Optimize emails for image blocking, increase ROI

How would you like to up the ROI from your email marketing campaigns by $5 for every dollar spent? The Email Experience Council believes that with just a little knowledge of “inbox environment” it is achievable.

by Helen Leggatt

EEC%20logo.jpg Approximately one in two inboxes are configured to block images. However, this fact does not appear to have been taken into account by many marketers, according to the results of a recent Email Experience Council survey.

It found that, of the 472 online retail marketing executives approached, almost half (47%) did not take image suppression into account when designing emails. Consequently, many messages were unintelligible.

Around a third of the survey respondents had tested to see whether changes in image content, such as the use of alt tags and HTML in place of images, affected ROI. Almost half, 47%, saw at least a 10% improvement. Thirty-two percent experienced more opens, 32% saw more click-throughs and 17% saw more conversions.

“Email marketing currently generates an estimated return on investment of $48.29 for every dollar spent on it, according to the Direct Marketing Association,” said Jeanniey Mullen, the founder and executive chairwoman of the Email Experience Council and chief marketing officer of Zinio. “We conservatively estimate that if all marketers optimized their emails for image blocking, email’s ROI would jump to $52.69. Not paying attention to rendering impacts revenue directly.”