Interesting question.  Pre Outlook 2003 there was no reason to use embedded images and some email clients didn't handle them.  However now downloaded images are blocked by default it makes sense to switch to embedded images. 

However, almost none of the spam that I receive has embedded images, and I guess they know something I don't.   

Bob

Dave is absolutely right in the fact that you should test this. Simply split your list into two on the newsletter send next Tuesday and see what open and click-thru rates you generate.

From our research we have found linked images work best in B2B situations. Corporate firewalls/filters tend to quarantine an email that contains any form of attachment/embedded image while on the whole it is left to the email client settings to block the display of linked images. 

Sean Duffy
Emailcenter UK
www.emailcenteruk.com

On 10:54:50 24 January 2006 DaveChaffey wrote:

Ashley,

I am also updating my e-mail template and the e-mail service provider i use, uses embedded images by default. They have said that where they have tested it (mainly consumer lists), embedded images generate more clickthroughs than linked images.

Unlike Bob i have noticed a lot of spammers have started using embedded images and the better / worse ones use a large block of text to try to avoid the spam filters. So if you use embedded images, it is important to not rely solely on them, but have some text content also (which you will have).

With a lot of the e-consultancy list behind corporate firewalls, you maybe the exception to the rule so a test sounds like a good idea.

HTH Dave Chaffey
www.davechaffey.com

Hi Ashley 

Further to the other excellent answers here, Silverpop published a white paper at the end of last year that talked extensively about this issue. The study (Silverpop's 2005 Broken Link Study) can be found at http://www.silverpop.com/practices/renderability/index.html 

There's much to think about: 40% of commercial email now goes to inboxes where images are disabled by default, between email programs such as Outlook 2003 and Gmail - and we expect this to grow.

This has many impacts: for one, you should always consider what your email will look like without images as well as with. 

As a side issue, this is a major factor in explaining why the industry saw open rates decline by as much as half last year, while other metrics such as clickthrough and conversion remained steady: most measurements of open rates depend on 1 pixel images, or beacons, to trigger their recording. If images are turned off, this cannot happen.

Just last week one of our clients was asking whether they should stop sending emails to people who had not 'opened' the last six emails. The answer is NO - at least not just on that basis. All you are seeing is the number of people who saw the images in your html email.

Regards,

Mike Weston
Managing Director, Silverpop

On 13:32:08 23 January 2006 Ashley wrote:

Does anyone have any insight, facts or figures, on the extent to which corporate firewalls (or other personal or corporate filters) block, or reject, e-mails that have embedded images?

We're looking at some of our e-mail template designs and planning to embed the very few images that we need (no real issues with file size) but wonder whether this might lead to the e-mails getting binned completely?

Any advice much appreciated.

Regards

Ashley Friedlein
CEO, E-consultancy.com

Hi Ashley,

A very topical subject!. Ezemail conducted a survey in September 05 regarding blocked images - which may also add some light to the subject for you. Whilst it doesn't specifically address your embedded images question (a good one for the next survey), it gives some interesting information about the downloading behaviour of recipients.

You can download the report here:
http://www.ezemail.com/uk/articles/pdf/Ezemail%27s_Image_Blocking_Report.pdf

Slightly aside to your question -there is also the matter of embedded images creating a large email file. Outlook has the ability to restrict the file size which is downloaded. If using this feature, the user can choose the file size they want to restrict to (i.e don't download any emails over 50K). I myself use this feature and I know that half the time, instead of right clicking and telling Outlook to download the email, I simply delete the file out of laziness - as long as it's not an essential email! This is just another thing to be aware of when considering embedding images. 

Regards
Kath Pay
Marketing Director
Ezemail
www.ezemail.com

Hi Ashley

We haven't seen any current firewall with such an old-fashioned approach to blocking.  That is, a few years ago, when people blocked subject lines with all caps, some corporations set an image-based blocking procedure.

But now with Outlook and other clients taking it upon themselves to block images and give that control back to the user, I am not aware of any anti-spam tool or corporate (or personal) firewall which, by default, blocks mails with embedded images. Yes, the 2003 edition of Outlook does tend to show embedded images without the "right click to show"... but I would assume that that "feature" will be eliminated in Office 12.

Now, that being said, almost all firewalls and anti-spam systems have settings to allow admins to block based on presence of images... but I don't think any admins see that as a way to stop spam compared to the more advanced methods of RBLs and Bayesian filters.  Note that that there is no way for any vendor (including ReturnPath and other "deliverability" folks) to truly know how corporations and service providers are configuring their systems, so YMMV (your mileage may vary, i.e. everyone's experience may be different).

Of course there are workarounds – for some clients we send an offline DM piece to non openers, which can be cost-effective depending on the NPV of your recipients.

Hope this helps

Peter
Peter Duffy
Sales & Marketing Director
e-Dialog
020 7659 2630