Whether you're switching to a new email service provider (ESP) or selecting one for the first time—it's one of the most challenging purchases a marketer can make. High-stakes, time-intensive, and hard to undo if you get it wrong. 

So when the time comes, we naturally lean on our network to help us navigate. That's exactly why we reached out to email pros across the US to ask: when it comes to choosing an ESP—what worked, what didn't, and what would you do differently the second time around?

The result? 100+ seasoned marketers responded to our survey.

Their top insights are summarized below and helped us craft an interactive Google Sheet template that you can use to more effectively compare and choose your next ESP.  



Vetting software is a task that usually falls to one unlucky individual (you) that’s left juggling stakeholders' requests and navigating products that sound the same—but just use different jargon. Don’t forget the hours spent in demo calls that don’t answer your questions.


And, after all that, it’s still ridiculously hard to narrow down your choices.

We wanted to create a tool that actually makes this task manageable. Too often, solutions for this problem are just checklists you have to print or articles that promise “the 56 best email marketing platforms” or “347 questions to ask on your next product demo”—which are not helpful.

So, we built a practical tool as a solution to everything you hate about choosing new email marketing software. Meet the Project Hub for Comparing Email Software. This template will house and track all the key information from the selection process. And, at the end, you have every part of your decision documented and ready for review.

We walk you through every step of the process: defining your needs, conducting internal research, creating a budget & timeline, finding your top contenders, comparing apples to apples, and finally, making sure everyone has signed off.




Yes, we know—we’re an email marketing platform telling you how to buy an email marketing service.

Here’s why we made this: no single ESP will meet the needs of every team. We know it’s better for everyone, ourselves included (trust us, we’ve been doing this for 20 years) when a customer gets paired with the ESP that has everything they need, whether that’s us or another platform.

We both win when we get it right and we both lose when it’s not the right fit.

But this isn’t about us, this is about you. And you shouldn’t just take our word for it.

We tapped into our network of marketing VPs, directors, managers, CTOs, and sales leadership—both Delivra customers and non-customers—to find out what goes well in the ESP buying process and what doesn’t. Our survey received more than 100 responses from individuals who recently switched their email marketing platforms.

We analyzed every response so we could build a solution that addresses real problems that real teams run into.

Here are the themes that showed up the most in survey responses.

Here’s what we learned: the 3 biggest challenges in shopping for a new ESP

Everyone who responded to our survey has been directly or indirectly involved in the buying process within the last five years. Whether they were in sales, marketing, IT, operations, or management, there were regular themes in what frustrated them and what made the process difficult (as well as some serious golden nuggets of knowledge for how to approach a problem).

Here’s what they had to say:

1) People slow down the process

While you spend so much time and effort scrutinizing the software and figuring out if Feature A beats Feature B... the greatest complexity is usually elsewhere: the people.

What made it difficult?

Sales fatigue is real. Even if a demo is only 30 minutes long, don’t forget about all the time you invest in communicating with sales reps, gathering questions from stakeholders, and scheduling an appointment. Jumping on a demo call for every platform that seems like a good fit will lead to burnout.

How can we solve this?

The real question is, how do you meaningfully demo a platform? The answer: figure out your requirements for an ESP in advance, so you don’t wait until after a demo to decide if a platform will meet your needs.

You need to know what your teams want from a new ESP, what didn’t work in the past, and all the nitty-gritty requirements for volume and software functionality. You should also get answers from upper management on budget and timeline before you start speaking with any sales reps.

Armed with a list of your needs, wants, and absolutely-must-haves, you can skip the sales calls with the platforms that are lacking. Asking sales reps direct questions before you demo means you’ll only be investing your time in actual, viable options.

In this “discovery” phase, get as much input as possible from the teams that will be using the email service. Once you have all your requirements for an ESP laid out, gather feedback from upper management and relay your findings to your stakeholders for final confirmation.

This will save you from stakeholders weighing in at the eleventh hour by it confining requirements gathering to one stage in the process.

2) Making the most of a free trial

A demo never tells the full story. Take it as a caution from the marketers that came before you: test an ESP in every way possible before signing.

After a demo is complete, and you’re convinced a platform could be a contender, your next step should be to secure a trial. While an option could look great on paper, there’s no way to know if it will really work for you until you try it yourself.

What made it difficult?

A demonstration is very different from a behind-the-wheel test drive. Does it actually run? Is it easy for you and your team to use daily?

How can we solve this?

This is where some gold nuggets of wisdom appear. Our survey respondents had some tried and true creative ways of testing email software in a limited time.

First, input the same dummy data into each of the systems you’re trialing. This will help you compare apples to apples when it comes to data handling and the platform’s capabilities for analytics, reporting, and contact organization.

