by Natalie Tarasova
April 22, 2020
Reading Time: 9 minutes
Gmail signatures: all you need to know in 2020
#1 What is the email signature and why do you need it?
Every day you and your colleagues send tons of emails. Moreover, you receive twice as many emails as you and your colleagues send every day. So I’d like to ask you to think for a minute about the most recent emails you received in your inbox. Which of them do you remember?
I bet the emails with kick-ass signatures occurred to you! For instance, I’ve been thinking about Jed, because of his game faces in the email signature.
It means that, along with increasing email noise, the role of an email signature is increasing too. If your emails use eye-catching and cool email signatures, you have the chance to stand out.
An email signature can also help you to promote your business and generate customers’ engagement without any extra marketing effort. If your email signature is quite simple and just looks like plain text, it still should be pretty smart and useful.
So it’s time to answer the question: Is your email signature leaving a lasting impression?
If not, our article is for you. It includes the answers to all the questions you have about email signatures.
#2 What exactly should your email signature include?
It typically includes the following information:
Full name- Job title
- Name of the company you work for (with a link to the website)
- Contact information (but don’t go as far as adding your personal phone number or email)
- Social media links (optional)
- A disclaimer – Privacy policy, etc. (optional)
But don't forget to keep it short.
For example, the sign-off below should include just the highlighted piece of the text, probably with some improvements, but without losing its value.
I don’t think anybody will read the whole text. Will you?
Provide all the necessary information about you and your company, but keep it short – 4-5 lines is enough. Just recognize the goal of your signature and cut everything that doesn't help you to achieve this goal.
#3 What goals can you achieve with email signatures?
An email signature can be extremely valuable for:
- Fostering trust with potential clients
- Generating new leads
- Increasing web traffic
- Increasing social traffic
- Promoting your content according to the content marketing strategy
Remember every employee in the company emails customers, partners, and stakeholders all day long.
So don’t miss the chance to use your emails to grow your website traffic, for instance. The more emails you send, the closer you get to achieving your goal.
#4 How do you write a professional email signature?
You should stick to the following simple rules to use a signature like a pro:
Establish your goals
Without purpose, there is no way.
For starters, you may ask yourself why you need an email signature.
If you want your social media channel to become an additional contact channel with your prospects, or just want to drive traffic to your social media profiles, you should add social media links to your signature. You can add your professional or personal social accounts – it depends on what you’re aiming at.
If you create a free e-book or webinar, or you’re going to host a conference, you should promote it in your email signature. When someone receives your email, they will automatically get this information too.
Don’t be shy about including your personal photo
Either your personal photo or company logo helps to catch the recipient’s attention.
Using a logo in a signature is a way to remind your recipients about your company. It’s a free way to advertise your business one more time. Later, a recipient may not even remember where they know your logo from, but it will stay in their mind.
According to a study from MIT neuroscientists, images that contain people are the most memorable. But a personal headshot gives you even more. It helps you to build trust with your recipients. Nowadays people don’t have a feeling of a real person behind signs and computer screens. The picture in the signature helps to remind them that it’s communication with a real person. It is especially important when you haven’t met the person in real life. It’s better not to hide your face.
If you use a photo in your email signature, it needs to be a professional image. Although, frankly, it doesn’t necessarily have to be taken by a professional to look professional.
Use these tips to choose the best headshot for a signature:
- Yes, a headshot is better than a full-body photo because you should show your face to the recipients
- Pay attention to the image size, because the larger the image size, the longer it takes to load
- Don't use a busy background as it will distract the reader
Don’t overuse images, colors and fonts.
Your signature is a powerful tool to affect your potential clients and partners. This “tool” will work for you if it is simple and easy to read. So please don’t use a variety of colors and fonts, and only use one image in your signature. This will help your signature to be a nice little handy detail that could help lead your readers to the right actions after reading your email.
Your signature should be mobile-friendly.
If you’re an email marketer, this is nothing new to you. When creating an email signature, make sure everything displays correctly and every link and icon is tappable.
Don’t forget about a call-to-action.
It’s time to remember your goals because a CTA can help your prospects to take the first step in the right direction. We recommend you use a clear call-to-action with a bold or bright color. A good CTA should also:
- Not be too pushy – let people know that you have something cool, not just another selling scam
- Use the buttons on the banner to make it look clickable, or use actionable links
- Resize the banner to make it noticeable, but not distracting
- Use powerful words that easily draw attention and get noticed
Note: if you use the original Gmail signature, you should use Docsify to track which links are clicked in your signature and which are not.
Test your hypotheses.
If you want to check how signatures affect your conversions, you should test them.
Testing one hypothesis at a time will help you see exactly what is working and what isn’t. You can test everything we’ve already mentioned above. You can start a battle between:
- Buttons and links
- Personal image and company logo
- More and less information
- Plain text and design
- Different colors and fonts
- And so on...
And, finally, don’t forget to change your email signature from time to time. You should do this if your aims have changed, and just because viewing the same email signature over and over again can make it annoying and easy to forget.
#5 Four ways to add a signature in Gmail.
1. 
