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You are here: Home / Email Marketing / How to create and use Animated GIFs in email

January 23, 2017 by Young Yang Leave a Comment

How to create and use Animated GIFs in email

When you open emails nowadays, you probably notice that things are moving a lot. You may tend to click those moving things more than other things sitting very quietly.

Those moving things in your email are Animated GIFs. So let’s see what they are, why you want them in your emails and how to make them.

1. What is a GIF?

An image format like JPEG or PNG.

 

2. Why do you want to use GIFs in email?

A. GIFs can be animated.

B. Animated GIFs can increase CTR (Click-Through) up to 26% (Source: Style Campaign)

C. Animated GIFs could be entertaining, enticing, engaging and educating:

(1) Humor
(2) Step-by-Step Instruction
(3) Interesting Background (it should be subtle, though, not to steal attention from the main point.)
(4) Video Preview
(5) Product usage

Here are some examples:

Entertainment

Step by Step Instruction

Product Usage

If you want more examples of Animated GIFs in email:

25 Wonderful Examples of Animated GIFs in Email Marketing Templates (by Mail Bakery)

 

3. Possible issues with animated GIFs in email

Not every email clients are compatible with animated GIFs. The versions of Outlook 2007 to the present (2007, 2010 and 2013) don’t show the animation. They show only the first frame of the animation.

> How to overcome this issue?
Include the most critical information like CTA (Call-To-Action), offer or headline in the first frame in case subscribers’ email clients do not support Animated GIFs.

4. Please, keep in mind that:

A. Do not overuse animated GIFs. – You want to use it effectively, not to overwhelm your readers with busy emails.
B. Be cautious with the file size. The rule of thumb is an email should not be more than 100kb (the whole email, not just GIFs file)

So, now you know you want Animated GIFs in your email, but how?

First, you have to create an Animated GIFs. Then you put the file into your template.

5. How to make Animated GIFs

There are basically two ways to make Animated GIFs: Using (1) Photoshop or (2) Creators (software, apps or websites)

(1) Using Adobe Photoshop: Hubspot has a great tutorial for this topic

How to Make an Animated GIF in Photoshop [Tutorial] (by Hubspot)

(2) Using creators: Personally I’m a Photoshop user so I am afraid that I can’t give you good details about each creator but these posts can give you enough options to choose from (most of them should be free). If you have experiences with any of creators or know a better one, please feel free to leave your comment below.

8 Best Online Tools to Create Free Animated GIF Images (by ZDWired)

Making an animated GIF is easier than you think with these apps (by Digital Trends)

Top 10 Best Free GIF Creator

 

6. How to implement Animated GIFs

You have an incredibly exciting eye-catching Animated GIFs now. You can simply include the GIFs in the same way as you include a regular image by entering usual <img src=”…>.

If you are using Constant Contact, more details for the ESP (Email Service Provider) can be found:

How to Use Animated GIFs in Your Emails

If you are using MailChimp, MailChimp has an additional feature to integrate Animated GIFs from Giphy (a rising star in Animated GIFs apps).

Insert GIFs from Giphy into a Campaign

 

7. Additional Source:

If you want more information and details about Animated GIFs, please read “A Guide to Animated GIFs in Email” by Jason Rodriguez at Litmus. Probably one of the most elaborated articles about Animated GIFs.

Another great post is “Your Field Guide to Animated GIFs in Email” by Olivia Dello Buono at AWeber.

 

Contact me (click here) to get Free One Hour Email Marketing Consulting

(This consultation will not be general top 10 to-do list thing. I’ll personally review your current email marketing, social media platforms and other online properties and will give you specific suggestions for your business.)

 

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Filed Under: Email Marketing Tagged With: email marketing, Step by Step

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