Next, create an email, a template, or even a full campaign within each ESP. Use similar content and graphics on each site so you can understand the limitations of each platform.

Designers, junior marketers, copywriters, or anyone who will be working within the ESP can provide you with real, use-case feedback that will help you understand how that platform will impact day-to-day business.

Finally, try chatting with their customer support team or submitting a support ticket. How easy was it to reach them and have your problems resolved? Put them through their paces so you know what it’s actually like to be their customer.

3) Apples to elephants: comparing your final options

You have all the groundwork laid for your decision, the next tough part is actually making that decision. Depending on how specific your email marketing needs are, you may be left with a few valid options after all the testing, trialing, and feedback phases are complete.

What made it difficult?

How can we solve this?

ESP feature indexes are becoming overcrowded with jargon. This can make it really difficult to find the subtle differences between each platform—subtle differences that could end up being deal-breakers.

The best way to deal with this is through rigorous testing. Like we’ve mentioned, putting your ESP options through all your daily motions and creating direct comparables will help you see past whatever language each platform is using.

Here’s where it gets tricky (but it doesn’t have to!). Once you’re through testing, narrow your contenders down to three final choices. This is where the Platform Comparison sheet becomes your best friend.

These two tips will make your cost/benefit analysis more efficient (and we’ve built them into the template layout):

Doing the work to standardize pricing pays off. Look beyond the initial pricing quote and think in terms of first-year, second-year, and third-year costs. Will options get more expensive as you grow your audience?

Ignore the bells and whistles—stay focused on the core features.

Removing all the unnecessary information that’s crowding your decision will help you to focus on what matters to your team, and not that ESP’s marketing. When you’re done, it should be easy to spot where a provider falls short.

If you’ve completed all the other steps leading up to this moment, most of the work will already be done for you. You just have to find that information and plug it into this worksheet.

After all of this, if you’re still unsure about making a decision, try requesting another demo of each platform to test some more specific features or explore how much room there is to grow within your options.

It’s time to get started

We recommend looking through the Project Hub template before you start searching for software options. There’s a lot of groundwork and crucial recommendations to cover before you start getting lots in the countless providers on the market.

Remember, there could be a long road ahead. We’ve tried to keep things as simple as possible, but you can really make this template your own: delete what doesn’t matter to your team, add more space for comparison, or take a deeper dive into your budget.

If you don’t want to go it alone, share with a collaborator and work through the process together. This template can be your HQ so you can share information without becoming scattered or overwhelmed.

Our platform and team have been in the email industry for 20+ years, we’ve seen how quickly features change and platforms trend, but one thing stays the same: comparing email software is stressful. We’re striving to make this process easier because, as email marketers ourselves, we’ve been in your shoes. So we truly hope this helps.

That’s how we do things at Delivra. If you think we might be a good fit for your team, you can get to know us a little better by clicking below.

Get to Know Delivra

We asked 100 marketing & sales leaders: How did you choose your email software?

Email Marketing

Click-through rate (CTR) and click-to-open rate (CTOR) were once considered must-have metrics for email marketers—but is that still the case, and what's the difference between the two? 

This article is designed to give you a crisp understanding of each metric, how Apple's Mail Privacy Protection (released in 2021) has impacted their reliability, and a short list of what to look into if you start to see either one of these two numbers looking a bit low.

It’s no big deal really—it’s just your audience engagement that hangs in the balance. So, shall we begin?



What’s a good click-through rate or click-to-open rate?

Every marketer loves a benchmark (Campaign Monitor’s report is a good one) but none is more valuable than a strong grasp of your own historic performance. We recommend tracking by campaign groups so that you can establish baseline performance metrics for your unique brand by email type (sales promo vs. newsletter, etc.). Then, evaluate how any individual email send compares relative to your own unique baseline.

Now, that’s an insight you can take action on.

Click-through rate vs. click-to-open rate



Why it matters



What it measures

How it's calculated



*Total delivered refers to the total number of times your email successfully made it to the inbox of a subscriber (excluding hard and soft bounces). Keep in mind this is almost always a smaller number than the total ‘sent’ emails.


Why use only unique clicks and opens?

Because total clicks and opens will count the same user opening and clicking on an email multiple times and tends to skew your data. Instead, you want to measure how many unique individuals take these actions.

Neither is a “bad” or “better” metric—it all depends on what question you most want to answer.

How well did your subject line work? — Open Rate

How many clicks did your emails generate? — CTR

How well did your email perform? — CTOR


Tracking both and understanding what they represent is essential for growing an email list that consistently contributes to your company’s bottom line.



What to do if you have a low CTR or CTOR?

It’s great when you can measure something, sure—but as an email marketer, you’re always looking for signals from your data about what you should do differently.

