Reasons on why animation is good for email marketing campaigns along with insights in to animated GIFs in email. Visit http://blog.lyris.com/ to accelerate your digital & email marketing campaigns.

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Lyris Connections Blog
Excerpts From Our Most Popular Posts
Animation in Email is Alive
By Lyris Staff Writer
Who said emails have to be static? I have always been surprised that email
marketers agree to serve animated banners from third-party advertisers but still
don’t think about using animation to improve click-through rates in their own
email campaigns.
Why use animation ?
Look at these emails from two of our customers (click on the images to see the animation). Pretty obvious, don’t
you think?

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Lyris Connections Blog
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If you are still not convinced, let me point out three main reasons why animation could be a good option for your
email marketing campaigns:
Animation draws your reader’s eye to important parts of your message and accentuates your offer or
promotion while allowing for a more creative message.
Animation can help pack a large message into a small space. Some email marketers even use animation to
highlight multiple products. Anthropologie used it to show off the different colors their new shirtdress came in.
Click here to see the animated part of their email.
Animation works! The online fashion retailer BlueFly found an animated email pulling in 12% more revenue
than the non-animated equivalent. Dressed Up!, the largest eveningwear store in Los Angeles, tested two
different versions of their email:
• Email Version A featured a static screenshot of the video
• Email Version B featured an animated GIF
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Lyris Connections Blog
Excerpts From Our Most Popular Posts
Version B generated a 26% increase in the click-through rate (CTR), in comparison to the non-animated version of
the email.
And finally, as an email marketer or designer you want (well, you need) your email to stand out of the flow, and 95%
of your peers are still not using animated gifs.
Animated what?
An animated GIF is an image encoded in Graphics Interchange Format (GIF), which contains a number of images or
frames in a single file. The frames are presented in a specific order in order to convey animation. An animated GIF can
loop endlessly or stop after a few sequences. And given the poor video and Flash support by the major email clients,
animated gifs are definitely the only reliable solution to give life to your emails.
Support for animated GIFs in email
As shown in the table below, animated GIF support is pretty much universal across the major email clients. The only
exception is Outlook 2007 and 2010 (surprised?), and only the first frame displays. You will just have to make sure
your most important information in the animation will feature on the first frame. As much as I love great examples, I
also like to point out good bad examples as they allow us to understand why this is not the way to go: This is how
an email from Fendi presenting their new Chameleon purse collection rendered in Outlook 2007 and 2010 and
Windows Mobile 7. This is how the same email rendered on any other email clients.
Desktop
email clients
Animated GIF
support
Web-based
email clients
Animated GIF
support
Animated GIF
support
Mobile email
clients
Windows Live
Mail 2011
AOL Web
Android
(default)
Apple Mail
Android
(Gmail)
Gmail
Lotus Notes
6, 7 & 8.5
BlackberryHotmailOutlook 2003
HotmailOutlook Express Blackberry
iPhoneYahoo! mailOutlook 2007 First frame
Yahoo! maildisplaysOutlook 2010 iPhone
Windows 7
Mobile
Outlook for
Mac 2011
First frame
displays

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channels. Learn more at www.lyris.com.
Beside support, an important factor to consider is file weight (kilobytes). Animated GIFs can get larger than a static
image. Just keep in mind the more colors you use, the larger the animated gif is. The “Flash Sale” animated image in
Aqua’s email is pretty light (less than 25KB) compared to its size.
One last thing: Before using animation in your email, think about what you are trying to achieve with the animation.
If the animation is gratuitous, you will just waste your subscribers’ time and will most likely annoy them.
A new generation of Web designers like Paul Boag sees in the revival of the animated gif a new universal and effective
approach to draw visitors’ and readers’ attention. Take a look at Paul’s blog and especially at the three animations at
the bottom.
The next generation of emails will be animated for sure. And what if we could add sound to them?
Keep up with the latest industry trends, developments and best practices for
continuously optimizing your digital marketing campaigns.
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