Problems with all-image emails

If you're sending an email campaign that is composed of one large image/graphic/jpg/png/pdf...please, please hear me out... Please do not do this. 1. Your image may not load for someone on mobile or someone with images turned off. This will be a huge waste of an email when your big image doesn't load. If I'm out and cell service isn't great, images don't load. Therefore, you will have no email to display. 2. Your text will not be searchable if someone tries to look for something within your email. 3. It's not accessible to people who may be using screen readers. 4. Gmail will be more likely to consider your email "spam" by seeing that it's just a big image. You need to build in "live text" somewhere in the email using a text block. Please do not send all-image emails. I promise you it's just wasting your time and not effective for your overall email strategy. Questions? Message me anytime and we can chat through your emails.

Still sending all-image emails? You’re doing it wrong. They look nice on your screen. But they perform like garbage. Here’s what actually happens: • They land in spam • They load slowly or not at all • People with visual impairments can’t read them • You’re violating accessibility standards Emails need live text. Real buttons. Alt text. A clear message even if the images don’t load. Accessibility isn’t a “nice-to-have” in the EU. It’s the law. And yes, your emails count as digital communication. If your whole email is a JPEG, it’s not marketing. It’s a silent poster. Fix your emails. Make them accessible. Get better results. #EmailMarketing #Accessibility #DigitalCompliance #MarketingAutomation #EmailDesign

Ready for a truth bomb? That beautiful image-only email design your team created is probably costing you sales… 💸 I know it's tempting to use one big image in your emails. It gives you perfect design control and it looks identical everywhere... But here's what we're seeing happen with brands who take this approach: • 43% of Gmail users have images turned OFF (they see nothing!) • Spam filters are more likely to flag your emails • Slower loading times on mobile = abandoned emails • Screen readers can't interpret them (excluding visually impaired customers) The real-world impact? Our data analysis shows: • Up to 23% higher bounce rates • Significantly reduced open rates  • Lower click-through rates when images fail to load • Decreased deliverability over time When we helped Pooky move away from image-heavy emails to a balanced HTML approach, their email revenue increased 5.5x in just four months. Want better results? Try this instead: ✅ Use HTML structure with strategic imagery ✅ Embrace responsive design that adapts to different screens ✅ Include meaningful alt text for all images ✅ Keep critical messages (especially CTAs) in text form ✅ Test across multiple devices before sending What email design approaches have worked best for your brand? #emailmarketing #ecommerce #deliverability #dtcbrands #customerloyalty

Your Emails Are Breaking, And You Don’t Even Realise It. Lately, I’ve noticed something. When I open emails in Apple Mail, I keep seeing: ↳ “Load Content” ↳ Broken layouts ↳ Blank spaces where text should be Why? Because so many brands are designing emails that are 100% image-based, with no live text. And even worse, many don’t even have alt text. Which means if your customer doesn’t click “Load Content” right away, all they see is: X A broken email X No messaging X A lost conversion opportunity Here’s why this could be a problem: ↳ 55% of global email opens happen on Apple Mail ↳ Apple blocks auto-loading images for privacy reasons, so if your email is just one big asset? It’s unreadable until a user takes extra steps. ↳ Many brands don’t optimise for dark mode, mobile, or accessibility, so even when images do load, they’re not always working correctly. What’s the fix? ✓ Use live text for key messaging ✓ Optimise for dark mode & mobile ✓ Always use alt tex ✓ Blend assets + live text smartly This isn’t just an e-commerce problem, I’ve seen it across industries. If your emails only work when images load, you’re losing customers before they even read your message. #RetentionMarketing #EmailMarketing #Klaviyo

Emails aren’t landing pages. Agencies and freelancers are designing all image-based emails then creating “slices” of way-too-large files that aren’t sized correctly and plopping them in your ESP bc it’s easier to deliver. While some in B2C might get away with this, it’s still problematic. Accessibility and user experience is a big piece of this puzzle. When all of your text is embedded in an image, it isn’t searchable in your inbox. What do people with vision issues see? What if they need a screen reader? It’s better to have live text where possible. Do your colors create a “visual fuzzing effect for people with astigmatism called 'halation'" - so even though the contrast ratio is fine, that's why some have difficulty reading it? 🤔 There’s a lot when it comes to #emaildesign and it’s got nothing to do with how pretty it is. How does it perform? Does it include your audience or exclude them? Can your viewers see it? What happens if images are turned off by default? Work with #emailmarketers who get it and your brand will see better results. We took over from another agency sending all image emails because it was simply easier for them to deliver. However, the customers’ audience was an older demographic who preferred text over image (we found after a series of tests). After making changes, by end of year they had a 300% increase in contribution margin and repeat business/CLTV was at an all time high. Work with someone who values performance over prettiness and watch those metrics grow 🚀 #themoreyouknow #emailmarketing #accessibility #email