How is this data going to change your decision-making?

If you make a different choice, will you have a small or large impact?


Perhaps you sent to a large list of 10,000 with a low open rate of 10%. But your email content was extremely compelling and drove the majority (75%) of readers back to your website.

Your CTR won’t reflect that reality, because 1000/10000 = 10% 😕. Therefore, it only tells (a small) part of the story: perhaps you had a bum subject line or an under-optimized send time that causes few people to open the email, masking the true effectiveness of your email content.

What to do if you have a low CTR:





What to do if you have a low CTOR:



How do you calculate CTOR and CTR?

Let’s run through a few quick examples so that you’re fully comfortable with the math.

Let’s imagine your monthly company newsletter was sent to a segment of 5,000 people, but only 4,850 people actually receive your email—the rest are hard or soft bounces due to bad email addresses. That gives you a delivery rate of 97% (4850÷5000)—not bad.

Your email open rate (or CTOR) is 20%, which means 970 people will actually see the (phenomenal) content in your email (0.2 ✕ 4850).

Of those 970 people, you get 68 unique clicks which is a 7% CTR (68÷970).



Which metric is more useful - CTR or CTOR?

By now, you know it’s not a matter of one inherently being more useful than the other—CTR and CTOR give you two key indicators for how your email marketing is performing—neither one is complete on its own and CTOR has certainly been impacted by Apple's Mail Privacy Protection.

As the savvy email marketer that you are, you should be tracking both: establishing a baseline specific to your brand (and broken down by email type) then comparing every new send to this metric.



CTR vs. CTOR: What’s the difference and why do they matter?

Best Practices

We can agree that quality trumps quantity when it comes to leads. But do you have a system designed to score and qualify leads for your organization? MarketingSherpa reports that lead scoring can increase conversions by a whopping 79%!

It’s important to do it right, and Delivra is here to help! Continue reading to learn about the top practices that will help you create the best email marketing lead scoring strategy for your brand.

What is Lead Scoring?

Let’s begin with what lead scoring is and how it works. Lead scoring is a methodology used to rank sales leads according to a scale. Typically a score system is devised to range from 1 - 100, the higher the score, the more likely that lead is to convert. The system you build will determine and categorize lead priority based on prospect data, actions, or inactions.

Having a defined lead scoring system will allow you to more effectively manage your leads. With Delivra, you can score leads based on:

Demographic data

Time-based actions

Category subscription status

Form submissions

Engagement with campaigns (opens / clicks)

Responses in automations

Your dynamic point system will allow you to easily identify, prioritize, and sort leads so that you can target them with the most relevant content, move them through your sales funnel, and increase your close rates through email.

How do you devise a point system that works?

There are several criteria to consider that may elevate - or even reduce - the number of points a lead can be assigned. Chosen criteria should reflect your brand and email marketing goals.

Also, it’s just as important to identify your high value actions and attribute higher point values to them as it is to identify your low value actions and attribute lower point values, or even subtract points, for those actions. Keep in mind that the more interest a lead shows in the brand, the higher the score and the more qualified the lead becomes.

Pro Tip

Your Sales team can add extremely valuable input from their experience with your brand and determining top lead qualifiers. They know what sells - and to whom - and what does not. Don’t leave your Sales team out of the lead scoring strategy and set-up process.

Example Lead Scoring Criteria

Industry/Job title (B2B)

Demographics

Purchase History

More purchases = more points

Email Opens (5 point per, as an example)

Browse website pages

Score pages based on the content; one score does not fit all.

Open Welcome emails

Download a white paper (B2B)

View product tutorial

View videos

Click-through to site







https://databox.com/lead-scoring-tips

At this point, you may be thinking this sounds really cool, but why do I need lead scoring? The three biggest reasons for any email marketing team are:

Reducing acquisition costs

Increasing conversion rates

Higher revenue

Best Practices

Now that we know what it is and how it works, let’s review some best practices so that you’re ready to dive in and create a lead scoring system for your email marketing strategy.

Make sure your data is tidy and clean. Poor data is going to skew scoring and not achieve the goals intended.

Incorporate lead scoring as a foundation strategy in your email marketing plan. Setting a solid foundation allows for a clear pathway to success.

Make sure you’re properly accounting for engagement metrics like:

Email opens and click-throughs

High-value web page views

High-value form submissions

Consider a system to re-score cold leads too.

Create targeted content within automated journeys. Ensure that you’re considering lead point values or status within the acquisition funnel to meet leads where they are:

Awareness: In the beginning, it’s important to share content with leads that will inform and educate them on why they need your brand. Using blogs, videos, infographics are all great pieces for this group.

