Interviewer: Many experts recommend plain text emails for authenticity. You disagree.

James Park, CRO Specialist: That advice worked in 2010. Today, plain text looks lazy or like phishing attempts. We tested this across eight industries. HTML emails with proper design had 34% higher click-through rates on average compared to plain text equivalents with identical copy.

Interviewer: What about the personal touch that plain text provides?

James Park: Nobody thinks your plain text email is personally written anymore. Everyone knows it is automated. The personal touch argument is nostalgia, not data. Modern subscribers scan emails in seconds. Proper hierarchy, buttons, and visual structure help them find what matters faster than walls of text.

Interviewer: Are there exceptions?

James Park: Transactional emails and specific B2B contexts where you are actually writing individual messages. But for campaigns? HTML wins consistently. Even our founder updates perform better with minimal design structure versus plain text. The key is professional design, not flashy graphics.