Interactive Emails: Boosting Engagement and Conversions With Dynamic Content

Are you tired of emails that land with a thud in your subscribers’ inboxes? We understand your concerns. Interactive content can help you draw and retain subscribers’ attention while allowing you to gather advanced data like specific user engagement metrics to understand how users interact with your dynamic email campaigns.

You can create memorable experiences with interactive email templates, building a strong mental connection between a company and its customers. It will provide you with a higher client engagement and conversion rate (CR) in the long run.

So, what is dynamic content, and how can you incorporate it into your email marketing efforts? Check out this article to learn more about dynamic content in emails, how to send GIFs in emails, and how to use interactive emails to foster business growth.

The Importance Of Emails For Your Marketing Strategy 

Emails are vital to your relationships with users and the company’s continuing growth. Unlike social media’s wider reach, email campaigns provide deeper segmentation and scalability. Email marketing allows you to resonate with each customer through personalized messages based on their interactions with you. 

While social media news feeds are filled with posts that are easy to miss, you can be sure that each email reaches a user’s inbox. Just make sure your sender’s reputation is fine so that your newsletters won’t end up in a spam folder.

Benefits Of Interactive Design in Emails

In today’s attention-scarce world, it’s vital to stand out in the cluttered inbox. Dynamic email campaigns can boost user engagement as they nourish natural curiosity, encourage interaction, and keep recipients glued to their screens. 

Interactive elements like animated GIFs in emails and interactive quizzes cut through the noise to attract the user’s attention organically. Such interactive design elements build stronger connections and create lasting memories.

For instance, you can get basic info for your social media campaigns, like reach, likes, reposts, and comments. But when it comes to email marketing campaigns, using email automation tools allows you to gain an accurate and deep understanding of what makes your target audience tick — all thanks to access to scroll depth, view time, heatmaps, and engagement with embedded dynamic content. 

Types of Dynamic Content for Email Marketing

As we said, interactive content can boost engagement, conversions, and brand loyalty. It allows recipients to actively engage with your brand. To achieve the best results, you should understand which dynamic email content resonates with your audience.

We’ve gathered 8 of the most common types of interactive content, from GIFs in emails to interactive quizzes. Implement this dynamic email content into your marketing strategy to see increased user engagement and CR.

Animated GIFs

It’s a popular way to add a touch of motion and visual interest to emails. GIFs in emails can grab attention and convey information more effectively than static pictures.

They can inject humor, personality, and energy into your brand communication. With animated GIFs in emails, you can also improve information delivery, explaining complex concepts or processes more clearly.

You can use GIFs as an alternative to explainer videos to demonstrate products or concepts in action, as Shein did for its latest Valentine collection. You can also use animation to draw attention to CTA buttons and encourage clicks.

We recommend you keep animated pictures short (less than 10 seconds) to avoid long loading times. 

Pro tip: always optimize GIFs for mobile by checking that all visuals are viewable on smaller screens. 

Interactive Quizzes and Surveys

These are fun and interactive ways to gather advanced customer data like preferences, buying motives, daily routines, etc. Interactive quizzes can help you learn about audience preferences, pain points, and potential needs.

Provide valuable incentives for everyone who completes the survey. It encourages users to provide valuable data for you. Use those results to segment your audience even more precisely.

You can try personality quizzes to discover users’ needs. Knowledge quizzes can help you test how well your clients know your business or industry. In this case, add some educational value. If you have multiple products that can potentially suit clients’ needs, implement product recommendation quizzes or surveys. 

Launch customer satisfaction and net promoter surveys to determine whether users like your product. Try feature-request surveys to collect ideas for new product features or service improvements.

Here is how Accenture’s recruiting team communicates with people who applied for their jobs. After the failed or successful hiring, they ask all applicants to rate the hiring process. It helps them identify problems, figure out whether the process is efficient, and resolve issues.

Surveys can create an emotional bond between you and the customer, increasing the email engagement rate. That way, your audience sees that you are interested in their opinions, so they will gladly share them with you.

Product Configurators

With those messages, users can customize their next purchase on their favorite mailing client. Ensure you provide a simple yet comprehensive option selection so clients can switch between needed parameters. Provide them with interactive previews, like product visuals, in real-time based on selected options.

These interactive emails guide customers through the purchase journey, simplifying the process and reducing checkout friction. By visualizing different product options and add-ons, you can encourage customers to explore higher-value configurations.

Here is an example of simple yet successful product configurations. Avi Caplan (ex-Pentatonix singer) uses the Bandsintown platform to notify fans about the upcoming tour.

Users simply need to click the “Tickets” button to buy them. Once they click on it, the system automatically opens the purchase page, where users can pick preferable seats and pay for them.

We recommend you track the configuration process to get a better understanding of customer preferences. Use those insights in your future product development or marketing strategies.

Interactive Videos

That’s another great way to grab user’s attention, boost engagement, and provide a highly personalized gamified experience. Tailor the interactive videos with branching narratives or clickable elements. That way, you can keep the user entertained while collecting valuable data about their preferences. Later, you can analyze those clicks, choices, and completion rates to improve your marketing strategy.

There are several ways to make your videos interactive. The easiest one is to create hotspot videos with clickable areas that trigger pop-ups, additional information, or product links.