Engagement: Get more detailed. When a lead is engaged, they have questions and are getting more deeply interested in your brand - provide content to encourage this behavior.

Decision: Content at this stage should be based on getting the lead across the finish line. Making sure they’re set to get approvals, overcome any outstanding objections, etc. is key.

Continue to review and refine your lead scoring system. You should review results regularly to continue to optimize the program.

Include criteria that will permanently disqualify poor leads. It sounds scary using the word “permanent”; however, there are some leads that will never convert. As you refine and optimize your program, this criteria will continue to evolve as well. Don’t be afraid to say it wasn’t meant to be and move on.

Wrap-Up

The bottom line is that lead scoring will help you increase your impact on the financial goals of your team and your company. Anything that can bring in more coin will get noticed, and anything that continually improves through optimization will keep getting you noticed!

Lead Scoring Best Practices for Email Marketers

Connect Delivra with Salesforce to advance your business with flexible, powerful, and time-saving automations. It’s important to keep your CRM and automation platform in sync so your marketing and sales teams can take advantage of all the information you have. Never again fail to nurture a prospect or miss out on a qualified lead.

Experience marketing and sales synergy

Choose which Salesforce leads and contacts to sync to Delivra, and add new Delivra contacts to Salesforce. Sync leads and contacts bi-directionally so changes made in one system are reflected in the other. Score and qualify leads using the scoring criteria that’s important to you. Send engagement activity and lead scores to Salesforce to help your sales team prioritize their follow-up and close more deals.

Use your Salesforce data to automate any process

Use your Salesforce account, owner, and custom object data in Delivra for even more flexibility when targeting your contacts, personalizing your messages, nurturing and scoring your leads, and designing automated flows. Add your Salesforce leads and contacts to an automation based on an event or data change. Automate prospect nurturing and customer onboarding activities. Send lead alerts to your sales team based on lead activity or score. Update lead and contact data in Delivra and sync the changes to Salesforce. Transition from one automation to another based on action, inaction, or data change.

Flexible setup options to support your business

Your Salesforce setup is unique to your business and requires an integration that is flexible enough to not cause disruption to your operations. That’s why we give you control over how to sync data between the two platforms. Use our simple UI to set it up - no technical skills required.

Delivra Salesforce Integration

Integrations

Include text messaging in your automation strategy to grow your business.

Your SMS subscribers tend to be more loyal and engaged because they selectively choose which brands to receive text messages from. This makes text messaging a great way to communicate with your customers – and it doesn’t hurt that text messages are typically read within 5 minutes of being sent!

You are more likely to receive immediate action when sending a text message, so add it to your automation strategy and combine it with other channels to reach your customers.

How can I use text messaging?

Increase sales with a special promotion.

Send reminders for appointments, events, or promotions that are ending.

Send information to your customers.

Nurture leads.

Ask for a donation.

Ask for a review.

Recognize your customer’s important dates or milestones – a birthday, first purchase date or rewards level.

Ways to grow your subscriber list

Use Delivra forms to easily add new subscribers.

Create ads that encourage mobile users to text a keyword to your number. 

Ask during your commerce checkout process.

Ask during your event registration process.

Include a SMS CTA in your email newsletter.

Capture consent when your customer signs an application or agreement.

Reach your customers with SMS

At Delivra, you know we’re all about building relationships through email marketing, but we can also get really nerdy about the data behind email, too. And because we know data can really power campaigns and connections, we wanted to share some metrics for one of our favorite industries to work with—Higher education. Allow us to introduce you to The 2020 Higher Ed Email Benchmark Report. Inside, you’ll find:

A breakdown of the most important email metrics for your email programs

Average performance benchmarks based on hundreds of millions of emails

Actionable tips to build or maintain momentum for increased engagement

What we can learn from engagement rates during the pandemic

Download here

Introducing: The 2020 Higher Ed Email Benchmark Report

Even though many new marketing channels are popping up every day, email marketing still remains king. The only caveat with email marketing is that your subscribers are being bombarded by many emails apart from yours. In fact, research shows that the average worker receives 121 emails a day. As for the number of emails sent daily, here’s a shocking statistic from Statista: Source: Statista A whopping 281 billion emails were sent and received per day in 2018, and the number is only bound to increase. The battle to get noticed in the inbox is fierce. As a marketer, you need to follow email marketing best practices in order to grab your customer’s attention. Not only do you need their attention, but also their interaction with your emails. One email marketing best practice to follow is list segmentation.

What is Email Segmentation?

