GIF best practices

GIFs can make your emails more effective and add higher click-through rates .

Here are 9 ways to use GIFs in your emails:

1. GIF placement-  Make sure your GIF doesn’t reduce the visibility of written content or distract your subscribers. A GIF in the wrong location within your email could decrease your click-through rates.

2. Eliminate distractions– When using a GIF in your email, eliminate other images so viewers aren’t distracted by too many visuals.

3. Power of One– Only use one GIF in an email, unless you have strong rationale for using more than one.

4. Drive Traffic– People often click on GIFs. Hyperlink your GIF to the landing page you’d like people to visit.

5. Small is better– Keep your GIF’s file size as small as possible when you’re using it in an email – less than 40KB is a good size.

6. Call to Action-when creating your own GIF, include your call to action in the first frame. That way, your subscribers can click through even if the animation doesn’t work.

7. Be in Sync–  Your GIF should be relevant to the rest of the content in your email. Make sure it fits in with your subject line, call to action and other text in your message.

8. Be Selective-Not every single email you send needs a GIF. Only use GIFs when you think or know they’ll help your email perform better.

9. Test–  Test adding GIFs in different locations in your email and see what performs best.

 GIFs can spice up your emails

There are several ways you can use  GIFs. Try one of these three placements:

Above your headline

Add a GIF above your email headline to catch people’s attention right away.

In the body of your email

You can also place a GIF in the body of your email to break up sections of content. In the example below, we decreased the size of the train GIF and placed it between the two paragraphs in this email. This is a nice way to visually break up the content in the email.

At the end of your email

Sometimes GIFs can distract your subscribers. Instead of reading the content of your email, they may just watch your GIF move. To avoid this, you could place a GIF at the very end of your email, like we did in the example below:

This adds fun while focusing on your messaging and call-to-action button.

 

There are several sites where you can download GIFs for use in your copy. Check out https://giphy.com

Sign up for this site is free and you can get fun graphics like SouthPark!

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