However, users find the choose-your-own-adventure content more fun, as they can shape the story’s narrative and ending. For example, if you’re showcasing products like apparel, a tshirt video mockup generator can be a great way to let users explore different designs interactively.

Ensure that all narratives suit your marketing strategy. Provide incentives for those who reach the end of the video.

If those concepts are not for you, incorporate interactive quizzes or polls in the video. That way, you still collect extra data from users without spending that much on the initial production. 

Interactive Infographics

Those illustrations transform static data into interactive images, providing a personalized experience for users while remaining easy to develop for you. They stimulate user interaction, boosting email dwell time and click-through rates.

Users can explore complex data by breaking it into simpler chunks. With interactive email design, they can explore information at their own pace and delve deeper into areas of interest, fostering a sense of control and relevance. 

Interactive elements also leave a lasting impression, strengthening brand recall and association with engaging content. The good news is that this type of email works well for all industries. Even if you provide software development services, you can create infographics for your email campaign to tell subscribers about the benefits of doing business with you.

Grammarly provides a simple yet effective personalized weekly infographic about a user’s writing progress. They provide detailed data about productivity, mastery, and vocabulary.

In their mailing, they also offer a list of typical user’s mistakes, redirecting users to their blog about English grammar rules.

You can add zoom and explore features, rollover effects, interactive timelines, and clickable graphs. 

Pro tip: avoid information overload; present key points with interactive elements to enhance understanding.

Games and Contests

Adding games and contests to your interactive email marketing strategy can be a powerful way to boost engagement, collect leads, and generate excitement around your brand. They don’t look like traditional arcades but are still highly entertaining. 

Naturally, it’s impossible to insert a complex game into the letter. That’s why most email games are pre-loaded chat with a built-in chatbot, simple word games, easy puzzles, scratch-and-win content, scavenger hunts, etc.

Despite the simplicity, they have excellent email responsiveness. Those games are still a new concept, so they keep subscribers hooked and interested. Consider using this approach to promote your brand and products through the game’s theme and prizes.

Use attractive design elements and clear instructions to make those games and contests visually appealing. If you add the “Share with” feature, you can boost your email engagement organically. Social sharing features naturally allow participants to share such games with friends.

Personalized Product Recommendations

Personalized emails increase user engagement, conversions, and overall customer satisfaction. You get more chances to increase conversions if you recommend products relevant to users’ interests and past purchases.

It’s pretty easy to achieve email personalization with marketing automation tools. You can use the user’s purchase history, browsing behavior, wish lists, and abandoned carts. If they provide you with personal info, you can use their demographics, age, and location and make the most of this data with the help of email marketing software.

Imagine that you sell skincare online. You can start sending personalized recommendations for SPF cream for California, Nevada, and Florida-based users in March. However, you should wait to send similar recommendations for Illinois or Washington residents as they may still wear their winter clothes in March, so your sunny campaign may look like a joke to them.

Shein also tracks user interactions on their website and app to promote categories that suit current user needs. This notification acts like a reminder: “Hey, we know that you are looking for products in this category. We can offer great shipping options if you choose us.”

Catering to individual user’s needs with marketing automation software makes prospects and customers feel valued and understood. Your clients will appreciate your genuine interest in helping them.

Another excellent approach is to suggest complementary products to recent clients’ purchases. Offer multiple options, suiting various situations. Briefly explain the reasons for the recommendations, adding context to your email personalization statistics. 

But above all, respect the client’s privacy. Many modern users are afraid of brand stalking. Showing sources where you bring inspiration for recommendations will establish you as a trustworthy business. Ensure data collection and usage comply with privacy regulations and user consent. 

Polls and Voting

These are simple yet powerful tools to increase engagement and CR and gather insights from your audience. You can collect audience preferences, opinions, and demographics. Later, you can use this data to sharpen future email marketing campaigns.

Interactive polls and voting encourage recipients to actively participate in your mailings, boosting open and click-through rates. They also can create a sense of community, making the audience see that you are genuinely interested in their answers.

Consider using multiple-choice questions, but don’t overwhelm users. Usually, 3-5 choices will be just enough. If you need to pose an open-ended question, make it non-mandatory. Add some simple questions with ranked and yes/no choices.

Pro tip: clearly state the purpose of your questionnaire. Explain why you’re asking questions or requesting a vote and how you will use the results later. 

Embrace Dynamic Content To Develop The Best Marketing Strategy

Dynamic email content can elevate your email marketing campaigns, boosting engagement, conversions, and customer loyalty. From interactive quizzes and surveys that gather valuable insights to interactive widgets personalizing the shopping experience, these elements make emails captivating.

However, crafting and implementing these interactive elements can be complicated, especially for marketing teams juggling multiple campaigns. This is where comprehensive email marketing tools come into play, including add-ons for Google Calendar to ensure timely follow-ups and reminders for both marketers and recipients. These services streamline the creation and management of interactive email campaigns. So, marketers have time to focus on other important tasks.

Looking ahead, dynamic content is poised to be the future of email marketing. This high-end personalization is closer than most of us think. Modern marketing tools can already provide unique experiences to users. So, don’t be afraid to pioneer dynamic mailing today to see the first results tomorrow.