Do images make any difference to email success?
Spot on.
Including an image in this HTML email generated a 52% uplift in the total click rate.
Including images in HTML email tends to boost response, right? Here at Alchemy Worx we've always thought so. But now we've decided to put our money where our mouth is and put our theory to the test...
All the many creative-based tests we ran in 2009 took it as read that messages with images performed better than emails without images. But to check our hunch, we ran a test on in our last issue - and we were right!
Here's how the numbers break down:
| Delivery rate | Unique open rate | Total click rate | Unique click rate | FTAF | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| With an image | 98.30% | 26.94% | 13.64% | 8.12% | 1.38% |
| Without an image | 98.96% | 28.12% | 8.96% | 7.38% | 0.00% |
Overall, you can see the version with an image generated a significantly higher level of interaction than the version without an image.
The unique open rate was actually higher for the version without the image, though this is more likely to be due to the subject line than the image. But when it came to clicks, the image version sparked loads more interest.
Why? Because the image enabled us to convey the overall content of the message in a very small amount of time, resulting in more people clicking, and more people clicking on more than one link. It was also forwarded more than the other version, though this may simply be because more people read it.
How can this research about images help me improve my campaigns?
Don't overlook the use of relevant images in your messages. For some industries there will be more of an impact than others - but if you can achieve a 50% uplift in a B2B message like ours, imagine what you could achieve by including an inspirational holiday image on a travel mailing.
Think about including images in all of your email communications - even your transactional messages. Even if they take up valuable real estate within your preview pane, images can be vital in getting the most from your email campaigns: they're surprisingly informative and they don't get overlooked by ruthless scan readers.
Coming up: which image for which subscriber?
Now we know for certain that images work, next time we'll be reporting on the types of images that work best for our subscriber base. Black and white - or colour? Cartoons or photos? Large images or small images? And does a video icon make any difference?