Email list segmentation is an email marketing technique whereby you “slice and dice” your email list in order to group particular subscribers into different segments based on a number of predefined conditions. Ultimately, list segmentation helps you: Address subscribers on a personal level Create relevant content The criteria you use to segment your list will largely depend on the goals you have for your email campaign. However, they can be anything from:

Location

Gender

Purchase history

Age

What you really need is the best denominator you can use to group similar subscribers into one segment. However, you also need to know how to remove contacts from a segment. Let’s tackle this issue step by step.

Are there Any Real Benefits to Segmentation?

Email list segmentation forms the basis of any successful email campaigns. Here are 5 benefits of email list segmentation that make it so powerful.

Get Personal with Your Customers

The greatest benefit email list segmentation offers is the ability to personalize emails. The reality of every business is that you deal with different customers with different needs and treating them all the same way won’t work. By segmenting your email list, you can treat each customer, not only as an individual, but as a VIP. Source: Really Good Emails This kind of treatment endears them to you and transforms them into a lifelong customer. As you well know, repeat customers are the backbone of every business.

Cater to Customers at Different Levels of Your Sales Funnel

A thriving business has different customers who are passing through various stages of the sales funnel. List segmentation helps you send timely, targeted, and relevant messages to each of those customers. For example, a customer at the top of the funnel (awareness stage) needs a totally different message from one that’s at the bottom of the funnel (purchase stage). Segmenting your email list will allow you to easily solve this challenge and give your customers an enjoyable experience as they go down your funnel.

Increases Engagement

Because of the way email list segmentation allows you to create relevant and timely content for your subscribers, it results in them engaging more with your emails. Engagement is what leads to conversions. In a study conducted by Campaign Monitor, marketers noted a 760% increase in revenue from segmented campaigns.

Improves Your Sender Reputation

Your sender reputation has to do with how trustworthy you are to ISPs. The more your audience engages with your emails, it signals to the ISPs that you are trustworthy and deserve to reach your recipient’s inbox. At the same time, the opposite is also true. The less your audience interacts with your emails, the more likely you are to end up in the spam folder.

3 Good Reasons to Remove Subscribers from a Segment

With all the amazing things we’ve looked at concerning email list segmentation, could there be any possible reason to remove subscribers from a segment? Follow along for 3 good reasons to remove contacts from a list.

1. Some Emails May Be Bouncing

According to Hubspot, email lists depreciate by about 22.5% every year. This leads to some emails bouncing due to:

People shifting jobs (thereby closing down their email accounts)

Domains closing down

Some emails being blocked

Whatever the reason for your emails bouncing, there’s no reason to keep them in your list as continually emailing them can lead to your sender reputation being compromised.

2. Your Subscriber May Have Lost Interest

Let’s face it, some relationships aren’t meant to last forever. That’s especially true in business. Some subscribers may lose interest in your content resulting in them not opening your emails. While it’s tempting to hope they will eventually start opening them one day, the harm to your business is almost immediate. For one, if your email marketing platform charges you by the number of emails sent or subscribers on your list, meaning sending emails to dormant subscribers becomes costly.

3. You No Longer Have a Use for the Segment

Yes, it’s possible. There are times when certain segments just don’t make business sense anymore. The solution? Delete the segment. Before you start panicking about losing all those precious contacts, you have to know that deleting a segment does not result in those contacts being completely removed from your list. You will still have their contacts in your database and their data will remain the same. Email list management is an important part of your email marketing, and knowing how to remove contacts from your segments is an important aspect of list management.

How to Remove Contacts from a Segment

Now that you know the importance of email list segmentation, and the need to keep your segments clean, let’s get to the main focal point of the day – how to remove contacts from an email list segment. There are a couple of ways to remove contacts from an email segment.

1. Removing Inactive Subscribers

Removing inactive subscribers from your list is a bit of a process, albeit a worthwhile one. This is because you have to run a re-engagement campaign first. This campaign may succeed and re-engage some of your subscribers. As for those who do not re-engage, you can then safely remove them from your segment. If you are a Delivra client, this process is simple. All you have to do is change their status to held or expired. This will prevent any more emails being sent out to them from that particular segment. What about subscribers that request to be unsubscribed? Source: Delivra Delivra automatically removes these by taking them to the suppression list.

2. Removing Redundant Contacts

Need to know how to remove contacts that are giving you hard bounces? Since these ones can never be contacted again, you will need a permanent solution for them, unlike the inactive subscribers above. In order to permanently stop sending emails to these contacts, you can add them to a suppression list. Simply put, a suppression list is a list of emails you don’t want to send emails to.

3. Removing an Entire List

As said, there are times when you need to remove an entire list from your email marketing software. If you’re a Delivra client, all you have to do is contact support, give them the name of your list, and the segment you want to remove. The rest will be taken care of for you.

