Pictures, animation and video
Use a picture where it shows something words can't, keep every word in real text, and make sure the email still works with pictures off. Animate only to show, put the message in the first frame, and link to video rather than trying to play it in the inbox.
A picture is a tool for showing, not a default. Use one where it shows something words can't, the product, the place, the person, the result, and leave it out where the email is a conversation.
The short version
- Every picture carries information. People look at real people and real products, and skip stock photos of generic people and decoration.
- The email works with pictures off. Headline, offer, prices, dates and the button are real text, and every picture has a description.
- Never send an email that's one big picture. With pictures blocked it's a blank message, and screen readers and spam filters have nothing to read.
- Few pictures for a message, more for a catalogue.
- No words inside pictures.
- JPG for photographs, PNG for illustrations, GIF for animation, each saved at twice its display size and compressed, all together under 2 MB.
- Animate to show, not to decorate, with the whole message in the first frame.
- Video almost never plays in the inbox. Show a still with a play symbol and the running time, linked to the page where it plays.
- Every email carries a plain-text version.
What pictures can and can't do
They carry what words can't. Jakob Nielsen's eye-tracking work found that people pay attention to pictures that carry information: on one site, they spent 10% more time on staff portraits than on the biographies beside them, and they studied detailed product photos. They ignored stock photos of generic people and pictures that were only decoration.
They don't always show. Outlook blocks pictures by default until the reader downloads them or marks the sender as safe. Gmail has shown pictures automatically since December 2013.
More design isn't more response. Two vendors found the same direction:
- Constant Contact, 2.1 million small-business emails (2015): three or fewer pictures and about 20 lines of text had the highest click rates in most industries. Restaurants and salons, which sell by showing, peaked at about 15.
- HubSpot, its own tests (2014): the more HTML-heavy an email, the lower its opens, and a simpler email got 30% more clicks than a heavily designed one.
Pictures and words
Every picture carries information: the pot on a real windowsill, the crew on the job, the studio at 7 am, the report the email describes. Dividers, flourishes and smiling strangers are ignored at best.
The real thing beats the generic. Use your own photographs where you have them. Where you use stock, choose pictures of what the reader will actually get, the plant, the roof, the pose, not anonymous people.
Words go in real text, never inside the picture. Words in a picture vanish when pictures are blocked, can't be read by screen readers, don't change colour in dark mode, can't be enlarged and can't be translated. The picture shows; the text says.
Plan for pictures being off. Give every picture a description that reads well where the picture would be, and put a background colour behind each picture so a blocked one still leaves a designed shape.
A picture that looks clickable is a link, to the same page as the button beside it.
Files
| Format | Use it for | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| JPG | Photographs | Shows everywhere |
| PNG | Illustrations, logos, transparency | Shows everywhere |
| GIF | Animation | Outlook for Windows shows only the first frame |
| WebP, SVG, AVIF, animated PNG | Not yet | Gmail, Outlook or both don't show them properly |
- Sharp on every screen: save each picture at twice the size it shows (a 1200-pixel file for a 600-pixel space) and set its display size in the email.
- Light: all pictures together under 2 MB, each GIF under 1 MB, every file compressed. Over a 4G connection, Litmus timed a 180 KB GIF at 0.37 seconds to load and a 4.4 MB one at 3.23.
- Background pictures don't show in Outlook for Windows. Put a solid colour first, real text on top, and use the picture as texture, never the message.
Animation
Animate to show, not to decorate. Movement earns its place when it explains what a still can't: a product turning, a before and after, a ten-second how-to. In Litmus's 2023 survey, 58% of marketers used animated GIFs and 43% said they performed better.
The first frame is the email. Outlook for Windows shows only the first frame, so the headline, the offer and the product all sit in frame one.
Small, short and gentle: under 1 MB, few frames, a few loops, ending on the frame that carries the message. Nothing may flash more than three times a second: faster flashing can harm people with photosensitive epilepsy.
Live pictures only for live facts. A countdown or a "places left" count made at the moment of opening is honest only if the deadline or the stock behind it is real.
Video
Video almost never plays in the inbox. Only Apple Mail on a Mac plays it fully. Gmail removes it, Outlook blocks it, and iPhones won't play it on their own.
What works: a still frame, or a short GIF of the opening seconds, with a clear play symbol and the running time, linked to the page where the video plays.
Say what the click gets: "Watch: repotting in 90 seconds (1:30)". Someone on a train decides from that whether to tap now or later.
Interactive email
Tabs, reveals and carousels work in Apple Mail, Yahoo and Samsung's app, but not in Gmail or Outlook for Windows. Forms inside an email work in some apps and are removed in others. So every interactive email needs a complete still version, and that version is the real email: design it first.
AMP, Google's format for live content inside an email, shows in Gmail and Yahoo but not in Apple Mail or Outlook, and needs a separate version and registration with Google. With Apple Mail recording about three quarters of tracked opens, the normal version is still the one most people see.
Plain text, and letter-style emails
Every email carries a plain-text version. It's sent inside the same email, for watches, voice assistants and people who choose text only, and spam filters view an email without one as suspicious. Write it rather than strip the design out: headings marked with symbols, space between blocks, "-" for lists, few links.
Letter-style or designed, by the job:
| Letter-style: one column of text, a signature, one picture at most | Designed: blocks, pictures, buttons |
|---|---|
| A welcome note from the owner | A launch |
| A sequence step | An offer or a sale |
| A win-back | A newsletter with several stories |
| A founder's update, a B2B follow-up | An event with a venue to show |
| Anything that wants a reply | A receipt and what goes with it |
A letter-style email is still a proper email: it keeps the footer the law requires, the unsubscribe link, and a description on its one picture.
Doing it here
- The pictures in your emails are real stock photos, each found from a description of what it should show, and you can change any of them: How your emails are written.
- For video, make a film in your brand in Media studio. Every shape downloads as an MP4, ready for the page your email's still links to: Make a film for your business.
Every rule here, with each email drawn with pictures on and off, is in the free guide Everything you need to know about email marketing.