What is the impact of large GIF file sizes in marketing emails on deliverability and user experience?
Summary
What email marketers say11Marketer opinions
Email marketer from Reddit shares that slow-loading GIFs can frustrate recipients, leading them to abandon the email. Optimizing GIFs for faster loading times is crucial to maintain engagement.
Email marketer from Litmus explains that excessively large email sizes, often due to unoptimized GIFs, can impact deliverability. Some email clients may clip messages exceeding certain size limits, potentially hiding crucial content or calls to action.
Email marketer from Sendinblue shares that large images and GIFs are one of the main reasons why emails don't load quickly. Optimizing images is critical for improving the user experience.
Email marketer from Hubspot explains that using compression tools can significantly reduce GIF file sizes without noticeably impacting quality, ensuring faster loading times and improved user experience.
Email marketer from Email on Acid shares that large GIF file sizes can lead to slow loading times, especially on mobile devices. They suggest limiting colors, reducing dimensions, and optimizing the number of frames to reduce file size without sacrificing visual quality.
Email marketer from Email Geeks shares that HBO Max regularly sends emails with GIFs exceeding 5MB, suggesting that it's reasonable to expand the image size limit while keeping the audience in mind.
Email marketer from Neil Patel's blog explains that optimizing images, including GIFs, is crucial for email loading speed. Large files increase loading times, leading to poor user experience and potential abandonment. Compressing GIFs without significant quality loss is recommended.
Email marketer from StackOverflow explains that reducing the number of colors, limiting the frame rate, and cropping unnecessary areas can significantly reduce GIF file sizes, improving loading times.
Email marketer from ActiveCampaign shares that the key is to create emails that load quickly and display properly, no matter what size screen your recipient views it on. Optimizing images is a key part of the mobile-first design process.
Email marketer from GIPHY shares that using a limited color palette and ensuring efficient compression helps in creating GIFs suitable for email marketing, balancing visual appeal with file size limitations.
Email marketer from Email Geeks shares that the suitability of heavy GIFs depends on the audience. Animated GIFs might not perform well with B2B audiences, and there are accessibility issues with image-laden messages.
What the experts say2Expert opinions
Expert from Email Geeks explains that if the image is loaded through `img src`, the image size has zero impact on deliverability, assuming the CDN platform has a good reputation. The only piece inside the email is the link.
Expert from Word to the Wise shares that image sizes, especially background images and GIFs, are a common culprit for increased email size. She notes that some programs, like AOL, have a limit of around 35k, so going over that is a guaranteed ticket to the spam folder. She also shares that some mobile users still have metered data, so the bandwidth of your images is a cost to your recipients.
What the documentation says4Technical articles
Documentation from Campaign Monitor explains that large GIF files contribute to increased email size, which can negatively impact open rates and conversions. Reducing the complexity and size of GIFs is suggested for better performance.
Documentation from Mailchimp shares that while there isn't a strict image size limit, overall email size should be kept low for optimal deliverability. Optimizing GIFs is crucial for balancing visual appeal with email performance.
Documentation from Google explains that while Gmail doesn't explicitly block large emails based solely on image size, exceeding overall message size limits can cause delivery issues. Optimizing images and GIFs ensures better compatibility and user experience.
Documentation from Microsoft shares that Outlook has message size limits that include images. Exceeding these limits can result in delivery failure. Compressing GIFs and other images is recommended to stay within acceptable size ranges.