How and Why to Use Images in Email

By Crystal Gouldey, Education Marketing Associate, AWeber

Images look great in emails. People like them, they can make things visually appealing, and used the right way, they can bring in more click-throughs.

But images in emails can also be tricky. If a subscriber has images disabled in their settings or reads emails on mobile devices, images can make your email look a little wacky.

There are a few simple rules you can follow to ensure your email campaign only reaps the benefits of using images.

1. Don’t rely on images to deliver your message. While it may be easy to create your message as one giant image and plop it in your email, it’s not a good idea. If your subscribers have images disabled, they aren’t going to be able to see anything except a blank message. This can be annoying and confusing, which can cause readers to give up and unsubscribe.

For example, take a look how this email appears in an inbox with images disabled:

And here’s what it’s supposed to look like:

 

If I’m quickly going through my email, the blank one will be skipped over since I can’t see anything.

2. Make sure your text contrasts with the background – with or without images enabled. Let’s say you have a dark template with white text. If images are disabled, and your template is a background image, that means you’ll essentially have invisible text — and the same problems as the blank email scenario above.

3. Use alt text on all images. The images you do include should have alt text, which causes text to appear in place of the image. Instead of having white space, you’ll be able to explain to subscribers what exactly they’re missing. If the text makes them curious, they can enable images or click to view a web-based version of your email.

4. Provide a link to a web-based version of your email. Regardless of how much care you put into the design of your email, you may have some subscribers who still have difficulty seeing what you intended – either because they don’t know how to change their settings or they simply don’t want to. By including a link to a web-based version, you’ve provided them with an easier and safer alternative to messing with their settings.

5. Don’t forget to test. Once you’ve created your email, don’t forget to test it to multiple email clients and make sure it appears as you wanted. You want to make sure all email clients are displaying your images properly, or at least in a way you’re comfortable with.

If you follow these instructions, you should have an appealing and engaging email that your subscribers will be able to interact with.

 

About the Author: Crystal Gouldey is an Education Marketing Associate at AWeber, the leading email service provider for small-to-medium businesses. Crystal’s spent the past three years teaching email marketers how to optimize their campaigns. She currently writes for the AWeber blog, which you can visit for more tips on marketing with email.