Hi ​@Annebelbylotte 

Thank you for posting in the Community!

This issue is typically related to encoding problems or the way Klaviyo processes static product information. Here's a step-by-step guide to troubleshoot and resolve the issue of question marks replacing your content in emails:

1. Check for special characters:

• Root Cause: Sometimes, special characters (like apostrophes, quotation marks, or accented letters) in product names or descriptions may not render correctly, causing question marks.
• Solution: Ensure all special characters are encoded properly. Use Unicode (UTF-8) encoding for text in your product descriptions or any manually added content.

2. Validate URLs:

• Root Cause: If product URLs are being altered (e.g., by Shopify or your website), the linked data may no longer align with what Klaviyo pulls. Klaviyo's previews might display correctly because they use cached or local data, but live emails rely on real-time links.
• Solution:
  • Double-check that all static URLs in your campaign are permanent and not subject to changes or redirection.

If the above doesn’t work. You can also format the image url link dynamically as such: {{ event.image|default’Your generic image’ }}

Hope that helps or else let me know! :-) 

Christian Nørbjerg Enger
Partner & CPO
Web: Segmento.dk
LinkedIn: @christianfromsegmento
Voldbjergvej 22b, 8240 Risskov

Hi,

This issue with question marks appearing in your emails is frustrating, especially when it impacts your professional image and revenue. While Klaviyo's suggestion to use dynamic products may not align with your static product-focused strategy.

1. Check Encoding and Special Characters

Ensure that the content, including product URLs, is properly encoded in UTF-8. Sometimes, special characters, symbols, or non-standard characters in URLs or text can cause rendering issues.

Replace any non-ASCII characters or spaces in the URLs with properly encoded equivalents (e.g., use %20 for spaces).

2. Verify URL and Link Tracking: If link tracking is enabled, Klaviyo may rewrite URLs during sending. This can occasionally introduce errors, especially with static URLs.

Test disabling link tracking for specific URLs or check the rewritten URLs in the email source code post-send to ensure they are accurate.

3. Image and Link Placement: If the question marks appear in images or buttons, ensure that the source URLs for these assets are static and properly hosted.

Avoid directly pasting URLs from external sources—use Klaviyo’s file manager or another reliable hosting solution to ensure consistent behavior.

4. Recreate Problematic Content: Sometimes, content glitches occur due to invisible formatting issues. Recreate the affected blocks in Klaviyo from scratch rather than duplicating previous templates.

5. Test Across Email Clients: Conduct thorough testing across different email clients (e.g., Gmail, Outlook, Apple Mail) to identify if the issue is specific to certain platforms. Use tools like Litmus or Email on Acid for comprehensive testing.

6. Follow-Up with Klaviyo: Share specific examples of affected emails with Klaviyo, including screenshots, error occurrences, and exact steps you’ve taken. This will help them investigate further.

Request detailed clarification on their recommendation for dynamic products and how it impacts the static product setup.

Interim Fix

While resolving the root cause, you could include fallback text or images to ensure recipients still see meaningful content, even if some links or elements fail.

I hope these steps help. Let us know if you uncover more details or need further assistance.

I assume these images are links to the relevant products — are the links broken, or just the images? I.e. if you click one of the question marks does it still link to the product you put at that spot in the email?

If you send a campaign to yourself, do the images show correctly in your inbox, or do you get question marks there too?

Do the question marks appear immediately when an email arrives, or does the email look good when it first reaches your inbox and then get worse over time?

Does this happen for all recipients, or only specific email providers? Some email providers (such as GMail) cache image links, which could make a difference if the issue is related to changing product URLs?

​@Isikyus Thank you for your reply. The links are not broken, if I click the question mark it goes to the right product. It’s just the image which is not showing correctly. 

If I send the campaign to myself I get the question marks to, in Outlook as well as Gmail. 

The question marks appear immediately..

Do you maybe have a solution for me? :)

Hello ​@Annebelbylotte 

To address the issue, ensure the images are hosted on a secure HTTPS server and are publicly accessible. Verify that the image URLs are absolute and not restricted by permissions. Use standard formats such as JPEG or PNG and optimize the file size for better loading. Test the campaign in multiple email clients to confirm compatibility. Additionally, review your email platform settings to ensure no blocking issues and include fallback text using the alt attribute for non-loading images. If the problem persists, please provide details about the email platform used for more tailored assistance.

Hi ​@Annebelbylotte,

It seems like the problem could be related to character encoding. When Klaviyo sends an email, sometimes special characters (like links, images, or product data) don’t render correctly if there are encoding mismatches. This can cause question marks to appear instead of the expected content.

Here are a few potential fixes that may help:

1. Check Character Encoding: Make sure the character encoding is set correctly in your email templates. Ensure that UTF-8 encoding is being used, which supports most characters across different languages and symbols.

2. Use Absolute URLs: If you're using dynamic product URLs or links in your emails, make sure they are absolute URLs (i.e., include the full URL, not just a relative link). This can sometimes fix rendering issues when email clients can't properly resolve the link.

3. Test on Different Clients: Sometimes, the issue can be specific to certain email clients. If possible, test the emails in different email clients (Gmail, Outlook, etc.) to see if the problem is consistent. This might give more insight into whether the issue is email client-related.

4. Revisit Dynamic Product Blocks: If you have any dynamic product blocks, ensure the data being pulled (such as product URLs) is correctly formatted. You might try using static images or links as a temporary solution if dynamic ones are causing issues.

5. Clear Cache: If you’ve made recent updates to URLs or product information, clear your Klaviyo cache and re-test the campaign to ensure the latest data is being used.

If none of these solve the issue, I’d recommend reaching out to Klaviyo support again, providing more specific details (e.g., which exact content is being replaced by question marks) so they can dig deeper into your account setup.

Let me know if these suggestions help.

Best Regards,

Peace.

Hi ​@Annebelbylotte

Did you get this solved? :-) 

Christian Nørbjerg Enger
Partner & CPO
Web: Segmento.dk
LinkedIn: @christianfromsegmento
Voldbjergvej 22b, 8240 Risskov

Hi ​@Annebelbylotte 

Thanks for posting your question! I’d like to echo the responses of our contributors in this thread, and add to them! The issue of the question marks appearing in place of the images upon send may be due to the image URLs of those products not being valid, or inaccessible.

I’d recommend looking at one of these products in your Klaviyo Catalog and finding it’s image URL. Once you do this, copy and paste that URL into your search bar, and see if it takes you to the image you’re looking for. If the URL is invalid, or you’re not taken to the image, then you’ll need to update the image URLs for these products in your ecommerce site. Once this is done, and the URL is updated on your store and in Klaviyo, you should be able to delete and add the product block back into the email template.

If your products already have working image URLs, I’d recommend deleting the affected product blocks and adding them back, to ensure that no stale data is cached in the template causing the images to break. Let me know if this works! If not, feel free to comment here, or create a ticket with our support team.

Thanks, and have a great rest of your week.

-Byrne

​@Christiannoerbjerg ​@Byrne C The item is resolved, it was due to an external App which we use to downsize our images on the website which resulted in changing the image URLs! Thank you for helping me solving the problem!