Wrap Up

Email list segmentation is a powerful marketing strategy that produces phenomenal results. However, in order for you to enjoy the fruit of segmentation, you will have to maintain healthy segments. That process involves knowing how to remove contacts from your segment and when to do it. Just to recap, here’s when to remove contacts from your segment:

When email addresses are no longer in use

Subscribers are no longer interested in your content

The segment is no longer relevant to your business goals

There you have it. Now you know how to remove contacts from a segment. However, since keeping contacts is even more important, here’s how to measure your subscribers

engagements. Go ahead and check it out.



Learn How to Easily Remove Contacts from a Segmented Email List

Segmentation

The email game is ever-changing, and the practice of sending plain old black-and-white emails synonymous with B2B email campaigns has nearly met its maker. In its place are emails designed to be interacted with, through links, images, and videos. One such video format that is becoming increasingly popular is the GIF. Once believed to be a rather goofy and unprofessional, the Graphics Interchange Format (GIF) is becoming ever more prevalent in B2B emails for a variety of reasons, such as grabbing the reader’s attention and helping to display important concepts in a quick, efficient manner.

What is a GIF?

A GIF is an image file, just like a JPG or PNG files, except that this one can contain animation whereas the others are static images. Since they contain animations, they are also commonly referred to as animated GIFs. These short animations differ from video files because GIFs are simply a short sequence of images that are referred to as “Intra” frames, and each of these frames is coded on its own. A video, however, is made up of both inter- and intra-coded frames.

Why are GIFs useful in email?

GIFs help to bring email campaigns into the new digital era by making them more interactive for viewers, without having to slow email load times down. As stated before, these can be used for simply catching the readers attention to sharing valuable information in short order, which, of course, is always good in today’s fast-paced society. The popular GIF website, GIPHY has reported that despite the short length of each GIF, people who visit their website view nearly 2 million hours of GIFs daily. It means that strategically adding these image files to your email campaigns could help keep your subscribers reading your email longer, and even entice them to take an action that leads them to your site.

Where can I find GIFs?

Email marketers don’t have to go very far in search of GIFs, considering they are easily searchable on various platforms. It is also worth making a note that there are plenty of programs available to those who have the time and patience to create their own. However, let’s stick to where we can find pre-made GIFs for the sake of simplicity.

Dedicated websites

As mentioned earlier, there are dedicated websites where marketers can find pre-made GIFs. On these sites, users simply have to type in some keywords and hit search, or they can search by category, depending on the site. Some popular GIF dedicated websites include:

GIPHY

What Should We Call Me

Reddit

Reaction GIFs

Awesome GIFs

Social media

More and more social media sites, such as Facebook, are now making it easier for users to make use of GIFs in their social media posts. However, searching for GIFs to use in your emails is also an option. Users post GIFs regularly, so simply browsing through your newsfeeds could supply you with plenty of options. Source: Facebook

Search engines

Another easy option for GIFs is to simply head to your favorite search engine, type in a few keywords, and select the GIF option under image results. For example, we headed to Google, selected the image search option, typed in “writing GIFs” and found this lovely gem! Source: Google Search Result

3 Real-World Examples of GIF in B2B Email Campaigns

While GIFs used to be considered rather goofy, more B2B companies are starting to integrate them into various email campaigns of their own. Gone are the days of stuffy old email campaigns, and check out how these B2B companies decided to make GIFs a part of their email journey.

Litmus

In the following example by Litmus excellent on many levels, but primarily for its use of a GIF to simplify the process of one of their features. The Litmus Scope is a product that allows users to design a web-based version of their emails while allowing for desktop and/or mobile previews. While the concept sounds great, it can be rather difficult to explain in an email, which will probably only be scanned rather quickly by the reader. Their GIF makes use of a single sliding motion to show readers just how easy Litmus Scope can be for them. Source: Emma

Timeline by Anima

Anima, a company known for providing brands with fun animation for their websites, got creative with the use of GIFs for the launch of their app, Timelines. The app makes it simple for users to create custom timeline animations, and Anima decided to show this feature in action with a GIF of a changing scene that goes from day to night. Source: Really Good Emails

Trello

Trello is a worldwide known company that is all about bringing people together. Once they hit the 10,000,000 users mark, they sent out the following email in celebration. They make use of a GIF background at the beginning of the email to show a sprinkling of confetti in celebration of the mighty milestone. Source: Emma

A step-by-step guide on how to insert an animated GIF into an email

Now that we’ve covered the basics, and you see that B2B companies can make quality use of GIFs just like anybody else, the next question to address is how to make them work in an email. First things first, its worth mentioning that not all email clients support GIFs at this time, so you’ll want to make sure you are making good use of ALT text so that your readers aren’t simply looking at a blank box with a broken image in it. The following list shows which email clients currently support GIFs, while those listed with “Info” designate web clients that currently do not support GIFs. Source: Campaign Monitor Now that we know which web clients support the use of GIFs and which don’t let’s go through the step-by-step process of using them in your email.

