Can I use anchor links in my emails?

EcoSend doesn't currently support local anchor links — links that jump to another section within the same email.

That's because anchor links aren't widely or consistently supported across email clients, so they can lead to a broken and unpredictable experience for your recipients.

Why anchor links are unreliable in email

When you add a link like #intro in an email, you're hoping the reader's email client will scroll to the section in your message with id="intro".

In practice, some email clients don't know how to handle that. They might:

• Ignore the link completely
• Jump to the wrong place
• Behave in a way that doesn't match what you intended

Support varies widely across clients. For an impartial breakdown, see HTML anchor links on Can I email.

Anchor links vs jump links — same HTML, different context

A common follow-up question: if anchor links are unreliable in email, why is it fine to link from an email to a specific section on a web page?

The short answer is where the link opens.

Link type	Example	Works reliably?
Local anchor (within email)	#intro	No — depends on the email client
Jump link (email → website)	https://www.example.com/page.html#intro	Yes — opens in the browser

Both use the same HTML pattern: a URL with a # fragment pointing at a section ID. The difference is that jump links take the reader out of their inbox and into a web browser, where anchor links are well supported.

Example

If your email contains:

<a href="#intro">Read the introduction</a>

…an older or less capable email client may not scroll to your intro section — or may not do what you expect at all.

If your email instead links out to a page on your site:

<a href="https://www.example.com/newsletter-june.html#intro">Read the introduction</a>

…the reader clicks through to their browser, and the page scrolls to the intro section as usual.

Local anchor links are absolutely fine on the web, and fine to use from an email linking out to the web. The issue is using them within an email to link to another section of that same email.

What to do with long email content

If you have a lot to say in one email, local anchor links can feel like an obvious way to help readers navigate — but the inconsistent support makes them a risky choice.

There's another practical concern: very long emails can be clipped by inbox clients like Gmail, which hides content beyond a size threshold and shows a "View entire message" link instead. Readers may never see the sections you linked to.

A simple, reliable approach:

1. Publish the full content on a page on your website.
2. Include a shorter summary in your email — for example, the first ~500 words and your key message.
3. Link to the full page for readers who want more.
4. Use jump links in the email that point to sections on that web page (e.g. https://example.com/article#pricing), so readers land in the right place when they click through.

To check whether your campaigns are at risk of clipping, see how to avoid Gmail clipping and how to test HTML size.