Images not showing in email marketing

As the growth of SPAM emails increase, email systems develop to combat them. Embedding spam filters and blocking images are the two largest advancements made in recent years.

Image blockers work to prevent SPAM senders authenticating that your email address is valid and active. Thus many web mail systems are now blocking images by default with serious implications for email marketing designs and tracking.

This means that you can no longer control exactly what your branded communications will look like unless you take some simple steps. The purpose of this briefing document is to explore image blocking and provide useful practical advice to help you take steps to minimise their impact on your promotions.

Image blocking by email system

Research by email labs, plots the different ways in which the email clients handle images. The growth of Outlook 2003 is a concern for marketers in that it blocks images by default

For B2C marketers, the two largest players (hotmail and yahoo) do not block images, but the new entrant, gmail does. At the adoption of Google Mail (GMail) increases, we’d recommend considering adapting your email program

What email systems do people use

Recent research by MarketingSherpa in August 2005 discovered that Microsoft outlook is by far the most dominant email system:

For B2C marketers, there is no such clear player.

What does this mean for the email marketer?

Conduct audits of your email marketing database

Review your marketing database and monitor how many people use web mail email systems. This is fairly easy to achieve by looking at the stem of your recipient’s email system.

For corporate addresses, you have two choices:

• Work with your email partner to conduct some advanced analysis of your next email campaign to learn what email system is being used.

• Conduct a survey and ask your recipients. Even in fairly IT-illiterate markets, most people know what email client they are using

Ensure your email marketing design does not rely on images

The lay-out of your html email should be optimised to make sense with images showing and not showing. If they trust the sender, most people will choose to download the images, so it is key that your html email acts to entice them to do this. Some guidelines to adhere to:

• Include as much text as possible ‘above the fold’ to encourage the recipient to download the images. Otherwise, they have no idea what your message is all about

• Do not use large images that run across the entire width of your email. When they are not displayed you have used up much of the above space

• Ensure key points are repeated in the text–key offers, dates of events etc can be lost from the communication if they are on images only.

Ensure you are using optimised html code in your email marketing

Given this is a check conducted by SPAM filters, using compliant html code is a ‘no brainer’. With the advent of image blockers, two elements are even more critical:

• Use height and width tags on your images: this will ensure that the lay-out of your html email will stay consistent even if images are not being displayed

• Use alt tags: important specifically for Gmail, use ALT tags to explain what the image represents if it is blocked.

More information about our email marketing broadcast services

Adestra provide welcome tactical advice and input on our client's email marketing program. For more information about how we can work together with you to improve your email marketing, please contact us and ask us about our email marketing services

Adestras Message Focus

Adestra have a proven track record in providing email marketing tools, technology, strategy and support for a number of large corporate players.

From product delivery for large publishers through to tactical direct response promotions for travel providers, all clients always benefit from the shared best practice and knowledge our team have gained working within email marketing since 2000.

For an overview of Adestra's email marketing services, please see our email marketing system, Adestra's Message Focus or for a demonstration, please contact us