Image-only email campaigns lose you money

Apple, are you listening? According to a survey by the EEC (Email Experience Council) and reported by The DMA, most retail email marketers (57%) are still sending image-only or heavy image-based email campaigns to their subscribers. Interesting considering the fact that image-based campaigns are known to trigger higher spam scores and reduce open rates based on their large size and, of course, don't get seen if images are turned 'off' in the email client.

Jeanniey Mullen, who you might recognize from her countless ClickZ articles on email marketing (and who's also the founder and exec chairwoman of the EEC) states that:

Email marketing currently generates an estimated return on investment of $48.29 for every dollar spent on it, according to the Direct Marketing Association We conservatively estimate that if all marketers optimized their emails for image blocking, email’s ROI would jump to $52.69. Not paying attention to rendering impacts revenue directly.

Although it might not seem like much on paper, that $4.40 uplift per sale can add up to a tidy profit, and truly begs the question why huge multinational retailers like Apple are continuing to use image-only email campaigns for their promotional campaigns.

Here are some more noteworthy stats on image-only email campaigns - if anything these should sway you from ever even experimenting with image-only campaigns - just don't!

• Only 47% of respondents say their companies have taken action to design emails with image suppression in mind.

• Of the 38% that had tested to see whether the changes they made produced results, 32% have seen more opens, 32% have seen more clickthroughs, and 17% have seen more conversions - with 47% seeing at least a 10% improvement.

• 23% of retailers send emails that are completely unintelligible when images are disabled.

• Of the 77% that sent intelligible emails, there are significant variations in clarity based on use of HTML text and alt tags, two techniques that can boost effectiveness in image-disabled environments.

• Only 42% of retailers designed emails that contained a reasonable mix of HTML text and images, and 63% of retailers used alt tags on their images adequately or extensively.

As a result, the report advises marketers to include more HTML in their emails by including the following:

• Headlines
• Section heads
• Product names, prices and other text companying product images
• Text in banners
• Lists (upcoming releases, etc.)
• Menu and navigation bar text
• Call-to-action buttons
• Promotion codes and instructions on how to apply them

Additional findings:

• 14% of retailers compose their navigation bars with HTML text rather than images.
• 3% of retailers used HTML call-to-action buttons rather than images.
• 88% of retailers include a “click to view” link in their preheader text.
• 63% of retailers include whitelisting instructions in their preheader text.
• The emails from only 21% of retailers displayed meaningful snippet text.