Creating Interactive Emails: A Complete Guide for Businesses

To the uninitiated, email marketing can seem less dynamic or interesting than other marketing channels. But promotional emails don’t have to be bland. In fact, they can be incredibly engaging, especially when you use interactive elements.

That’s right — creating interactive emails is the key to upgrading your email marketing campaigns. More interactive emails will help your messages stand out in your audience’s inboxes and even make them look forward to reading your content. 

Let’s dive into interactive emails: why they work and how to create your own to promote your brand.   

Why your business needs interactive emails

Interactive emails allow your subscribers to engage with the content within the message. They may be able to hover over, tap, or swipe something within the email to participate.

Compared to basic emails with static text and images, interactive emails stand out. Sending interactive messages will make your brand more memorable. Your subscribers may even look forward to receiving your marketing emails just to see what interactive ideas you use next. Interactive content receives over 50% more engagement than static content, so adding it to your emails can help boost stats like open rates, click rates, and even conversions. 

Interactive emails can take your email campaigns to the next level and yield benefits like:

• Increased click-through rates
• Better customer engagement
• Higher conversion rates
• Improved data collection

The best part is that there’s so much flexibility when it comes to creating interactive emails. You can try different elements until you find what works best for your brand and your audience. 

Email marketing basics

Before you can start sending your interactive emails, you need to cover your email marketing basics. After all, interactive email elements can only succeed if the rest of the message ticks all the right boxes. 

Consider these key components of an email marketing campaign:

• Building your email list: You need subscribers to send your interactive emails to, so try some creative ways to grow your email list. 
• Understanding your audience: There is no universally great marketing email. The best emails are tailored to the people reading them. Consider what motivates your audience and what they like and dislike, then create emails with interactive elements that speak to them specifically.
• Set clear goals for your campaigns: Setting specific, measurable goals helps guide your campaign decision-making so you stay on target.
• Test and measure results: There’s always room to improve your marketing campaigns. Tracking and analyzing the results of your previous campaigns will provide insights that help you fine-tune your campaigns going forward.
• Use email templates: Designing professional marketing emails from scratch is tricky. Using email templates will help you create professional messages with ease. 

Your customers will only see and enjoy your interactive emails if those messages actually get delivered to them. Look into the best practices for email deliverability, such as improving your email reputation and personalizing your email experience. 

You should also learn how to write engaging subject lines so more of your subscribers open your messages. Referencing interactive elements in the subject line is one way to boost your open rate, so give that a try.  

Types of interactive email elements

You have lots of different options for getting your email subscribers to interact with your messages. Choose interactive elements that fit your brand tone and style. 

Popular types of interactive email elements include: 

Image carousels

An image carousel is a series of images that viewers can click through one by one. They’re very popular on Instagram, but you can also add them to your emails. 

Including carousels not only makes your message interactive but also lets you add more images without taking up too much space in the body content. Subscribers will scroll through the photos because they don’t want to miss out on seeing them all. 

Countdown timers

With a countdown timer, you embed a time in the email that automatically updates to show how much time is left before something happens, like an event occurring or a deal expiring. Readers don’t need to interact directly with the timer, but it is still dynamic and intriguing. If you open an email and see a countdown timer that just keeps decreasing, you’re going to want to find out more before the time runs out. 

Polls and surveys

Rather than just making your emails a one-way street where you share information with your audience, why not ask them to share their thoughts with you? One option is embedding interactive surveys or polls for users to answer right within your email message. 

Plenty of your subscribers won’t be able to resist answering the question you pose, especially when it’s as easy as just clicking a button to cast their vote or share an opinion. You can prompt better audience engagement and learn more about your subscribers all at the same time.  

Click-to-reveal content

Consider holding something back instead of showing your subscribers all of the email content at once. Hide an image, phrase, or word and tell readers that they have to click to reveal it. 

Click-to-reveal content takes advantage of people’s natural curiosity. You’re teasing them with a hint about the information, but the only way for them to actually see it is to interact with the message. One click is all it takes. You’ll probably find that many of your subscribers can’t resist clicking to reveal the content. 

Interactive forms

Forms don’t have a great reputation for being exciting, but including interactive forms in your emails can make them more engaging for your subscribers. Plus, you get to collect information without requiring the customers to leave their emails. 