Step 1: Find your GIF and copy the URL link

After spending some time finding your ideal GIF, you’ll want to make sure you copy the GIFs URL link. In most cases, you can’t simply right-click and save the GIF because it will only save the first frame of the GIF. Depending on where you found the GIF, you’ll either want to right-click and choose the option to “copy image address,” or simply follow the saving prompt given to you by the GIF website.

Step 2: Open your email account and draft a new message

Next, you’ll want to maneuver to your email client and begin drafting a new message.

Step 3: Click “Insert Photo”

Once you’ve begun drafting your message and you’ll want to look for the icon that looks like a square with mountains inside of it. By clicking on that button, you’ll be taken to the “insert photo” option, and from there you’ll be asked to choose your location of the image you want to insert. From there, you’ll want to select “web address.”

Step 4: Past the image URL

At this point, you’ll want to go ahead, located that image address that you saved earlier, and enter it into the empty bar that reads “Past an image URL here.” This can be done by simply right-clicking the empty bar and then clicking on “paste.”

Step 5. Choose “Insert”

Once you’ve entered the web address for your GIF, you’ll simply have to hit the “Insert,” option, and your GIF should show up, fully animated. Your guide to inserting GIFs into Delivra’s Drag-and-Drop Editor For those using Delivra’s email campaign Drag-and-drop editor, the process is simple! Just follow the same steps to enter your GIF as you would for a normal image, which we’ve outlined for you below. Start by dragging a new layout section from the design panel on the right, to the file template on the left. This will add the new content section to your design. You’ll then want to drag the Image type icon over to the left and drop it in new section tile that you just inserted. Source: Delivra Next, you’ll want to set up your cell padding and any other cell styles that may apply to your email setup. Now that you have set up your image section, you’ll go ahead and click the “update image” icon and from the drop-down menu, choose “Change image.” This will allow you to select an existing image or GIF from the library or allow you to upload a new one. This is where you’ll add the GIFs URL link in the web address section. Once you’ve entered the GIF into your image section, you’ll be able to edit it further to fine-tune it as you see fit. Source: Delivra

Wrap up

Making use of email GIFs isn’t for just some added fun and laughs anymore. B2B companies are now using them to further engage with their subscribers, so knowing how to use them in an email is vital. Remembering these simple steps should get the job done:

Copy the GIF’s image address

Paste the image address into the “image URL” section of the email

Customize your GIF by changing its size

Remember, not all email clients are equal, so some may not allow for the use of GIFs, and that means some of your subscribers may not be able to see them once they receive your email, so make sure you are using appropriate ALT text in its place, so users will still know what the image was supposed to represent. Ready to up your email game a little more? Try adding Emoji into the mix! Check out our blog on how to send an email with an emoji that will show up on every device so that all your subscribers can enjoy them!



Why You Need GIFs in Emails

For the last twenty years, you’ve been sending several emails a day. You probably think you’ve got it all figured out. However, you may be surprised to learn that email still has some tricks up its sleeve. One such trick is its ability to send animated GIFs, which have become a surprisingly popular element in online communication in recent years. If you want your emails to be on the cutting edge of internet trends, animated GIFs should find their way into your email marketing campaigns. But first, it may be helpful to learn how to insert an animated GIF in an email. Here’s a step-by-step guide.

How to insert an animated GIF in an email

Knowing the latest internet trends isn’t enough. You must also know how to use them. Most people have figured out how to use GIFs on Twitter and Facebook, but when it comes to email, many are in the dark. To spice up your email marketing campaign and capture the attention of potential clients, here is an easy-to-follow guide on adding animated GIFs to email. Image Source: Really Good Emails

1. Copy the GIF’s link

Once you have found the GIF you’re looking for, your first impulse may be to right click and save to your computer. Only, this doesn’t work, because your computer saves only one frame of the GIF, as opposed to all of its frames. And, as everyone knows, a video is only several pictures in quick succession, creating the illusion of movement. One frame of a GIF won’t do you any good. What you need to do is copy the link to the GIF, which can be done in a number of ways, depending on the source of the GIF. If you’re on a GIF website, such as Giphy, then you can easily copy the link through a prompt beside the GIF. These websites also offer many different options for copying links, such as creating a short URL, a shortened version of the GIF, and an HTML5 version. If you’re not on a GIF website, but have found the GIF elsewhere on the web, all you have to do is right click the GIF and then click “copy image address.”

