How To Add A GIF To An Email Newsletter

GIFs to humans are like a bug blight to a mosquito

June 27, 2022

Hola amigos,

I’m a big fan of using GIFs in email newsletters. They’re easy to make and help with engagement.

How GIFs help with engagement is simple: we’re attracted to them like a mosquito is to a bug light. Our eyes can’t help but pay attention to whatever is moving on a screen.

Luckily for us, our inability to look away from moving objects doesn’t come with the same life-ending repercussions as the mosquito faces as it drifts moronically towards the bug light.

That said, it’s a powerful human psychology tool that you can take advantage of to increase subscriber read time and conversions.

Finding a GIF

If you have no interest in creating your own GIF, you can find a GIF using the search functionality on Giphy, which has a database of millions of GIFs you can use for your newsletter.

I’ve also found Google to be helpful in finding premade GIFs. Use their image search function and type in something like “coffee GIF”. You’ll find hundreds of examples.

Just make sure the GIF you’re downloading is less than 2mb. You’ll find out why this is the case in the final section of this email.

Creating a GIF step-by-step

If you’re looking to create your own GIF, there’s going to be a few more steps involved (it’s not hard, I promise).

Image-based GIF

  1. Make sure all of your images are the same size (height and width) by importing them into a Canva template. I recommend your GIF is no wider or higher than 800px

  2. Download all your images from Canva (or whatever photo editing tool you’re using)

  3. Upload the images to ezgif.com by clicking GIF maker > Choose Files > Upload and make GIF

  4. Set the “Delay time” to 150 (1.5 seconds) or 200 (2 seconds) or however long you want the image to appear on-screen

  5. Click “Make a GIF!”

  6. Right click to “Save image as…”

Video-based GIF

  1. Find the video you want to use

  2. Go to ezGIF > Video to GIF > paste the video URLor drag the file in

  3. Click “Upload video!”

  4. Select the start and end time for your GIF (I recommend your clip is no more than 2.5 seconds)

  5. Click “Convert to GIF”

  6. Click “Optimize” > Choose compression level between 35-100 > “Optimize GIF”

  7. Right-click to “Save image as…”

Note: If you are trying to download a video, I recommend using savefrom.net. If I ever need to download a YouTube video — for whatever reason — this is how I usually do it.

Why not just use Giphy?

I love Giphy and use it for a lot of different applications.

The problem with Giphy is that GIFs download as (max) 500px wide and most email newsletter templates default to 600px wide. This means that the email you worked so hard to design beautifully will have a GIF in it that’s doesn’t match the width of all the other text and images.

ezGIF allows you to size the GIF to your liking. That said, if the Giphy GIF is super high quality, you may be able to download it, upload it to ezGIF, and increase its size.

Different ways to use a GIF in your email

My favourite way to use a GIF in an email is to feature a video.

What I do is I download the video I want to use, find a 2-second clip that’s engaging, import that video into Canva (where I’ll size it properly), shorten the video to that engaging 2-second clip length, add a play button on top of the video, download as MP4, then reupload it the MP4 to ezGIF where I’ll turn it into a GIF and compress it as needed.

Something like this…

Simple and effective.

Also, slightly more engaging than just a play button overlaid on top of a static image.

You can also use a GIF to:

  • Animate a logo

  • Send an interactive graphic (fireworks or candles on a cake)

  • Showcase how products work

  • Feature people

  • And much more…

Make sure to optimise your GIF

I’m going to reiterate this point once more because it’s important that you optimise all GIFs prior to putting them into an email.

Optimisation is so important because if your email is too big, it can get blocked as spam or images/GIFs won’t autoload. You also run into the possibility that your contact gets frustrated with having to wait .5 seconds for something to load and exits your email.

Don’t laugh! You know we all do this.

Optimising (sometimes called compressing) GIFs helps reduce the likelihood of this happening to your email.

For reference, here is a quick guide by Litmus showing email load times depending on GIF size.

There you have it, folks!

In a few simple steps, you can increase interactivity within your email and drive conversions by adding a GIF or two.

If you have any questions about this process, don’t hesitate to reach out.

Adios,Andrew

I’ve enjoyed speaking to other marketers and business owners about email marketing. If you want to chat email — or inquire about ways I can optimise your email marketing to grow your business — click below to book a 15-minute meeting.