How to embed images in your marketing emails

Embedding images in an email can be tricky. Here are some tactics email marketers can use to ensure there are no hiccups.

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There are three primary methods for embedding an image into an email: Linking the image, inline embedding, and Content-ID (CID). All three methods have advantages and disadvantages and need expertise to use, but they are all valuable techniques. Before you start, you need to review a number of audience considerations and challenges.

Email marketing has long been a moving target — from the evolving landscape of email service providers to constant changes in infrastructure and security. Visual imagery is important for successful email marketing, but it is also a challenge for email marketers.

A fundamental challenge for email marketers is making sure their audience will be able to view the images embedded in an email. Some providers allow users to selectively download the images by clicking on them, while others completely block the content.

Because some inbox providers don’t support images, engagement drops, and deliverability can be negatively impacted, along with your sender reputation.

Images in emails render differently depending on the devices the recipients use. According to data from Constant Contact, roughly 60% of emails are opened and read on mobile devices. Each of these images needs to be optimized to ensure mobile and tablet users are seeing the proper version of it. Without responsive design, images of different sizes could skew the email — potentially making it unreadable.

Using alt text (alternative text) can help improve user experience when images are broken. The alt attribute is used in HTML and XHTML documents to specify alternative text that is to be shown when the element to which it is applied cannot be rendered. When an image does not render, alt text is the text that the recipient will see in place of the image. Consider using an SEO-driven CTA in your alt text to drive engagement.

Marketers should make sure their email images appear correctly, so they don’t have to depend only on these qualities.


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Choosing the right format

Many email marketing platforms allow users to build their email campaigns using responsive design elements so images render properly on any device. Proper file formatting is recommended for images — JPEG and PNG files tend to be standards for static images, although GIFs are becoming increasingly popular in email marketing as well.

There are dozens of use cases for GIFs in email. From directing attention to a specific call-to-action, highlighting specific products to demonstrating emotions, GIFs have found their place in the email marketing space — and they are a hit with consumers.

GIFs can even be used as a “how-to” mechanism in the body of an email and are a popular alternative to including a full-length video. GIFs can help humanize your brand and be shared across many social platforms in addition to email campaigns.

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Methods for embedding images in your emails

Three main ways to include a picture in an email are: linking the picture, embedding it in the email, or using Content-ID (CID).

Linked images

Linking an image is probably the easiest way to include an image in your email. Linking an image requires you to upload the image from your computer to the email service provider and allows you to insert the image in the appropriate space. This method also decreases the size of your email.

If your email images are stored in a digital asset manager (DAM), the image can be downloaded and uploaded into the email service provider or can be inserted directly if the two systems are integrated.

For marketers who are emailing audiences compiled of thousands of recipients, the linked image must be hosted on a content delivery network. Emails with linked images will call for the CDN’s hosted image through an embedded HTML tag.

The major downside of linking images is the potential for latency issues when the image is being downloaded from an external server.

Inline embedding

Inline embedding is another popular method for embedding images into emails. Inline embedding requires a specific type of coding scheme called “Base64 string” for the image. The encoded string allows you to embed your image using a standard HTML tag.

One of the issues with this method is that Microsoft Outlook blocks the embedded email images. Depending on your business, Outlook users could be a large portion of your recipients.

Content-ID

Content-ID (CID) is one of the oldest practices for embedding images into marketing emails.
CIDs involve attaching the image to the email and referencing it with HTML tags in the email’s template, which embeds the image when the email is opened. While it may be one of the oldest tactics, it’s one of the most technically advanced methods and requires a certain level of expertise.

However, using CID images in your email marketing can hurt your deliverability. CIDs tend to make emails very large, causing latency issues when opening a CID embedded email.

Email CID images also have issues rendering across different types of inbox providers and notoriously do not work well in web-based email applications.

Choose the embed method that works for your brand

Weighing factors such as how email images are impacting your brand’s deliverability and sender reputation should be the primary objective. Remember the goals and KPIs of the email campaign and how — or if — images should be included in a particular campaign.

If you are a part of a B2B or B2C organization, it is important to understand how your audience interacts with the images in your email marketing campaigns. This knowledge empowers email marketers by providing insights into how recipients are engaging with the content and should influence the decisions made around imagery in marketing emails.

Read more on email marketing:

Email marketing: What is it?

Email marketing fundamentals

Email marketing strategy

Best practice email subject lines

How to switch email marketing platforms

Email marketing experts list


Opinions expressed in this article are those of the guest author and not necessarily MarTech. Staff authors are listed here.


About the author

Jennifer Cannon
Contributor
Jennifer Videtta Cannon is a markerting specialist at ShotFlow. She previously was a Senior Editor at MarTech. Jennifer has more than a decade of organizational digital marketing experience. She has overseen digital marketing operations for NHL franchises and held roles at tech companies including Salesforce, advising enterprise marketers on maximizing their martech capabilities. Jennifer formerly organized the Inbound Marketing Summit and holds a certificate in Digital Marketing Analytics from MIT Sloan School of Management.

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