Myth 16: It's better to use a lot of images

Category: Email Marketing

Including images in an email marketing campaign is a good way to reinforce key messages and make it more visually appealing, for example to launch or sell a product. They also allow information to be understood at a glance, which is useful for getting a direct response to increase the results of a mailing. But it is a myth that it is better to use too many, rather the opposite is true: there are several reasons why you should not send an email with just images.

 

How many images should an email marketing campaign have?

There is no an answer that fits all types of mailings because each message may need more or less visual elements. For example: a newsletter can be just the title of the news or have a thumbnail to accompany it; a launch campaign can be just an image of the new product or a gallery with details of what makes it special; and in a Christmas or birthday greeting it is probably enough to use one.

Therefore, the decision of how many images to include depends above all on their relevance: if they contribute to the message being understood, fine; if they do not contribute any value and are only decorative, they are probably superfluous. It should not be forgotten that users read mailings differently, depending on the configuration of their device and their email manager, so you cannot rely on images to get the message across. They can also distract from the end goal and lower performance.

The balance between text and image is a design issue that must be assessed considering other aspects of the email marketing strategy, such as user experience or accessibility as we will see. One way is to vary the structure in different communications to detect which one gets better results in the statistics, for example by doing an A/B test.

 

When to use many images instead of just one image

There are several ways to use many images in email marketing. In a newsletter it is very common to use them highlight some news more than the rest or to separate sections to make it easier to read. And in a promotional campaign, the product is usually shown from different points of view or to different target audiences, so several images are included to appeal to them.

It is also possible to consider the use of many images when a large image is broken down into several fragments, for example if an infographic summarising the year is sent. In these cases, it is justified to send a mailing with this configuration to make it easier to visualise, although it can cause problems if one of them fails to download or if the design does not adapt well to different devices.

In addition, there are other images that can end up causing us to send too many without realising it, such as headers, icons for buttons or decorative elements. In general, they are usually dispensable from a functional point of view, but they serve as brand recognition.

 

How images contribute to the user experience

An email is never the first contact with a user: they must have first gone through the website to fill in the registration form and perhaps before that they came from a social publication, so they already have a more or less defined perception of the brand. This is important because it sets the basis of what they expect from it, not only in terms of image (logo, typography, colours), but also in terms of the type of content and communication style. If they start receiving the newsletter with something different, they may get a bad impression and unsubscribe.

In general, images make the experience satisfactory when they are downloaded correctly and do not prevent the message from being read well. If the process is slow, even if only for a couple of seconds, it can be seen as negative and can be detrimental to the sender's reputation in the long run.

On the other hand, personalisation of images contributes positively to a memorable experience. For example, by showing products related to those already purchased, brand perception is better than using a more generic image aimed at any shopper.

 

What to do if the user has images disabled

The main problem with using a lot of images or basing the design on their layout is that the user might not have their email manager's function to download them activated. There is no way around this, just ask them to unblock them for our sender, but it is their choice. The same problem occurs at the opposite extreme, i.e. when the design is based on a single image.

There is the possibility of adding an incentive to make them want to unblock them, for example in the text beforehand, telling them what they will be able to see if they do so. A resource that is more impactful and that increases user satisfaction is pixel art. This technique consists of painting the pixels of the table in which the image appears in colour so that those who have blocked them see a much simpler, but at the same time impactful, alternative version. In this way, the user can understand the message without difficulty, even in a fun way considering that we are addressing this profile in a unique and special way.

 

How to make images more accessible

One problem with using a lot of images is that the design can be distorted because each email manager may interpret the code differently or be configured differently by the user, as we have just seen with image blocking. Testing is the best solution to avoid this, but to prevent it you should prepare your templates with accessibility in mind.

There are many factors that make a campaign accessible. Focusing on images, it is essential that the "alt" tag is used to describe them so that even visually impaired people will be able to understand the message we have sent. It is not necessary to tag images that are used as decorative backgrounds because, if they are used as decorative backgrounds, they can be difficult to understand if they are mixed with text in superimposed paragraphs.

As we have already seen, splitting up images can help to improve the loading of the message, but make sure that they are correctly ordered so that external reading devices can read them well.

 

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