FUD Relief: Nope, a plain http: <img src> in an email won’t fail to load
To be clear: (1) SSL is great, (2) everyone should use it, and (3) Marketo bundles SSL certs with every subscription. LP/Design Studio requests and branding/click tracking requests can both use https:, with no expense and little hassle.
However! If you pursue a FUD-free lifestyle like me, you mustn’t exaggerate the significance of SSL in the context of email images. This week, a rather wooly mar-myth came up on a thread about images not loading in Outlook:
… could be that you are using image links without an SSL certificate, please make sure your image links start with https instead of http.
This is simply not cause for concern. An <img src> that starts with http: will not cause image loading problems in Outlook because:
Outlook Web Access loads insecure images via a secure proxy, so they’re not insecure when the browser sees them
Outlook Desktop loads insecure images directly, but it’s not subjec
