Does using images instead of text affect email deliverability?

Email marketer from Reddit shares that using too many images in a newsletter can lead to deliverability issues. He says that email clients prefer a good balance of text and images, and image-heavy newsletters are often flagged as spam.

Email marketer from Litmus states that using alt text on images is critical for deliverability. They explain that alt text ensures the purpose of the image is conveyed even if the images are blocked.

Email marketer from Gmass shares that you should strive to include both text and images in your campaigns. Avoid image-only emails, as these are likely to be flagged as spam. This can cause deliverability issues in the future.

Email marketer from HubSpot responds that using a healthy balance of both text and images is important to avoid triggering spam filters. Emails with very little text and large images are often seen as spam.

Email marketer from EmailOnAcid shares that while there's no 'magic' ratio, too many images and too little text can be a problem for deliverability. They recommend using alt text on images and maintaining a reasonable text-to-image balance.

Email marketer from StackOverflow responds that embedding all text as an image in an email is a bad practice. Search engines can’t crawl text embedded within images which makes it bad for SEO. Some clients block images by default.

Email marketer from Email Geeks says to generally avoid images in place of text. She states that images won't help a custom field problem and the user experience could be negatively impacted. It would also require rigorous testing because phones will display the image much differently than desktop.

Email marketer from Sendinblue answers that while visually appealing emails can enhance engagement, excessive use of images can negatively impact deliverability. Email clients may view emails with a high image-to-text ratio as spam.

Email marketer from Mailjet explains that a poor text-to-image ratio can trigger spam filters. They share that emails consisting of mostly images and little text are often flagged as spam because spammers often use images to hide malicious links or bypass spam filters.

Expert from Word to the Wise explains that images in email can contribute to deliverability problems if they dominate the message, lack alt text, or are hosted on untrusted servers. Images aren't inherently bad, but they can be a component of spam filtering decisions.

Expert from Spamresource explains that using too many images in your email can cause your email to land in the spam folder and lower your sender reputation. However, it's important to note that there are a lot of factors that email providers consider, not just images. So while it won't always be the only reason, it can be a contributing reason.

Expert from Email Geeks recommends against using images with text because it excludes people who use text readers. She hasn't seen any direct effect on deliverability but suggests there may be second-order effects due to the lack of measurable engagement.

Expert from Email Geeks says the linked article is a mess and makes no sense. It seems to be taking the wrong '80/20 text to image ratio in an email' recommendation and translating that to 'an image should be no more than 20% text'. She believes the author appears to be making stuff up about delivery.

Documentation from RFC explains that mail clients should be capable of notifying users when an email contains only images. It advises to implement safeguards so that users understand that images may contain undesirable content.

Documentation from Spamhaus explains that spam filters analyze email content, including the ratio of images to text. Emails with a high image content and low text content are more likely to be flagged as spam because spammers use images to hide URLs and other text-based elements that could be caught by spam filters.

Documentation from Google Postmaster Tools shares that if a high percentage of your recipients mark your emails as spam, it will negatively impact your sender reputation and cause deliverability problems. This can be triggered by emails containing suspicious content such as those that are predominantly images.

Documentation from Microsoft explains that bulk emails should avoid the exclusive use of images, because images can sometimes be unavailable to the recipient. They recommend including text so that the user is still able to interpret the message.