The top 10 common mistakes IT teams make with email signatures (and how to fix them)

Email signatures are essential for promoting your brand, ensuring compliance, and increasing email security. They leave a lasting impression, support legal requirements, and protect sensitive information. IT teams are often tasked with managing and standardizing email signatures across organizations—a responsibility that can be challenging without the right approach.  

Common mistakes, such as inconsistent branding, non-compliance, and security gaps, can have lasting implications for your organization’s reputation and efficiency. In this article, we’ll explore the top 10 email signature mistakes IT teams make, their potential impact on your organization, and how to address them. By resolving these pitfalls, you can ensure consistent branding, improve compliance, and enhance email security company-wide. 

10 mistakes IT teams make when it comes to email signature management 

1. Failing to standardize email signatures across the organization  

The most common email signature mistake IT teams make? Not providing a standardized template across the company. Without clear guidelines, end users will create their own signature designs, leading to inconsistent formatting, missing details, and incorrect disclaimers.  

Many end users simply don't realize that their email signatures represent the company just as much as letterheads or business cards do. When companies allow end users to create their own email signature designs, it creates a poor impression with external recipients. 

2. Asking end users to copy-and-paste templates 

Many IT teams send out signature templates for end users to copy and paste into their email clients. The theory is that this will save time and reduce the risk of unauthorized designs. But how does IT make sure everyone does this correctly? More often than not, this approach leads to multiple versions of the template being created, each with varying levels of accuracy. 

So, what’s the solution? IT could ask employees to send their signatures for review once they've been implemented but imagine how many they'd have to check. If there’s a mistake, they’ll need to send over corrections, wait for updates, and review them again.  

Or IT could visit each user's desk (assuming they all work in the same location). But even in a small office of 20 employees, this wastes valuable time. Each update would require repeating the process for every end user, and it’s not an option for remote or hybrid workers. The result? Lost productivity, scheduling headaches, and unnecessary strain on your IT team. 

3. Ignoring legal and regulatory compliance requirements 

Email disclaimers are essential for protecting organizations from legal, financial, and reputational risks. In some industries and countries, such as the United States, they are even legally required. Without proper legal disclaimers in email signatures, businesses risk lawsuits, disputes, and reputational damage. Even if you avoid legal trouble, missing or incorrect disclaimers can seem unprofessional. This can hurt trust with clients, partners, and customers by showing non-compliance. 

However, IT teams can sometimes overlook these important compliance requirements when managing email signatures. This can happen due to a lack of understanding, insufficient training, or simply forgetting to include necessary legal details. Unfortunately, these oversights can lead to serious consequences. 

4. Not keeping signatures up-to-date 

Another common email signature mistake is treating updates as a set-and-forget task. In fact, email signatures need regular changes to stay accurate and relevant. Changes like an employee’s job title, contact information, or a company rebrand should be reflected immediately.  

However, IT teams often struggle to manage these updates effectively. With countless responsibilities and competing priorities, ensuring every email signature remains up-to-date can become overwhelming. Without an automated process, outdated signatures can easily slip through the cracks.

5. Overlooking security vulnerabilities  

Poorly designed or mismanaged email signatures can pose a surprising security risk to your organization. Vulnerabilities such as rogue links or poorly coded elements in signatures create opportunities for phishing attacks or malware. Yet, many IT teams overlook these risks, failing to prioritize proper email signature management. 

On top of security concerns, overly complex or image-heavy signatures can trigger spam filters. This can cause important emails to land in junk folders or never reach their recipient. Considering that 45% to 85% of emails are classified as spam, cluttered email signatures can unintentionally make the problem worse. For organizations, this affects communication efficiency and risks reducing trust with recipients.  

6. Not considering mobile compatibility  

Over half of all emails are opened on mobile devices, so it's important your email signature looks good on any screen. This can be tricky since HTML in email signatures works differently than on web pages. There are many more email clients than web browsers, and each one interprets HTML in different ways. On top of that, every time an email is replied to, the sender’s email software restructures the entire message in HTML, often disrupting the signature design—especially on mobile devices. 

iOS devices add another layer of complexity. The default email app on iPhones and iPads often removes HTML from signatures altogether, causing emails to be sent in plain text. This means a signature that looks perfect on a desktop might not display at all on an iPhone. Fixing these issues can require repeated HTML adjustments, leading to extra work and unnecessary frustration. 

As a result, IT teams often avoid optimizing email signatures for mobile devices, deciding it’s not worth the effort. But ignoring mobile compatibility means over half of your recipients will never see the signature as intended. 