You're designing a gorgeous email. Stunning visuals. Perfect layout. And... 🦗 Your subscriber opened it to see... nothing. Image-only emails are easy to set up, but MS Outlook for desktop blocks images by default. No live text means a blank email from a sender they don't recognize. See the picture – this is how the email from Gap looks in MS Outlook. What happens next? → They skip it → They delete it → Sometimes, they report it as spam. Each of those actions is a negative engagement signal. Those signals accumulate. Live text isn't just a rendering fix. It's an AI readability issue. Mailbox providers and end users now connect AI search capabilities with personal data from email, calendar, and docs - meaning your marketing emails may surface directly in search results. Newsletters and service updates must be clearly written, structured, and understandable by AI. If your email is built from images, AI agents might not be able to read it. Spam filters might decide it’s a heavy task and direct the email to spam. AI agents will also struggle to summarize it, surface it in search, trigger a smart action, or recommend your offer. You're invisible - not just to MS-Outlook users, but to every AI layer sitting on top of the inbox. Google's new auto-purchase agent can track prices, fill out forms, and complete orders independently. CTAs in emails must suit not just people but algorithms. Structured data, such as price tags, availability, and details, is essential for discovery and integration. Live text isn't just accessible - it's a deliverability asset, a searchability asset, and increasingly, an AI-readiness asset. 📩 I simplify email deliverability on my newsletter and blog – “emailmarketing.buzz” #EmailMarketing #Deliverability #accessibility

4 in 10 people will view an email with images off. Yesterday, my team and I were discussing an email creative we’d built for HelloFresh. Aesthetically, it was beautiful - full of colour, engaging photography, and a bold hero banner. But with images off? You couldn’t see the offer. You wouldn’t even know you needed a voucher code. One of my team said, “Does it really matter? Images always show.” Well… not exactly. In a B2C environment, yes - images are more likely to show, thanks to mobile clients like Gmail and Apple Mail preloading them. But it’s still estimated that 43% of Gmail users have images defaulted off. And in B2B, it’s a different world. Outlook, still the workhorse of many corporate inboxes, blocks images by default. That means your beautiful offer might look like a grey box and some broken icons. So what can you do? - Never send image-only emails. Use live HTML text for your key message and CTA. - Use bulletproof buttons so your “Buy now” or “Sign up” still works without an image. - Write meaningful ALT text, it should make sense if read in place of the image. - Keep a healthy text-to-image ratio (around 60:40) to help both deliverability and comprehension. - Put your value proposition above the fold in live text, this is what prompts people to hit “download images.” - Always QA your email in major clients with images off before hitting send. Want to test, check the ctrs or unsubscribes rates of emails, which were not optimised for images being off. If you wouldn’t post a social ad without checking the image displays correctly, why waste the opportunity in email? Your creative needs to work with and without images , because those 4 in 10 people might be the very ones you’re trying to convert. P.S FARM Rio when images sell your product...

We’ve worked with hundreds of Shopify brands on their emails and this is one mistake we see time and time again…. A lot of DTC brands are still sending image-only emails. Looks cool, but hurts performance. Here’s why you need to balance text + images in your emails (and what happens if you don’t): 1) Image-only emails tank your deliverability Gmail and Outlook flag image-heavy emails as promo or spam. If your emails aren’t getting opened, it’s probably not your subject line—it’s your structure. 2) They take forever to load You’ve got 3 seconds before someone bounces. If your giant image doesn't load (or your customer is on bad Wi-Fi), they’re gone. Meanwhile text loads instantly. 3) No text = no context If someone can’t see the image, they miss the entire message. Including real text ensures your CTA, offer, and product details still get across. 4) You’re killing your mobile experience Image-only emails break on mobile all the time, text gets too small to read. Responsive text and buttons help create a frictionless experience—especially for people scrolling with one hand. 5) Emails need to sell, not just look pretty Beautiful design matters. But conversion matters more. A clean mix of images + copy consistently outperforms pretty, image-only emails in every campaign we run. Luckily once there’s a balance of image and text in emails, it boosts deliverability, open rates, clicks, and revenue across the board. Curious to hear from other brands—how are you structuring your emails right now? Let me know in the comments. PS. This image is me pleading to the GMail gods to let these emails get delivered lol.

All-image emails might be living on borrowed time. The EU Accessibility Act is in full effect and will start applying real pressure to digital communication, including how we design emails. If your emails are stitched-together images, here’s what that means: - No semantic structure: Headings, buttons, and text in images aren’t accessible to screen readers. - Alt-text has to carry the whole message, and most time it's not even optimized. - Dark mode? The email doesn't adjust in any way. - Zooming or font scaling? Text in an image can’t be resized by users. So… will the EU crack down hard on email design? Unclear. But they 𝘤𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥. And if your brand or agency sends emails to EU citizens, you're in scope. Penalties aside, there’s a deeper point: accessible design is good design. Might be time to rethink those gorgeous-but-opaque visuals. Accessible templates aren’t just “compliant.” They’re inclusive. So if your email team hasn’t talked accessibility yet, now’s the time. What’s your stance - do all-image emails still have a place? #email #emailmarketing #accessibility