Best Practices To Maximize Your Email Deliverability

From the way you stitch your stories to the visuals you choose, good content is the key to amazing emails.

If you’ve been trying to level up your email game, you might already be thinking about all the ways you can improve your content.

Have you considered images and the way they affect your emails?

Many marketers and business owners are unsure of the role that images play in email deliverability and whether or not they should be using images in their emails.

Some creators believe visuals are more appealing to the eye, and hence should be included more often in emails.

In this blog post, we'll take a closer look at the relationship between images and email deliverability. We'll explore the various ways that images can affect the deliverability of your emails, and provide tips for optimizing your images to ensure that your emails are delivered to your intended audience.

From the impact of file size and alt tags to the role of image blocking and hosting, we'll cover everything you need to know about using images in your emails.

What Factors Affect Email Deliverability?

Before you begin the process of sending killer emails, you need to understand the importance of email deliverability.

For starters, here are five factors that you should be considering:

Email Server Reputation

The reputation of the server that you are sending emails from can impact your deliverability. Email servers with a poor reputation may have a harder time delivering emails to the inbox, making it difficult to reach your audience.

Sender Reputation

The reputation of the sender can also affect email deliverability. If you have a history of sending spam or sending emails to unengaged recipients, your email deliverability may suffer from spam filters

Spam filters are designed to identify and block spam emails. If your emails are flagged as spam, they may not be delivered to the inbox.

Email Content

Emails that contain spammy or malicious content, or that are not properly formatted, are more likely to be flagged as spam or rejected by email servers.

Email Frequency

Sending emails too frequently can also impact deliverability. It's important to strike a balance and only send emails to engaged recipients who have opted in to receive your emails.

Do Images Impact Email Deliverability?

Yes, they do, and here’s why:

File Size

Large image files can increase the size of your email, which can result in deliverability issues. Some email servers may reject emails that are too large or emails that contain attachments that are too large.

Alt Tags

Alt tags describe the contents of an image and are used by screen readers for visually impaired users and by email clients that block images by default. Adding alt tags to your images can improve the accessibility and deliverability of your emails.

Image Blocking

Some email clients block images by default, so it's important to make sure that your emails are still readable and effective even when images are not displayed.

Image Hosting

Hosting images on a third-party server can improve the deliverability of your emails. This is because some email clients may block emails with large attachments or emails with attachments that are hosted on servers with a poor reputation.

Image Formatting

Make sure that your images are properly formatted and optimized for email. This will help ensure that they are displayed correctly and do not impact the deliverability of your emails.

Do Images Cause Emails To Go to Spam?

Emails with images can be flagged as spam, but having images is not the only reason for an email to be marked as spam. Many factors can contribute to an email being flagged as spam, such as the sending domain, the sending IP address, and the recipient's email filters.

Here’s what you should be doing to keep your emails from being marked as spam while using images:

• Do not use too many images–this would also make your email difficult to search.

• Use images with a smaller file size. Bigger files will make your emails load slowly.

• Do not use images that are hosted on unsecured servers.

Why You Shouldn't Use Images in Emails?

There is no inherent reason why you should not use images in emails. Using images can be a powerful way to engage your audience and improve the effectiveness of your message. That said, it's important to be mindful of the impact that images can have on the deliverability of your emails and to follow best practices. This will help ensure that your emails are delivered to your intended audience and that they are effective in achieving your marketing goals.

Do Emails With Images Perform Better?

In general, emails with images can perform better than emails without images. This is because images engage the reader and make the email more visually appealing.

However, it's important to use images wisely and to make sure that they are properly formatted and optimized for email. The ratio between the number of images and plain text in your email design is known as the text-to-image ratio.

Generally, the ratio we recommend is 60:40 (text to image). A higher text ratio results in a lower spam rating score, which means a better chance for your email to land in the recipient’s inbox, right where you want it to be.

This is one of the most significant differences when designing for email vs. designing for print or web.

Does Emailing Pictures Reduce Quality?

Sending pictures through email can sometimes result in a reduction in quality, depending on the size and resolution of the images and the capabilities of the email client.

When sending images through email, it's important to consider the following:

• Image resolution: The resolution of an image refers to the number of pixels per inch (PPI) in the image. Higher-resolution images will generally result in better quality, but they may also be larger.

• Image format: Different image formats can result in different levels of quality and file size. For example, a JPEG image may be smaller in size but have lower quality than a PNG image.

• Email client capabilities: The capabilities of the email client being used to view the images can also affect the quality of the images. Some email clients may not support certain image formats or may not display images at the same resolution as the original image.

Should You Use Images in Marketing Emails?

Yes, you should!

Our brains process visuals 60,000 times faster than text. Images are one of the best ways to keep your audience engaged and break the text-only format in emails.

You just need to make sure you’re having a balance between text and image while writing your drafts.

We hope this blog gave you a better understanding of the relationship between images and email deliverability.

One of the best ways to manage this is by signing up for an email service that can help you figure this out!

Try out beehiiv to see how it can help you take your emailing game to the next level.