The reference minimal sales signature: brand wordmark, vertical divider, name, title, nothing else. It reads instantly and never breaks across clients, the baseline every AE template should start from.
what to put in an email signature
What to put in an email signature
Most email signatures fail by addition, not omission. A second logo, a quote, a third social icon — each feels harmless and together they bury the one thing you wanted a reply about. This is the anatomy: what to put in an email signature, what is optional by role, what to cut, and the format and legal constraints almost every guide skips.
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TL;DR
A good email signature has five things: your name, your role and company, one reliable contact path, one deliberate call to action, and a restrained brand mark. Everything else — photo, phone, social, pronouns, address, disclaimer — is optional and should earn its place by your role. If you cannot say why a line is there, remove it.
What to put in an email signature, in order
These five elements belong in almost every professional signature. They answer the only two questions a recipient has: who is this, and what do I do next?
1. Your name
Full name, the way you want to be addressed. This is the one line that is never optional. Make it the largest text in the signature.
2. Your role and company
One line: title at company. It sets context for how the recipient should weigh the message — a founder, an account executive, and a legal partner are read differently before the first word of reply.
3. One reliable contact path
The reply itself is usually the contact path, so do not list every channel you own. Add the one alternative that matters for your role: a phone for field sales, a website for a brand-new company, nothing at all for an internal operator who lives in the thread already.
4. One deliberate call to action
The single most useful next step, made the most visually distinct element. For client-facing roles this is almost always a booking link. One action converts; two compete; three are noise.
5. A restrained brand mark
A wordmark in one accent color, or a small logo, or nothing. The goal is recognition, not decoration. The strongest examples in our collection hold their identity through type and a single color so they never show a broken image box — see the annotated examples for what that looks like.
The optional elements (earn their place by role)
None of these are wrong. They are conditional, useful for some roles, clutter for others. Add one only if you can say which it is for you.
- Photo. A real headshot helps relationship-driven roles — sales, partnerships, recruiting, executives. It hurts when it is a casual selfie or your role gains no trust from a face.
- Phone. Include it only if you actually take calls. A number nobody dials is a line nobody needs.
- Social links. One or two that prove your work: LinkedIn for most, a portfolio for creatives. Never a full platform row.
- Pronouns. Low cost, increasingly expected in many workplaces; a reasonable default to keep.
- Address. Relevant for real-estate, legal, and regulated finance roles where location is part of trust; dead weight for remote software roles.
- Credentials. A CPA, Esq., or license number where the field expects it. Demote it; it follows the name, it does not lead.
- One-line value prop. A short, specific statement of what you or the company does. More memorable than a title alone, when it is specific, not a slogan.
What to leave out
Most signature problems are here. Every item below is common and every one costs you the thing you wanted: a clear reply.
- Inspirational quotes: they date you and say nothing about the message.
- Every social icon: a six-icon row is a decision the reader will not make.
- Animated GIFs and banners: most clients block them, and a blocked banner looks broken.
- A leftover "Sent from my iPhone" above your real signature.
- Oversized logos: they wrap on mobile and dominate short replies.
- Two or three competing calls to action: pick one.
- A full legal disclaimer on every message regardless of context: covered below.
Order, hierarchy, and length
Arrange it the way it is read: name first and largest, role and company next, then the contact line, with the call to action as the one element that visually breaks the pattern. Four to six lines is right for most roles.
Length is a symptom, not a target. If your signature is long, the fix is almost never tighter spacing — it is removing a line that never earned its place. Design in real, forgiving measurements rather than a pixel-perfect layout, because email clients reflow and squish content you do not control.
Format and technical constraints
What you include is half the job; whether it survives the inbox is the other half.
Host your images. A signature image must live at a stable public URL. A local-file or temporary link breaks for the recipient — see email signature image hosting for why every common shortcut fails. A broken image makes the whole signature look careless. Hosting the image for you is the one thing we deliberately solve — you can open the editor and export a signature whose image is already hosted.
Respect the limits. Per Google's Gmail Help, a Gmail signature is capped at 10,000 characters and an embedded image counts toward that total. Microsoft's Outlook documentation shows Outlook is the strictest common client for images and differs by version. Build with tables and inline styles, include a plain-text fallback, and test on a phone; a large share of email is read there. The full breakdown is in the HTML email signature code guide.
For the install step once the content is decided, see the Gmail signature guide, the Outlook signature guide, and the Apple Mail signature guide.
