How to Insert Gifs Into Emails Effectively

Do you remember those moving portraits and images in Harry Potter?

They are so magical and elevate Hogwart's charm to another level. It is tiny aspects like this that help build the character of Hogwarts that makes us all wish we could live there.

Imagine having such magical moving images inside your email. Accio moving images! Boom! GIFs.

GIFs are just like these moving images that help show your brand's personality and make people want to know more about the brand.

So, if you use email marketing and want to know how to incorporate GIFs into emails, just keep reading. We'll tell you everything you need to know to start using GIFs in your email.

What are GIFs?

GIF (Graphics Interchange Format) is a bitmap image format (like PNG or JPEG) created by CompuServe in 1987. They are short voiceless animations created from video clips or images played in a sequence repeatedly every few seconds.

There are mainly three types of GIFs:

1. Video-based: Video-based GIFs are short, looping clips extracted from movies, TV shows, soap operas or other video content, capturing memorable moments or reactions.

2. Animation-based: Animation-based GIFs feature original, animated illustrations crafted by artists, offering creative and visually engaging designs.

3. Stickers: Stickers are animated GIFs with transparent backgrounds, allowing them to be easily overlaid on other content to enhance messages with playful or expressive visuals.

What are the benefits of using GIFs in emails?

GIFs can be a fun way to express your thoughts and feelings, but that's not all they can do. There are several ways in which GIFs, when used in emails, can benefit your email campaign. Here they are:

• Help grab the reader's attention and make the email engaging: GIFs are eye-catching and mesmerizing, which can capture your subscriber's attention and make them want to read through the email rather than get distracted by something else.
  They can also help guide the viewer's eyes towards the CTA placed below or near it, which helps increase the click-through rate.

• Can be a replacement for embedded videos: Most different email clients support GIFs compared to embedded videos. They are also much smaller in file size than video, making them load faster and providing a good customer experience.

• Help reduce the amount of text: They help you explain or showcase a concept without using a lot of words. It can help paint a picture in their mind about the idea, which might be challenging to do using just text.

Understanding GIF Compatibility

GIFs are a popular choice for adding dynamic content to emails, but their compatibility varies across different email clients. Knowing where and how your GIFs will display can help you avoid issues and ensure a seamless experience for your recipients. Here’s a breakdown of GIF support across various email platforms:

Here is a table showing which desktop clients do or don't support GIFs in emails:

Desktop clients	Supported or not
Outlook 2000-2003	✅
Outlook 2007-2019	❌
Outlook for Mac	✅
Apple Mail	✅
Windows 10 Mail	✅
Office365	✅

Here is a table showing which webmail clients do or don't support GIFs in emails:

Webmail clients	Supported or not
Gmail	✅
G Suite	✅
Yahoo! Mail	✅
AOL	✅
Outlook.com	✅
Office365	✅
Comcast	✅
Orange.fr	✅
SFR.fr	✅
GMX.de	✅
Web.de	✅
T-Online.de	✅
Freenet.de	✅
Mail.ru	✅

Here is a table showing which mobile clients support GIFs in emails:

Mobile clients	Supported or not
iOS Mail	✅
Gmail	✅
Gmail IMAP	✅
Samsung Mail	✅
Outlook	✅
Yahoo	✅
AOL	✅

How to insert GIFs into emails

Adding a GIF to your email is a great way to make your message more engaging and visually appealing. As seen above, most email clients support GIFs, but the insertion process may vary depending on the email clients you’re using.

Below, we’ll walk you through the step-by-step process for inserting GIFs in two major email clients – Outlook and Gmail.

The inline method

The inline method works for both Gmail and Outlook email client. You basically copy the gif and paste it into the email body. Here’s the step-by-step on how to do it.

Step 1: Locate the GIF you want to use.

Step 2: Right-click on the GIF and select "Copy image" (or use the keyboard shortcut, usually Ctrl+C or Cmd+C).

Step 3: Paste the GIF directly into the email body where you want it to appear (usually with Ctrl+V or Cmd+V). This is how it would look.

