The act of sending effective and impressive communication, to existing and or prospective consumers to gain their loyalty or to turn them into buyers, via emails is called email marketing.
Since about 99% of consumers check their emails daily, emails make a great marketing tool. However, there are several things that are to be done right to ensure that the users open your emails. In this article, we will discuss one of the crucial yet highly debatable aspects of the emails i.e. image to text ratio.
Why Image to Text Ratio is Important?
One reason why the image to text ratio is gaining high importance is that this ratio determines if the message is spam or not. Various email servers use a spam filter based on the image to text ratio to determine if an email is a spam.
An email that is image-heavy with minimum to no text is considered spam. Thus, it is essential to maintain a healthy image to text ratio so that your emails end up in the inbox of your users and not anywhere else.
Some users also turn off the automatic image download option. This results in blank emails and could also make your users unsubscribe to your newsletter.
What is the Ideal Ratio?
This is a bit of a tough number to figure out, mostly because of the varied level of filters applied by different email servers. Various numbers have been presented so far, ranging from 60-40 to 80-20 text to image ratio, for the perfect email. We highly recommend you stick to an 80-20 text to image ratio while designing an email.
How to Use an Image in an Email Newsletter?
Keeping in mind the above constraint, we recommend that you use the image very astutely while designing a newsletter with Mailpro. Follow these points to dodge the spam bullet:
- Do not give the image more than 40% exposure
- Minimum 60% area in a layout should be text
- Don’t have more than 3 images in a page
- Ensure that the images don’t touch each other
- Keep a minimum of 400 characters of text
Along with this, it is advisable to follow certain other guidelines as well:
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Intriguing Preview Pane
Most users today end up skimming through mails to get to the important ones. It becomes necessary to utilize the preview space in an interesting way to catches the attention of the consumers. Thus, to improve the click-through rate, we will highly recommend using enticing text.
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Note the Load Time
Though internet speed has improved drastically over the years, there still exist places where the connectivity is not proper and the internet speed is slow.
The result - emails do not download properly on a smartphone or any other device. Sometimes, this even leads to a blank email. To avoid this, do not use a big heavy image or a collage of several small ones. It may look good on your computer screen but it is not functional.
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Simple is Best
Simple emails are the best emails to get through to your consumers instead of the ones with too complex graphics and design.
Subsequently, it is a good idea to do A/B testing of different layout and design options available to figure out what works best for you.
What if Rules were not followed?
These are not hard fast rules that you ought to religiously follow. You can certainly try different options before you arrive at the sweet ratio that works for you. However, following the aforementioned guidelines will ensure better click-through rates and might help you in avoiding being dumped in the spam folder.
Determining the Best Image to Text Ratio
If you are still confused about the image to text ratio in your emails and don’t want to take any risk whatsoever, the best way to move ahead with this is by conducting a SPAM test. Mailpro can assist you here.
In addition to , Mailpro also estimates if your email will be considered as spam. It helps you by:
- Highlighting the spamwords
- Highlighting the broken links
- Allowing you to adjust the image/text ratio
- Providing you with a spam score
All you need to do is start using Mailpro to stay safe!