Accessibility
A signature is content, so the same rules apply. Use real text rather than an image of text — screen readers cannot read a name baked into a PNG, and neither can search or AI crawlers.
For images, the W3C Web Accessibility Initiative guidance applies directly: an informative image, like a logo wordmark that states the company name, needs descriptive alt text; a purely decorative divider takes an empty alt attribute. Keep accent colors at a readable contrast against the background — a pale grey role line is a common, avoidable failure.
Do you legally need a disclaimer?
This is the most repeated piece of bad signature advice, so be precise about it. In the United States, the FTC CAN-SPAM Act governs commercial email — messages whose primary purpose is advertising or promoting a product or service. Those messages must use accurate header and subject information, identify themselves as advertising, include a valid physical postal address, and offer a working opt-out that is honored promptly.
Ordinary one-to-one and transactional email is not the target of those rules. The confidentiality and "this email may contain privileged information" blocks you see on every law-firm message are firm policy, not a general legal requirement — and where they are required, they should be a small, visually demoted block, not the loudest thing in the signature. Confirm your own obligations with your organization; treat the law as the floor, not the design.
By role, in one line each
- Sales. Name, title, company, booking link, LinkedIn. The booking link is the CTA. See the sales email signature set.
- Founder. Name, founder title, company, one useful link. Credible without corporate clutter.
- Legal. Name, firm, direct line; disclaimer present but demoted. See the legal email signature set.
- Creative. Name, role, the portfolio link that proves the work, one accent. The signature is a sample of taste.
- Operator. Name, role, company. Often nothing else; internal threads do not need a contact stack.
Browse all of them in the templates gallery.
Key takeaways
- Five essentials: name, role and company, one contact path, one CTA, a restrained brand mark.
- Everything else is conditional: keep it only if you can say which role it serves.
- Length is a symptom; cut the line that never earned its place rather than tightening spacing.
- Host images, use real text, mind the Gmail character limit, and test on a phone.
- A disclaimer is firm policy, not a blanket legal requirement for one-to-one email.
Put it together
The editor starts you from a real signature, keeps the structure tight, and hosts the image so nothing breaks in the recipient's inbox.
Build your signatureQuestions about what to put in an email signature
What should you put in an email signature?
Five essentials: your name, your role and company, one reliable contact path, one deliberate call to action, and a restrained brand mark. Everything else is optional and should earn its place by your role. If you cannot say why a line exists, cut it.
What should you not put in an email signature?
Inspirational quotes, every social icon, animated GIFs, a leftover "Sent from my iPhone", oversized logos, two or three competing calls to action, and a full legal disclaimer on every message regardless of context. Each one dilutes the reply you actually want.
How long should an email signature be?
Four to six lines for most roles. Sales can justify a sixth for a booking link; legal sometimes needs a separate, visually demoted disclaimer block. Length is a symptom — if it is long, you are usually including things that have not earned their place.
Should an email signature include a photo?
Only when a face builds trust for your role, such as sales, partnerships, recruiting, or an executive seat. Use a real headshot hosted at a public URL, never a casual selfie or a local-file image that breaks. If it would not work on your LinkedIn, leave it out.
Do you legally need a disclaimer in your email signature?
Usually not for ordinary one-to-one email. The US CAN-SPAM Act governs commercial and bulk messages, where a physical postal address and a working opt-out are required. Confidentiality and legal disclaimers are firm policy, not a general legal requirement. Confirm with your own organization.
What is the best format for an email signature?
Real text rather than an image of text, one accent color plus neutral text, one web-safe or system font, and any image hosted at a stable public URL. Build it with tables and inline styles so it survives Outlook and renders on mobile.
Should an email signature include social media links?
Only the one or two that prove your work for your role — LinkedIn for most professionals, a portfolio for creatives, sometimes a relevant personal handle. A full row of every platform reads as noise and gives the reader no clear next step.
Where should the call to action go in a signature?
After your identity and near your contact details, as the single most visually distinct element. Use one action, usually a booking link for client-facing roles. Competing CTAs cancel each other out; pick the one that matches the email you send most.
Do email signature images need alt text?
Yes if the image carries meaning, such as a logo wordmark that states the company name. Purely decorative dividers take an empty alt attribute. The W3C guidance for informative versus decorative images applies directly to signature logos and headshots.
Is an email signature necessary?
For professional mail, yes — it answers who you are and how to act on the message without the reader hunting. But a bad signature is worse than none. A two-line name-and-role signature beats a ten-line one with quotes, banners, and three links.