2. Open your email account

Once you have copied your desired email GIF’s image address, you can now proceed to your email account. On your way there, be sure not to copy anything else, such as the recipient’s email address, because you’ll lose the GIF’s image address and will have to do step one all over again. Now, open a “new message” window, just as you would normally do.

3. Maneuver to the “Insert Photo” section

After you open a new email window, you should see an icon on the bottom shaped like a square with mountains inside. Click that button, and you will be taken to the “insert photo” section. From here, you’ll see four possible tabs: “photos,” “albums,” “upload,” and “web address.” For our purposes, you’ll want to click on “web address.”

4. Paste the image address

Remember that image address you’ve been careful not to lose? These are now important because this is where it comes into play. You should see an empty bar labeled, “Paste an image URL here.” To do so, right-click the empty bar and then click on “paste.” Once you do this, two things should happen. The empty bar should now be filled with the image address of the GIF, and the GIF itself should appear below the bar, fully animated.

5. Click “Insert”

Now, all you have to do is click “insert,” which should be a blue button on the bottom left of the screen. Once you do that, you will be taken back to the “new message” window, where you will now see your GIF in the body of the email and in full working order.

6. Play with your GIF

For all intents and purposes, your job is done. You’ve mastered the art of finding GIFs, copying their image addresses, and relocating them into your email. But that’s not all you can do. Image Source: Really Good Emails You may notice your GIF is a little too big, or maybe not in the exact spot you want it to be. To fix this, all you have to do is click on the GIF. Once you do so, you’ll notice that a blue outline appears around the GIF. By clicking and holding the corners of this blue outline, you can easily scale the image to fit your purpose. If that’s too much, there are also prompts below the outline that will scale the image automatically to preset standards, such as “small,” “best fit,” and “original size.”

Do these steps work for every email provider?

These steps are specifically designed around the functionality of Gmail, due to it being the most popular email provider on the web. When it comes to adding animated GIFs in an email, other providers have different requirements, with some being even more simple than Gmail. For instance, if you have a Yahoo account, then you can skip copying the “copy the GIF’s link” portion of the guide. Yahoo provides a button below email’s body that’s specifically for adding GIFs to your email. What’s better, the button is clearly labeled, “GIF.” All you have to do is click on the button, and you’ll be taken a search engine that allows you to search for GIFs easily. You can type in specific keywords, or you can search based on category, such as “popular,” “love,” or “cheers.” For Outlook users, the process is largely similar to Yahoo. There’s a button below the email body labeled, “insert emojis and GIFs.” By pressing this button, you’ll be taken to a search engine that allows for the easy discovery of GIFs.

Why is it important to use email animation in marketing campaigns?

On the surface, GIFs may seem a bit silly, especially considering the way they’re used on social media. Nonetheless, they’re extremely useful for messaging. First of all, their popularity is hard to argue with, and second, anytime you click on a popular post online, the replies are filled with GIFs. This is the new language of the internet, and marketers need to become fluent if they want their content to catch on. GIFs also provide information in a quick, compact way. The chances of someone stopping to watch a video about something they may or may not care about is exponentially smaller than watching a GIF. With a GIF, you can crop out the most important part of a video and have it replay. Image Source: Really Good Emails

Where is the best place to find GIFs?

Looking for just the right GIF to fit your message can be difficult, especially if you don’t know where to look. Thankfully, there is a multitude of options when it comes to searching for GIFs. The most obvious location would be GIF websites, such as Giphy and Gfycat. These websites compile GIFs from all over the internet and allow users to make their own GIFs. Therefore, if you can’t find the right GIF for you on these websites, you’re probably not going to find it anywhere. If you’re a more traditional internet surfer, you can also find GIFs on the usual search engines, such as Google or Bing. All you have to do is go to their image search section and then specify under the tools section that you’re looking for “animated” images. Another surefire way to find GIFs is to browse Twitter and Facebook. By doing so, you’ll not only find plenty of GIFs, but you’ll find the ones that are in active rotation.

Wrap up

In this step-by-step guide to using GIFs in emails, a lot was covered, but here a few of the highlights

Copy the GIF’s image address

Paste the image address into the “image URL” section of the email

Customize your GIF by changing its size

Not all email providers have the same GIF requirements

GIFs are a vital aspect of any email marketing campaign

After all that, it’s hard to argue that GIFs aren’t just way of the future. It’s far more pressing than that. GIFs are the way of the present. They have taken over social media, becoming shorthand for emotions and information alike. For that reason alone, every marketer should be sure to implement GIFs as part of their messaging, even when it comes to email. After all, when it comes to messaging, it helps to be speaking the same language as your audience. Are you interested in other email marketing tips? If so, read our other blog posts. With our clever marketing advice, you’ll never run out of tricks.



Everything You Need to Know About Adding GIFs in Email

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