As a brand marketer, it’s your job to reach and resonate with your audience. If you’ve been sending multiple emails to potential or current customers and your emails need pizazz, have you considered adding a looping visual element – like an animated GIF?
GIFs can be a boom or bust for branded email campaigns. With its many nuances, buckle up as to learn GIF basics, benefits, and how to utilize them in an email campaign to win the hearts and minds of customers.
What are GIFs?
GIF = Graphics Interchange Format.
GIFs are essentially compressed image files that can display simple animations—often in a loop. Thanks to their small file size, they can be sent easily in email, text messages, etc—anywhere a video file would be prohibitively large. And yes, they’re a bit of a cultural phenomenon.
Why bother with GIFs?
While GIFs are fun and trendy, is there really a place for them with modern email marketing?
The answer, "it depends.”
They certainly can and do have a place in email marketing. Not only are they ideal for replacing bandwidth-heavy videos, they serve a number of other purposes.
Now, if and what kind are appropriate for your brand, that’s another question entirely.
1. They fortify a story.
The adage “a picture speaks a thousand words?” Well, so do GIFs. In just a glance, marketers can convey a specific point or message or showcase your brand in a manner that text or static visuals can’t match.
2. They spark interest.
You’ve probably heard the stat that humans have an attention span of less than a goldfish. GIFs effectively capture email readers' attention as they scroll through an email and deliver a quick message with their eye-catching repeated motion.
3. They help humanize brands.
GIFs can be emotive powerhouses. They can be used to convey excitement, suspense, quirk, humor, anticipation, fear, surprise, or whatever emotion aligns with the email message and your brand.
4. They help explain things and promt action.
GIFs make creating clear and concise marketing emails easier for the recipient to understand. Sometimes, you must explain email copy in a way readers understand. Rather than muddying the email with more text, GIFs help visually clarify a topic, concept, product, or service – and can make a specific call to action pop. In turn, you will improve your click through rate (CTR).
GIFs for email marketing campaigns we love
These GIFs for email can serve as an informative, engaging, and inspiring resource for marketers looking to enhance their email campaigns with dynamic visual content. Here are some of our favorite GIFs from both business-to-business and business-to-consumer emails:
Delivra (yes… we said it)
We use GIFs throughout our free trial onboarding series to create a fun and cohesive campaign. Take this example, showing an animated pigeon who explains Delivra’s workflow process, in a few easy-to-follow animated visuals.
Daily Harvest
Why it rocks:
This GIF example from Daily Harvest makes you want to drool. It evokes the senses by showing subscribers what the new products look like. Using a GIF makes for a more immersive experience.
Dropbox
Why it rocks:
We mentioned above how GIFs can uncomplicate subscriber pain points or product features. This Dropbox GIF packs a punch by visually explaining the platform’s new features with easy-to-follow motioned frames.
Four Seasons at Home
Why it rocks:
This GIF displays the Four Seasons’ iconic luxury mattress product features in-depth without needing paragraphs of text. The GIF shows how the mattress supports pressure points with its exclusive technology. Then, it flips to how the nanotechnology fabric can unzip and wash. In this case, it was better to show subscribers how it works, rather than telling them.
TripAdvisor
Why it rocks:
Barbeque, beaches, laughs, fireworks, and family time – TripAdvisor skillfully captures the joy that comes with the Fourth of July in this GIF. This GIF is proof that brand marketers can turn static images into eye-catching and highly shareable content that inspires wanderlust.
LUS | Love Ur Self
Why it rocks:
GIFs work well in beauty products because they can show a product in action. Case in point: the curl brand LUS. These brand marketers embedded a GIF showcasing clientele who have used LUS to promote the product’s effectiveness.
Chubbies
Why it rocks:
First, the color, then the motion, captures interest. What better way to showcase a reversible product than a GIF? Chubbies brand marketers used this GIF to visually display how this fleece can be flipped inside out for a new look. Well done!
Alit
Why it rocks:
This example from Alit animates key selling points of this natural wine brand with motioned text. Had the company put this in the normal text, subscribers might have missed reading about its benefits, but in the GIF, it pops.
Get Wiser
Why it rocks:
Wondering how to make a GIF for email signature? Get Wiser is an email signature tool used for business. In a recent email, they included this GIF to showcase how to update an email signature within a GIF – essentially a GIF within a GIF.
