department on second step

  2. Publish your email signature to a Google Workspace

It’s as easy as this in BulkSignature!

 

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The example of a sign off and an email signature in a formal email.