But there’s another of doing it too. Let’s see how you can do it for each client.

How to insert GIFs in Outlook

Make sure you have the GIF downloaded on your computer before you start. You can then start with the steps as shown below:

Step 1: In the new email page, click on the "Insert" tab in the ribbon.

Step 2: Choose "Attach file" from the options.

Step 3: Browse to find your GIF file, select it, and click "Insert." The GIF will be attached to your email.

Step 4: Now, you can hover on the image, click on the down arrow and choose to move the image to the message body. Now, you can resize or reposition the GIF within your email.

How to insert a GIF in Gmail

In Gmail, you can add your GIF the way you would add an image in your email.

Step 1: In the email composition window, click on the "Insert photo" icon (a small picture icon) located at the bottom of the email toolbar.

Step 2: A pop-up window will appear. Select the “Upload” tab to upload a GIF from your computer.

Step 3: After it’s uploaded, the image will appear directly in the body of the email. Here, you can resize or adjust its position within the email.

How to insert a GIF in Mailmodo

Step 1: Head to the template editor with a pre-existing template that you want to add the gif to or create a new template from scratch.

Step 2: Under the layout tab, drag the image block and drop it where you want it in the email template.

Step 3: Click on ”Add image” and choose how you want to add the image.

If you already have the image on your computer, choose the GIF file and click “Upload” to add it to your email.

Here you can now:

• Drag the GIF to move it around within the email.

• Tweak the image by resizing, adding borders, padding, defining alignment, etc., as per your requirement to fit your email design.

So, you can see how you get a variety of options to tweak the placement and appearance of your gifs when you've added them in your email template in Mailmodo. This makes your emails look better and perform better if you're using it for email marketing.
Mailmodo also offers other features:

• Interactive AMP emails
• A/B testing
• AI- powered tools
• Email automation and personalization
• Send-time optimization

Best practices for using GIFs in email

By following the given best practices, you can effectively use GIFs to make your emails more engaging and visually appealing.

• Group the GIFs you use with a CTA: Use GIFs in such a way that they encourage people to click on the CTA button in the email. Make sure the GIF you use is related to the call to action.

• Create custom GIFs for your brand: Create your own GIFs using animation to keep all aspects of the email on-brand and create cohesiveness.

• Only animate part of the GIF: You can keep it exciting without going overboard by animating only a portion of your GIF. It also helps keep the file size smaller and easy to load.

• Include alt text for the GIF: By including alt text for the images or GIFs in your email, you are making sure that the email is still readable and accessible to users who use screen readers. It can also be helpful for the readers to make sense of the email if the image fails to load.

• Keep your emails accessible: Flashing images in GIFs can cause harm to readers who have photosensitive epilepsy. So, make sure your GIFs have smooth transitions and have a lower rate of frames per second to create a pleasant experience for all your readers.

• Test across different devices and clients: Test your GIFs across various email clients and devices to ensure consistent display and performance.

• Use GIFs sparingly: Use GIFs strategically to enhance your message rather than distract from it. Too many GIFs can dilute their impact and potentially overwhelm readers.

• Improve with user feedback: Sometimes, your audience doesn't respond well to using GIFs and might even think they are unprofessional and view them as poor quality. In such cases, it is up to you to decide if you want to continue, experiment, and A/B test with different GIFs or scrap the idea and cut out GIFs entirely from your campaign.

• Optimize your GIF’s performance by:

1. Limiting GIFs to under 1MB to ensure they load quickly and don’t slow down email performance.
2. Choosing a resolution that maintains clarity while keeping the file size manageable.
3. Configuring GIFs to loop a few times or just once, as endless looping can become annoying or distracting for recipients.
4. Using a minimal number of frames to create smooth animations without unnecessary complexity.

Final takeaway

In conclusion, incorporating GIFs into email communications can be a powerful tool for engagement and creativity. They offer a dynamic way to capture attention and convey messages.

However, it's essential to use them judiciously and consider the recipient's preferences and the context of the communication. By following the best practices mentioned in this guide, Email GIFs can enhance your email strategy, making your messages more impactful.