7. Relying on manual processes  

Even when IT finds the time, updating everyone’s signature manually is tedious and time-consuming. If the template uses HTML, test emails must be sent to check the design renders correctly. This can only be done during periods of low mail flow, often outside of standard working hours. 

For businesses using Microsoft 365 (Office 365) or Exchange Online, signatures automatically stack at the bottom of an email thread. On Google Workspace, you can’t paste HTML code directly into the editor, and the code must be under 10,000 characters. This is challenging when it comes to complex designs. 

Then, there’s the risk of incomplete or incorrect contact information. Some end users might have work mobile numbers or direct lines, while others don’t. This can lead to blank fields appearing in email signatures. While manual fixes do exist, they don’t always fully solve this issue. 

Images in email signatures can create more problems. They might be stripped out or show up as attachments. Embedding images increases the file size of an email and often means the image is added as an attachment. Hosting images online can help, but email clients may block them. This forces recipients to mark the email as safe and manually download the images. 

This also doesn’t consider the need to create specific mailflow rules to ensure a signature is applied correctly. These can become exceptionally complicated for larger companies with hundreds of employees.

8. Ignoring requests from the marketing team  

When it comes to signature updates, IT often aren't the driving force behind them. In fact, it’s usually the marketing department. That's because email signatures are valuable real estate for branding, promotions, and communication alignment.  

Marketing teams see signatures as a chance to enhance brand consistency, promote campaigns, and drive engagement with promotional banners, CTAs, and imagery. However, adding these requires the IT team to update every user’s signature, often under tight deadlines for time-sensitive promotions. 

But with IT teams already stretched thin, these requests can quickly become a hassle. As a result, signature updates might be delayed or ignored, making it harder for marketing to integrate them into campaigns. The challenge lies in IT owning the email signature management process, leaving marketing with limited control.  

9. Not using analytics for email signatures  

Most businesses use analytics to track website performance. However, few realize they can also use them for email signatures. Analytics can reveal how many clicks your signature gets and which elements are most engaging. This information is crucial for optimizing designs and understanding the impact of marketing campaigns. 

However, IT teams often overlook this potential since manually setting up tracking links and monitoring results takes time and resources. Without this data, it's challenging to measure the success of email signature templates and make informed decisions for future updates.  

10 Not using third-party email signature software  

The final common email signature mistake is not using a third-party solution. Managing email signatures manually or relying on IT-developed methods might seem cost-effective, but they often create more issues than they solve. This can quickly become a complex, time-consuming process with plenty of room for error. 

Surprisingly, many IT professionals don’t realize that email signature management solutions exist. Some haven’t heard of them, while others might not yet see the value. But if updating email signatures is so frustrating and takes up too much time, why not invest in something to simplify this? Businesses already use third-party solutions to automate and streamline other tasks, so it only makes sense to do the same for email signatures. 

Avoiding common email signature mistakes with Exclaimer 

Exclaimer's email signature software makes it easy for IT teams to manage email signatures. Instead of relying on processes that often lead to email signature mistakes, everything is managed from a single, user-friendly platform. 

• Centralized control: Manage employee email signatures on any device, from anywhere. Keep your branding consistent and stay legally compliant without hassle.  

• Automatic updates: Design pre-approved templates and let the platform handle updates automatically. Ensure every end user has accurate contact details on every email.   

• Customizable for teams: Have different departments? Easily group employees and customize signatures for specific teams or recipients.  

• Flexible messaging: Set up unique signatures for replies, forwards, or specific conversations to keep your communication on point.  

• Easy scheduling: Plan signature updates in advance and apply them outside work hours for a smooth, seamless process.  

• Analytics tracking: Get insights into signature performance, engagement, and click-through rates to improve the effectiveness of future campaigns. 

• Pass ownership to marketing teams: Give marketing the ability to manage and update signatures. Free up IT teams for more important and strategic tasks. 

Make email signatures a simple, seamless asset for your team  

Updating email signatures takes up a significant amount of an IT team's time. On top of that, managing email signatures can be unpredictable. Issues like signatures stacking at the bottom of email chains, missing contact details, or images not displaying properly have been a persistent challenge for years. This is why so many common email signature mistakes occur.  

With Exclaimer, managing email signatures becomes a streamlined process that saves time and minimizes issues for IT teams. With centralized control over email signatures, IT can ensure consistent branding and compliance across all corporate emails. This means every employee will have the correct signature automatically added to their emails, no matter what device they use or where they are. 

Make sure you never have to deal with common email signature mistakes again. Get yourself a free trial or book an online demo of Exclaimer today.