Newsletters Read With the Images Turned Off

Empty boxes where the newsletter was

The newsletter is designed like a poster: one tall image holding the headline, the dates, the offer and a button, all part of the picture.

On a phone it looks fine. On an office computer running desktop Outlook, it arrives as an empty frame, with a line at the top offering to download pictures.

The reader sees no headline, no dates, nothing to suggest it is worth a click. Many move straight on to the next email.

The newsletter was sent. It was not read.

Who sees the empty version

• Desktop Outlook users, where pictures are blocked by default.
• Office readers whose company settings hold back outside images.
• People who switched images off to save mobile data.
• Some webmail and older programs that ask before loading pictures.
• Screen reader users, who hear only what is written as text.

The first matters most to businesses that sell to other businesses. Office staff read email in Outlook at their desks, and unless your address is in their safe senders list, every image waits for a click.

Why programs block images

Images in a newsletter are usually loaded from the sender's server when the message is opened, which tells the sender the email was opened and when.

Blocking them protects privacy and stops spammers confirming that an address is live. That is why Outlook and some other programs ask first.

Gmail shows images by default, loading them through its own servers, and most phone mail apps show them too. So the same newsletter can look complete to the sender and empty to part of the list.

Opens that are never counted

There is a second effect. Email services count an open when a tiny invisible image in the message loads.

If images are blocked, no open is counted, even when the person reads every word of the text.

So a text newsletter read with images off is undercounted, while an image newsletter read with images off is simply not read.

Clicks are the steadier measure, since they are counted whether or not pictures loaded.

Write the message in text

The headline, the dates, the prices and the main offer belong in real text: words typed into the email, not part of a picture.

Real text shows with images blocked, can be read aloud by screen readers, turns up when someone searches their inbox later, and looks less like spam to filters.

Buttons can be built from text on a coloured background rather than as images, so they appear when pictures do not.

Images are then free to show the food, the place, the product. If they never load, nothing essential is lost.

A worked example

A walking food tour company runs three-hour tasting tours through an old market neighbourhood, and much of its spring business is private tours for office teams.

Its monthly newsletter was designed in a graphics app as a single tall image: tour dates, prices, the season's tasting stops and a book now button, all in the picture.

The list included office managers and team leads from past private tours, most of them reading at work in desktop Outlook.

To them each issue was a blank frame with a download prompt. The email service's reports showed few opens from those addresses, and the company assumed office readers had lost interest.

The template was rebuilt with the dates, prices and stops in text, a text button for booking, and three food photographs with short descriptions and set sizes.

Before each send, one test now goes to an Outlook mailbox with pictures blocked. If the message makes sense there, it goes out.

Describing each image

Every image needs alt text: a short description that shows in place of the picture when it does not load.

Describe what the image says, not what it is. A banner announcing a spring sale needs the sale in its description, not the words banner image.

Many programs, desktop Outlook among them, show that text inside the empty box, so a reader with images off still gets the point.

Purely decorative images, such as dividers and spacers, get an empty description, so they are skipped rather than read out as file names.

Set sizes and colours

An image without a set width and height can collapse to nothing or swell into a large empty box when it is blocked, dragging the layout with it.

Give every image its dimensions in the email's code, so the space it takes stays the same either way.

Use background colours on sections and buttons instead of coloured images. A header bar built as a coloured block still shows its colour with pictures off.

The preview line

Most email programs show the first line or two of text beside the subject in the inbox.

A newsletter made of images has no first line, so the inbox preview falls back on a stock line about viewing the email online, or shows nothing at all.

Write the opening sentence to work as that preview: what this issue is about, in plain words.

Testing where your readers are

Test with pictures deliberately switched off. Desktop Outlook does that by default, and Gmail's settings include an option to ask before displaying external images, which shows the blank version on any computer.

Then send a test to a phone, and read each version as a customer would.

Check the plain-text version as well. Many email services create one automatically, and it often reads as a jumble of links.

The counter-case

A list made up almost entirely of phone readers, such as the customers of a coffee shop or a salon, will mostly see the images. Writing in text first still costs nothing and covers the rest.

Some messages are genuinely visual: a new collection, a renovated space. They still need the words that say what is being shown and what to do next.

And a plain email with no images at all is a sound choice for many businesses, and reads the same everywhere.

Either way, the message should survive with every picture missing.

Before the next send

1. Open your last newsletter with images blocked.
2. Move the key words out of images into text.
3. Build buttons from text and colour.
4. Describe every image by what it says.
5. Set each image's size in the code.
6. Write a first line that works as a preview.
7. Send a test to desktop Outlook first.

Step one takes two minutes and usually settles the argument. Seeing your own newsletter as an empty frame persuades faster than any advice.

Making sure everyone on the list agreed to receive it is covered in business cards from a trade show and CASL.

Frequently asked questions

West Coast Media Solutions Inc. provides web design, web development, hosting, digital marketing, and business consulting to organisations across Canada, drawing on more than twenty-five years in the field.