How to insert a GIF into an email
Now that you know what GIFs are about and have some I.R.L. examples, let’s approach how to insert a GIF into an email.
If you use Delivra, GIFs are supported in our editor. In fact, the process of uploading an image and a GIF are identical. There are two ways to insert a GIF using the Drag-and-Drop Editor: creating an image block or inserting an image into a text block. We’ll go over each process.
Creating a GIF block:
- Drag a new layout section to the left and add it to your file.
- Drag the image type icon to the left and drop it in the new section.
- Set up your cell padding and styles.
Insert a GIF to a block:
- Click on the image section on the left to open a widget with image options.
- Hit the “update image” icon. This opens the media library.
- Click on the GIF file or use the options at the top of the image selector to upload a new image, sort, or search for a GIF. Hit the “insert” button to apply the GIF to the email.
Insert a GIF into a text block:
- Click on the text box where you want to insert the GIF.
- Hit the camera icon from the toolbar to open the media library. Then, you’ll see a media library pop up. The options are slightly different to properly align the GIF to text and padding.
GIF considerations: What to be mindful of
By keeping these cautions in mind and using GIFs strategically, you can leverage their benefits without compromising the effectiveness of your email.
1. File size matters.
How big should a GIF be for email? Smaller-sized GIFs ensure your email loads quickly and efficiently. GIFs shouldn’t exceed 1 or 1.5 megabytes to retain image quality. For most email service providers (ESP), the GIF loads and the email still sends if you exceed this recommendation, but it takes longer to upload.
Here are some strategies to keep the file size down:
- Aim for a limited color palette — the easier it will be to keep file size down and rendering quality up.
- The fewer frames, the smaller the size. Keep this in mind as you design the GIFs.
- Flat colors are best for GIFs, as gradients and texture add size.
- As a rule of thumb, emails shouldn’t exceed 120 KB. (It’s clipped by Gmail if higher.)
2. Not all email clients support GIFs.
Some email clients might not fully support GIFs or could block them by default. For example, Desktop versions of Outlook (2007 to 2016) don’t support animated GIFs. For this reason, always include alt text to describe the GIF content. This way, even if the GIF doesn’t load, the email recipient can understand what the GIF conveys.
3. Choose the perfect moment to display GIFs.
Timing is everything when using GIFs in email campaigns. A GIF should accentuate a point, provide context, highlight a CTA, or prompt subscriber action rather than catching people off guard. Avoid using them if they detract from the email’s main message.
4. Stay on brand.
There’s nothing more jarring than an off-brand visual. For this reason, use GIFs with the same color, font, tone, and aesthetics as other brand content.
5. Consider visual accessibility:
Consider those who are visually impaired. You can do this by changing up the design, so the copy and animation aren’t together. Tweak the GIF design so the animation is on top and the live for the actual copy.
Doing this will allow:
- The copy to be accessible to screen reader
- Better searchability in the subscriber’s inbox
- For a cleaner appearance in dark mode
Plus, if the subscriber puts image blocking on, the copy can still be read.
6. Be relevant:
GIFs don’t always align with the tone of the email. Random, mis-branded GIFs, or too many GIFs can dilute the overall message and bespeak unprofessionalism.
Common FAQs for GIF-designing marketing pros
Designing a custom GIF for an email campaign? Follow these tips:
- Have a lean design team? Use Ezgif, a free online animated GIF creator and editor.
- Consider this optimization process: Pull the final GIF animation into Photoshop and strategically delete frames and put delays on frames where it makes sense. This can help reduce the file size and maximize Delivrability. Designer pros reduce overall image size from 2X to 1.75X to 1.5X to finally 1X.
- Focus on only animating one part of the image. For example, if you only create the top portion as a GIF and provide the text portion as either live text or a PNG image, that should significantly reduce your file size.
Run all GIFs through ImageOptim. It can usually strip 30 to 50% file size from a GIF files without losing quality.
Mastering the art of the GIF
Using GIFs in email campaigns is part art, part strategy, and a little bit of science. Just remember: consider all of the steps listed above, sync it to your email strategy, and maintain visual accessibility to deliver the best subscriber experience. So, the next time you craft an email campaign, consider embedding a GIF or two… Just use the best practices above, and you'll be on your way to creating emails that are visually appealing and effective.