Just try to limit the number of fields your audience has to fill out to three or fewer. If your forms have too many fields, readers may get frustrated and avoid completing them. 

Add-to-calendar buttons

If you’re running an event or special promotion, give your subscribers the option to add the details to their calendars right from the email. That way, they have a way to directly interact with your message, and they’ll be more likely to remember your event when it rolls around. 

Shopping carts within emails

There’s no need to make your customers head to your website to start shopping. Instead, get the ball rolling by letting them add items to their shopping carts right in your emails. If they don’t have to leave the email, they may be more willing to explore products and put things in their carts. 

Gamification elements

Who doesn’t love a game? Make your emails more engaging by adding a mini-game to your emails, like a virtual scratch card or spin-the-wheel promotion. The possibility of winning something good will entice the reader to interact with your content. From there, getting them to continue engaging with your brand will be much easier. 

Technical considerations for different email clients

Interactive emails are a little more technical, so you have to make sure the software you’re using supports these features. 

Consider the technical capabilities of popular email clients:

• Gmail: Gmail supports some interactive elements like forms within messages. Google calls interactive emails dynamic email within the software. 
• Outlook: Outlook is known for stripping out some interactive elements from emails.
• Apple Mail: Apple Mail handles some elements, such as GIFs, well but may struggle with others. 
• Other email clients: Each email client has its own features and limitations, so you will need to test your interactive elements to make sure they’re functional. 

If an email client does not support the interactive element you want to use, you can design fallback content that gets the same idea across. That way, even recipients who can’t see the interactive elements can still engage with your message. 

After you design an interactive email, test it across different platforms and devices. Open it within different email clients to see if the interactive element functions as intended. Ideally, you want the user experience to be as consistent as possible for all your recipients. You may need to redesign the email if that’s not the case. 

Best practices for interactive email success

For effective, engaging messages that support your marketing goals, you need to follow these interactive email best practices. 

Take a mobile-first design approach

You can no longer assume that your email subscribers will open your messages on a desktop. More and more people open their emails on mobile devices, so you need to make all your emails mobile-friendly. But what does that really mean?

Avoid tiny text sizes that can be hard to read on smaller screens. If you want users to click anything in the message, like a call-to-action button, make sure it’s large enough to tap easily on a touchscreen. Keep things short and sweet, both in design and content, so the message doesn’t take too long to scroll through. 

Optimize loading times

Interactive components of emails often involve large file sizes, which can make your messages load more slowly. Optimize your load time by keeping the rest of your email design as simple as possible. You can also compress any images or videos you include for faster loading. Consider adding GIFs instead of videos when creating interactive emails, too. 

Consider accessibility 

You want all of your email subscribers to be able to engage with your messages, so consider accessibility when adding interactive elements. Set up your interactive elements in a way that’s accessible to people who have low vision or use a screen reader. Some ways to do this include adding alt text that describes the interactive elements and clearly labeling any buttons in your message. 

Conduct A/B testing

A/B testing is when you compare two similar yet slightly different versions of something to determine which performs better. In this case, you’d be comparing how your audience responds to two marketing emails.

You may not know what types of interactive elements your audience will engage with. That’s what A/B testing is for. One option would be to run a test comparing two emails: one static message and another message that’s exactly the same except for the addition of an interactive element. With this testing, you’d be able to see whether your audience engages with the interactive email more and, if so, by how much. 

Another option would be comparing two messages with different interactive elements. For example, a countdown timer email compared to a click-to-reveal content email. Through these A/B tests, you can figure out which types of interactive elements are most appealing to your audience. Then, you’d start incorporating those types of elements into your email marketing campaigns. 

Getting started

Your email subscribers probably get dozens of emails every day. Creating interactive emails helps your messages stand out and draw in the readers. Try interactive elements like image carousels and polls to help drive higher click rates in your campaigns. 

Just make sure to test your messages on different devices and email clients to ensure a consistent user experience. And start small. Try one interactive email and see how your audience responds. 

If you run into issues, you can always turn to the Constant Contact Community to get email marketing advice and guidance from other small businesses. And don’t overlook the power of a comprehensive email marketing tool. With Constant Contact, you can easily create, send, and track compelling marketing emails that drive results for your business. Get started with a free trial today.

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