Animated GIFs in email: when they don't play | Inlights

Older Outlook for Windows shows only an animated GIF's first frame. Why every animated hero needs a first frame that works alone, and how to design it.

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About — Inlights makes personalised, animated email heroes. Founder John Smith built and sold GettingPersonal and Yappy, and has 25 years in personalisation.
Contact — Whether you run CRM, marketing, customer experience or the brand, book a demo, send us a message or follow Inlights on LinkedIn.
Results — Hotel Chocolat: £382k incremental revenue. Dr. Martens: +345% ROI uplift. Boden: +65% engagement. Real results from personalised, animated email heroes.
Privacy — How Inlights uses the details you give us on this website: what we collect, why, who we share it with, how long we keep it and your rights.
News — The latest from Inlights: new clients, events, results and the team behind them.
Book Demo — Fifteen minutes with John, the founder: how personalised, animated email heroes work, examples from your sector and the results behind them.
Fashion — Personalised, animated heroes for fashion and footwear brands. Birthdays, anniversaries, welcomes and win-backs, made for every customer.
Pets — Personalised, animated heroes for pet brands. The owner's name, the dog's name and the breed, in welcomes, baskets, reactivation and sales.
Natures Menu Page — How Nature's Menu put every customer's dog in its emails: +50% email engagement, about 30% fewer cancellations and +25% reactivation on half the discount.
Read Hub Page — Short, research-backed reads, charts and stats on making customers fall in love with email again. What works, why, and the brands doing it best.
Read Name Page — Your customer's own name is the word they find hardest to ignore, yet most emails bury it in a subject line. What the science says, and where to put it.
Read Flows Page — Automated flows are about 5% of emails sent and nearly 41% of email revenue. The six that make the money, why they work, and how to make them earn more.
Read Moments Page — Your sale is your big moment. Their birthday is theirs. What psychology says about the moments people remember, and how to make both feel personal.
Read Service Page — 88% of UK shoppers want delivery updates, yet most order and delivery emails still look like receipts. Why they deserve your best creative, and how.
Read Gmail Page — Gmail can now sort the Promotions tab by the brands each person engages with most. What changed, what it means, and how to earn a place near the top.
Read Overload Page — Your customer isn't ignoring you. Their brain is full. What cognitive overload is, why it decides which emails get noticed, and what still gets through.
Read Brand Page — Half of UK consumers get two or three emails a week from each brand they sign up to. Few visit a store that often. Why email deserves flagship treatment.
Read Dark Mode Page — More than a quarter of email readers use dark mode, and many email apps recolour emails to match. How to keep your logo, colours and buttons intact.
Read Send Times Page — Tuesday tops the open-rate tables by just 0.03 points, and brands crowd onto the same minutes. Why the best time to send barely matters, and what does.
Read Animation Page — Older Outlook for Windows shows only an animated GIF's first frame. Why every animated hero needs a first frame that works alone, and how to design it.
Read Data Page — 84% of UK marketers admit to generic campaigns, yet customer records hold names, birthdays, pets and teams. How to use what customers have told you.
Read Myths Page — Is Tuesday at 10am the best time to send? Is email dead? Five things everyone says about email, each with a verdict, the evidence and the source.
Read Stats Page — 97 email marketing statistics, each with its date and source, on revenue, personalisation, timing, delivery and more. Search, filter and copy any stat.
Read Chart Flows Page — Automated flows are about 5% of the emails brands send, yet bring in nearly 41% of email revenue. The chart, from Klaviyo and Omnisend data.
Read Chart Names Page — In a Jobcentre trial, adding the jobseeker's name and a personal line lifted turnout at a recruitment event from 10.5% to 26.8%. The chart.
Read Chart Delivery Page — Nearly 9 in 10 UK shoppers want to know how their delivery is progressing, and 59% say a good delivery made them buy again. The chart.
Read Chart Budget Page — Budget comes first, named by 32% of UK marketers. Then resource, data and content are almost tied. What holds email back, in one chart.
Read Chart Birthday Page — 79% of UK consumers love a birthday offer, and 45% are irritated by content that misses the mark. What gets personal right, in one chart.