Avoiding image-only emails

Include more than a single image in your email to avoid getting caught in spam filters

You've spent a ton of time designing a flyer that includes all of your branding and the important information you need to share. You want to get mileage out of it, but there are serious pitfalls to just inserting it into an email and sending it off without any other content:

• Why you should avoid image-only emails
• Ways to improve an image-only email

Why you should avoid image-only emails

When an image is the only source of text in your email, you can run into problems that decrease your deliverability, opens, and engagement:

• Image-only emails are often associated with, and are used by spammers.
• Image-only emails generate high spam complaints, have high bounce rates, and have a negative impact on open rates.
• Email clients often block image-only emails as a first line of defense against spam. The second line of defense is to route image-only emails directly to the junk or spam folder.
• If you manage to get into the inbox, recipients who prefer text-only emails, or who are unable to display images in their email client, or on their mobile device, won't see any of your information beyond your subject line.
• Screen readers and voice assistants for the blind and visually impaired aren't able to decipher text included in an image. If important information is only in your image, you're preventing that information from reaching your audience!
• Text in an image-only email can't be easily translated. If you have text in your email, a browser extension, or simply copying and pasting into a translation program, is quick and easy compared to having to manually re-type the text from an image into a program.
• Mobile devices resize images to fit smaller screens, which can result in tiny, unreadable text.
• Saving a PDF as an image can result in a large image file-size or image dimensions. Images can end up compressed and appear grainy, with blurry or unreadable text. Large images can also be slow to load.
• Dark mode is easy on the eyes and saves battery life, but not all websites, email clients, and apps apply dark mode the same way. Dark mode can sometimes make image text unreadable because it can't tell what part of the image is text. Putting all your content into a single image gives you much less control over how your email displays.
• The keywords in your image aren't searchable in an email client and make it harder for your contacts to find your email when they have the time to fully engage with it.

Ways to improve an image-only email

Ideally, the best way to improve the likelihood that you'll get into the inbox and be read is to upload the plain image (without all your text) and add your text to the body of the email. The text in your image should support your email content, but not be the source of your main call-to-action or important details, like dates, times, or contact information.

If you absolutely have to use your image as-is, the good news is that you only have to make a couple of design changes:

• Increase the amount of text - A good ratio is about 20 lines of text or less for each image in your email. Add a text block, header block, or button block to your template to increase your text; you can even use a text block as an image caption. The following email has one large image, but also includes 12 lines of text without feeling too heavy.
  
  
  
  
• Add alt text to images - Each time you edit your email, make updating the image description part of your process. This lets you customize your alt text for each email you send to make it relevant for your audience. If your image doesn't display, your readers still have an idea of what they're missing and screen readers will recognize it too!
  
  
  
  

Design tip: When you create an email from a PDF using our editor, it automatically includes a button that links to the document and some extra text areas for you to customize to help you avoid the pitfalls of an image-only email.

Questions?