You have probably heard or noticed if you use gmail, that Google is no longer blocking images as their default setting. This means that if you use images in your email campaigns your subscribers who use gmail will actually get to see them now!
However, those who actively turn off images will still not see them. Therefore it is still important to use alt text in your images – use something that is descriptive about the image so that people have the opportunity to load the image if they want to.
Perhaps you have never used images and believe that using them would enhance your email campaign and increase open rates. If so, now is the time to start implementing and analysing changes.
If you already use images in your email campaign, now would be a good time to check open rates and see if they change.
Google has stated that they are caching the images – this is as a security measure so that they have control over inappropriate images getting through. The first time an email is opened, Google rewrites the image links and serves images to the email user from its servers. This means that if someone decided to open and read your email a second time then it would not be recorded by your autoresponder account.
How Will It Affect Your Email Stats?
- You might notice an increase in open rates if people start seeing your images and they are compelling.
- Your total open rate may be lower than it really is due to Google caching the images.
- You may not get to see the IP address or device of a subscriber who opens your emails as this information is passed on to Google.
You can read about it from the official Google blog.