[native] Add Gmail Signature on desktop
It’s pretty easy to add a signature using default settings in Gmail. Just go through the following steps:
- Step 1. Go to Settings in Gmail and select the Settings option from the menu
- Step 2. Enable signature option
- Step 3. Create your signature
- Step 4. Save your signature
That's all.
Gmail will automatically insert your text as a signature at the end of the message content in each email you send.
2. [native] Gmail Mobile Signature
As you may know, you can send emails using Gmail on a mobile phone or tablet in two ways:
- Via the Gmail website (mobile web version)
- Via the Gmail app
It is possible to use different signatures when you send emails through the website from a computer or mobile. To customize your signature when you send emails from the mobile version of the website, you should follow these steps:
- Step 1. Tap the menu icon at the top left of the screen
- Step 2. Choose the settings icon at the top right
- Step 3. Toggle the Mobile Signature option to the on/enabled position
- Step 4. Enter the signature in the text box
- Step 5. Tap Apply to save the changes
If you use the mobile app for sending emails when you are outside the office instead of the mobile version, you can also add a specific email signature to the Gmail app.
To do it you should:
- Step 1. Open the Gmail app and tap on the menu icon in the top left corner
- Step 2. Scroll to the bottom and tap on the Settings icon
- Step 3. Choose the email account that you want to modify
- Step 4. Tap Signature settings (on iOS device) or Signature (on Android device)
3. [native] Multiple Email Signatures in Gmail
Actually, this option is not available to all Gmail users because Google is deploying it slowly, but I think you should know about this convenient Gmail feature even if you aren’t lucky enough to have it right now.
So why do you need it?
If you use aliases and you want to use different signatures for each of them, editing your signature on a per-email basis can get annoying. Third-party apps have already allowed you to use different signatures for each account and, thank God, Google has finally understood that they have to add this feature in Gmail itself.
Here’s how to set it up:
- Step 1. Tap the gear icon in the top right corner
- Step 2. Tap on the Settings icon
- Step 3. Scroll down to the “Signature” field – if it is available for your account, you should see an option to create a new signature
- Step 4. Don’t forget to give a name to your signature, because it will help you to select the exact signature you need when you’re composing or replying to an email
- Step 5. Click to the pen icon in your compose window to select the email signature to insert in the email
So I hope we’ll see it in every Gmail account soon.
4. [third-party tools] Special tools for email signatures
There are a number of email signature generators you can use for free, or for the price of a cup of coffee. Despite their low price, they give you the ability to create a really cool signature.
1. Si.gnatu.re
This is a pretty easy tool you should definitely try because it allows you to create a signature with:
- Unique texts and design (I mean you can customize texts, font types, font size, signature background and width, and so on)
- Logo, selfie, and even banners
- Many social buttons
After you create a signature, you’ll get an HTML code. Then you just need to copy and paste the HTML code of your signature into the body of your email.
- Step 1. Chose the Download option for your HTML code
- Step 2. Open your downloaded file in your browser and type short key Ctrl+A to select all the signature
- Step 3. Go to Gmail (Signature settings) and insert it with a short key Ctrl +C then save your changes
Unfortunately, if you lose the link to your created signature (and I bet you will), you won’t be able to edit your signature in Si.gnatu.re. But this is easy to solve. You can pay just $5 one time and you’ll be able to link the tool to your Gmail account so you never lose the link.
- Website: https://si.gnatu.re/
- Free plan: Yes (editing open for 30 days by link)
- Pricing: From $5 to $35 (one-off cost)
2. Gimmio (formerly ZippySig)
This also allows you to create your own email signatures and offers advanced customization options. But it differs from the first tool we mentioned because it allows changing layout options and field labels. So, as a result, you can easily make different signatures for each member of a team.
- Website: https://gimm.io
- Free plan: Yes (editing open for 30 days by link)
- Pricing: From $6 per user per month
3. WiseStamp
WiseStamp is also an email signature generator that helps you create good-looking and professional email signatures for all accounts. You can even easily add live RSS feeds that help you distribute your latest social or blog content. I also want to draw your attention to the fact that, if you use the Free version, all your emails will be sent with the WiseStamp branding.
- Website: https://webapp.wisestamp.com/
- Free plan: Yes (with their branding)
- Pricing: From $5.80 per user per month (billed annually + 30-day money-back guarantee)
4. Newoldstamp
Newoldstamp is an email signature generator compatible with different email clients and devices providing email signature banner campaigns. It provides built-in analytics that gives you the opportunity to track views, clicks, and improve your CTR rate by optimizing the signature and enhancing email signature marketing campaigns.
- Website: https://newoldstamp.com/
- Free plan: Yes (just 1 basic signature)
- Pricing: From $36 per 25 signatures/per month
5. MySignature
This is another email signature generator that allows you to get started very quickly. MySignature gives you the opportunity to import all the necessary data from social networks such as LinkedIn or Facebook. Your signatures will be well optimized for mobile devices. This tool doesn’t have a free plan, but it has a low cost.
- Website: https://mysignature.io/
- Free plan: No
- Pricing: From $4 per signature/per month (paid annually)
