To maximize the impact of animated GIFs, align them thematically with your message's context. Tying a GIF to a holiday, a specific product offer, or a culturally relevant moment makes the content feel more personalized and resonant. This focus on relevancy is crucial for turning a simple animation into a powerful marketing tool.

Viewer attention wanes just a few seconds into a video. To combat this, content creators should strategically insert a 'pattern interrupt'—an unexpected pop-up, a quick call to action, or a visual distraction—around the six-second mark to jolt the viewer and retain their engagement.

Since true video embedding in email is unreliable, use animated GIFs to simulate video content and boost clicks. Create a short, looping GIF from your video, overlay a play button icon, and link it to the full video. This serves as a more dynamic and enticing call-to-action than a static image.

Rephrase call-to-action buttons from a brand command (e.g., "Donate Now") to a user's first-person statement (e.g., "Yes, I want to help"). This simple change in perspective makes the user an active participant, significantly increasing engagement and click-through rates on emails, landing pages, and social media posts.

Human vision has two modes: sharp central focus (foveal) for details like text, and wide peripheral vision that scans for general signals like shape, color, and movement. Since peripheral vision detects things first but cannot read, visual marketing must grab attention with imagery before communicating details with text.

Brands, particularly in B2B, are often too serious and miss the power of humor. Laughter releases bonding hormones like oxytocin, creating an instant connection with an audience. It's a universal language that can dissolve conflict and make a brand more human and memorable.

Since embedding actual video in email is unreliable, marketers can create an animated GIF of a video thumbnail. Animating a 'play' button or background elements signals that there is rich media content, serving as a highly effective call-to-action to drive clicks to external landing pages, demos, or case studies.

Your email signature is valuable, underutilized real estate. Adding a simple holiday-focused message, a thank you, and a link to 'best of the year' content can increase CTRs by over 40% in December as you're reaching highly relevant business contacts.

Animated GIFs in emails see their highest performance during the November-December period. This seasonal lift is attributed to audiences being in a more receptive and festive mood, making it a prime time to test this tactic for increased engagement and to stand out in crowded inboxes.