You Ask, I Answer: No Giant Images in Email Marketing?

In today's episode, Joyce asks, for our company's mailings, I enforce a strict no giant images rule known locally as the NGI rule. I'm clinging to research from years ago that found that more than a third of email users don't automatically download images. I am one of them. It is very off-putting when I open an email and I'm shown nothing, so I'm forced to click to download or go to the browser view. Since you're an expert and your newsletters have giant images, I'm wondering if there's a reason you do this and a reason I should reconsider the NGI rule.

So it's a good question. If you're providing alternate text that's descriptive, uh that tells people at least what the image is, then they can decide whether or not they want to turn images on. In my personal newsletter, one of the largest images is the unsubscribe image, right? It's this big glaring, you know, multicolor technicolor uh thing that I want very clearly everyone to see. Like this is the unsubscribe button.

If you can't find this, you should probably seek medical attention, right? That's that's how big it is. Um I do use large images in other places, like in newsletters and things. Um, in in some of the data analysis, particularly in the Trust Insights newsletter. Every week there's a column called data diaries where we look at uh data that people uh might be find interesting.

Um I use images and large images for those because it fits the format, it fits the need, right? Trying to look at a statistical analysis on something the size of a postage stamp is unfulfilling, right? Very difficult to see. You know, when I publish Instagram engagement rates and the image is this big, that's not a good user experience. So a lot of those times, it's because it fits the user experience.

It it delivers on the promise of the content. I would say that if you're using images gratuitously, you know, you you throw in a large image just because you can, that's probably a a good thing to trim back on, right? But if the image serves a real valid purpose and you can explain what that purpose is, then the size is less relevant than the purpose it fulfills. Right? If you are putting in big charts and tables in your emails and you can't see it because it's so small, then you're not helping anybody, right?

You're not helping the user to figure out what it is that you want them to be looking at. So I would reconsider the rule if the images are essential. I would say keep things smaller, you know, smaller is generally better, particularly when it comes to to you know, reading on mobile devices and things. But if there's value to the size of the image, I don't see a reason why not to create it at the size that that serves the customer best. At the end of the day, that's the most important thing.

If the customer gets more value out of a larger image than a smaller image, go with the larger image. If the customer doesn't get any value out of the image either way, then go with smaller. Smaller is going to be better in those cases. So it's about your intent as a marketer, and it's about what you're doing to serve the customer best. That's it.

Pretty straightforward. But it's a good question, and it's generally speaking, with any email marketing rule, it's always a good idea to reevaluate the those rules, read the latest research and stuff, and see what's changed. Because obviously, with things like you know, Apple's mail privacy protection and stuff, email marketing is changing all the time, particularly for these devices. And reevaluating the rules and questioning them is a smart thing to do. It's a very smart thing to do because sometimes things that were best practices, even a couple of years ago, are not best practices anymore.

You know, a real simple example is using opens for your A B testing. Um, given the changes in in privacy technology, that's not a best practice anymore. It's actually a worst practice because open rates are unreliable now. Uh, you have to look at click through rates as uh a more reliable benchmark. And even then, there's some issues with click-through rates because uh particularly if you're sending um email to corporate email addresses where there's a firewall uh before the user that clicks on every link in your email because it's checking for malware.

Even in those cases, um, you might want to do something a little bit different. So uh the long answer to a short question, use the image size that suits and serves the audience best. Thanks for asking. If you like this video, go ahead and hit that subscribe button.