How to Use Animated GIFs in Your Emails
Tired of your email design?
Looking for a way to make your message pop?
Animated GIFs might hold the answer.
Adding a GIF to your email can help your message stand out and entice your subscribers to take action.
Let’s take a look at some example GIFs and how you can create one for your next email.
The origin of the animated GIF.
In the wild and woolly 1990s, the animated GIF was born. It was a time when web designers and developers were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should. Animated GIFs were quickly derided as the clear sign webpages were created by someone with little talent or taste. One of the reasons for the scorn was that the GIFs were often distracting. Webpages were awash with dancing babies, flashing police lights, and waving flags, none of which had anything to do with the webpage itself. Additionally, the GIF image format had both limited color depth and a large file size in the non-animated form, and animation just ballooned the size. In the end, animated GIFs took too long to download and had poor image quality.The evolution of animated GIFs.
Now, two decades later, the animated GIF has taken on a much different significance. GIFs that used to be limited due to the low available bandwidth are now reasonably sized for modern broadband and 4G wireless connections. Designers have also largely developed an understanding of how to incorporate the animation into website and email design. Many email clients display animated GIFs in both foreground and background form. Foreground GIFs take on the jobs of slide shows, silent video clips, and short animations. Background GIFs provide a dynamic look to a static email. (As a side note, there is intense online debate over whether GIF is pronounced with a hard G (as in girl) or a soft G (as in giraffe). This author uses the hard G, but isn’t bothered by others using the wrong pronunciation.)How to use animated GIFs in your emails
If you’re using Constant Contact, you already have access to a few animated templates. Search “animated” in the email template picker to preview your options. You can also add GIFs directly to your email message body. Here are a few examples:- Add a reaction GIF
- Provide a preview
- Show a step-by-step