Most email clients block email images from unknown senders by default. So best practice advice for the use of images on email (particularly large ones that appear in the preview pane) is to avoid using them if at all possible.

If you do have to use images the general recommendation is that you use them sparingly, making sure you use carefully thought out Alt Tags AND text descriptors for the images. Other design techniques used to compensate for the image being blocked include, putting text behind them and using collapsible boxes.

So why so many companies persist in sending image only emails with no ALT Tags?

The short answer is that for some brands and markets – Fashion for example, images are integral to the sell, so they have to be used. However it is much less easy to understand why such great brands, with significant email budgets and very smart people working on their campaigns completely ignore best practice advice when it comes to ALT Tags etc. Surely their results must be adversely affected!

It would appear not. Analysis conducted by my company into the impact of images on client campaigns reveals a very interesting phenomenon.

Emails such as Email-Worx our own newsletter that is optimised for image blocking generate clicks from people who did not “open” the email. We typically find that around 3% of the clicks do not have a corresponding open (false negatives).

By comparison emails that use lots of or consist entirely of images generate fewer clicks without opens. In fact the harder it is to decipher the content of an email with images blocked the lower the incidence of false negatives!
 
It would appear that by withholding any information about what is in the email until images are downloaded, brands are able to get more of their subscribers to download their images. A very important tactic for brands that rely on creative to sell! Clearly this is only likely to work if the email is about a product their subscribers desire or are highly engaged with the senders brand.

So does this mean that you can ignore best practice and start to use images with impunity?

There's no right or wrong answer to that question, in our experience an approach that is highly effective in one market may not work for another. However we believe that marketers have 3 options and in the most recent issue of the Alchemy Worx newsletter we provide examples of how brands use images and discuss how images can be used in greater detail.

Here is a quick summary of the article.

Fully optimised for image blocking

Email designed in such a way that the content of the email is easily decipherable and downloading the images makes very little difference.

More suited to:
• Products and services that are not reliant on visuals
• Emails where content is the value proposition
• Transactional or update emails
• Newsletters
• B2B

Optimising for creative driven or image only emails

Emails designed to have little or no value until images are downloaded.

More suited to:
• Products and services that are highly visual
• Brand building
• B2C
• Building Desire
• Price indifference

Optimising for both

Emails designed to “sell” with images blocked, but look more appealing with images downloaded.

More suited to:
• Products and services that are quite visual
• Retailers with many product lines to promote
• Groceries
• Price sensitive products and discounting

There you have it! If you are more likely to sell to a person who has seen your product or creative than a person who hasn't you may be able to maximise the number of people who download your creative and generate more sales by completely ignoring best practice.

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