Do image-heavy emails always go to spam?

While modern spam filters are sophisticated and do not solely block emails based on image-to-text ratio, image-heavy or image-only emails can still raise red flags. These emails might be perceived as spam by older filters or by those designed to detect evasive tactics. More importantly, they can negatively impact user engagement due to slow loading times or blocked images, which indirectly hurts your sender reputation and deliverability over time.

Why is accessibility particularly important for telecom companies?

Telecom companies often fall under specific legal mandates, like the Telecommunications Act in the U.S., which require their services and communications to be accessible to people with disabilities. This means emails are not just marketing tools but legally obligated communication channels, making accessibility a compliance imperative, not just a best practice.

What are the legal risks of sending inaccessible emails?

Sending inaccessible emails can lead to significant legal repercussions, including substantial fines and civil lawsuits. Regulations like the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and the European Accessibility Act (EAA) increasingly cover digital communications. Non-compliance risks legal action, reputational damage, and financial penalties.

How can I ensure my image-heavy emails are still accessible?

To ensure accessibility, always include descriptive alt text for all images. Prioritize using live HTML text for your core message, even if images are present. Test your emails thoroughly across various email clients, devices, and viewing modes, including dark mode, to ensure readability and proper rendering for all users.

What is the recommended text-to-image ratio for emails?

There's no single magic number for the text-to-image ratio. The focus should be on balance and redundancy. Ensure that your email's primary message can be understood even if images are blocked or don't load. A good rule of thumb is that if a recipient cannot see images, they should still be able to grasp the email's purpose and call to action through the live text and alt text alone.

How do image-heavy emails impact deliverability and accessibility for telecom companies, and what are the legal implications? - Content - Email deliverability - Knowledge base

For many years, marketers have been concerned about the impact of image-heavy emails on deliverability, often fearing that a high image-to-text ratio would send their messages straight to the spam folder. While some of these concerns stem from outdated spam filter logic, the landscape of email deliverability and accessibility is constantly evolving, presenting unique challenges, especially for industries like telecommunications that rely heavily on digital communication.

As a telecom company, navigating this balance is crucial because your emails are not just marketing tools, they are often vital for customer service, billing, and essential updates. This means balancing visual appeal with effective delivery and ensuring that your messages are accessible to all subscribers, while also adhering to significant legal obligations. Failing to do so can lead to not only poor engagement but also substantial compliance risks.

How image-heavy emails affect deliverability

The perception that image-heavy emails automatically trigger spam filters is largely a relic of the past. Modern spam filters are far more sophisticated, analyzing a multitude of factors beyond just the image-to-text ratio. However, emails that are composed almost entirely of images can still raise red flags, primarily because they might be used by bad actors attempting to bypass text-based content analysis.

While the myth of a strict image-to-text ratio affecting deliverability has been debunked, a more practical concern arises from email load times and overall file size. Emails with large images or numerous images can become excessively heavy, leading to slower loading times. This can degrade the user experience, especially on mobile devices or slow internet connections, potentially causing subscribers to abandon the email before it fully renders.

Mailbox providers (ISPs) track engagement metrics like open rates, click-through rates, and deletion rates. If emails are slow to load or consistently appear broken due to image rendering issues, it can negatively impact these metrics. This, in turn, can signal to ISPs that your emails are not engaging, potentially leading to lower sender reputation and future deliverability issues, pushing your messages into the spam or junk folders (or blocklists).

Image-heavy approach

Spam filters: Higher chance of triggering older or less sophisticated spam filters.
Loading times: Increased email file size leads to slower loading, especially on mobile or poor connections.
Engagement: Reduced engagement if images fail to load or are blocked, negatively impacting sender reputation.
Outlook issues: Outlook clients often block images by default, leaving a blank email.

Balanced approach

Spam filters: Less likely to trigger spam filters due to a healthy balance of text and images.
Loading times: Optimized images and sufficient live text reduce file size, leading to faster loading.
Engagement: Consistent rendering and readability foster better engagement and a stronger sender reputation.
Accessibility: Ensures content is available even if images fail to load or for users with visual impairments.

Accessibility and user experience for subscribers

Email accessibility means designing and coding emails so that everyone, including people with disabilities, can easily read and understand their content. This includes individuals who use screen readers, have visual impairments, cognitive disabilities, or motor skill challenges. For telecom companies, given their broad customer base, ensuring email accessibility is paramount for inclusive communication.

The primary issue with image-only or image-heavy emails for accessibility is that screen readers cannot interpret text embedded within images. If a significant portion of your email's message is conveyed through images without proper alt text, users relying on screen readers will receive little to no information. Similarly, many email clients block images by default, meaning recipients won't see your intended message unless they explicitly enable images, which many do not.

Another significant accessibility challenge, particularly for telecom companies with complex branding guidelines, is ensuring adequate color contrast, especially in dark mode. While some color combinations might appear fine in light mode, they can fail to contrast sufficiently when inverted in dark mode. Image-based emails won't typically invert their colors, which can prevent them from adapting to a user's dark mode preference, creating an inconsistent and potentially inaccessible experience where text is hard to read against the background.

Accessibility pitfalls

Screen reader barriers: Image-only content is inaccessible, preventing users from understanding messages.
Blocked images: Users with images disabled see a blank or broken email, missing crucial information.
Dark mode challenges: Image-based colors do not invert, leading to poor contrast and readability issues.
Legal risks: Non-compliance with accessibility laws can result in significant legal consequences and fines.

Legal implications and industry compliance

For telecom companies, the legal implications of inaccessible emails are particularly significant. Unlike many other industries, telecom providers often fall under specific regulations that mandate accessibility for their services and communications. For example, in the United States, the Telecommunications Act requires that telecommunications products and services be accessible to individuals with disabilities. This extends to digital communications, including emails.

Beyond specific telecom regulations, broader accessibility laws like the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) in the U.S. and the forthcoming European Accessibility Act (EAA), effective June 28, 2025, are increasingly impacting email marketing. The EAA, for instance, requires digital services, including emails, to be accessible. This means that a failure to design emails with accessibility in mind is not just a best practice oversight, but a potential legal violation that can lead to significant penalties.

The consequences of non-compliance can be severe, including substantial monetary fines, civil liabilities, and significant reputational damage. We have seen instances where companies like HR Block and Southwest Airlines faced legal repercussions for accessibility failures. There were 222 lawsuits filed in June alone related to ADA website compliance, highlighting the growing scrutiny. For telecom companies handling sensitive customer data and providing essential services, ensuring legal compliance in email communication is not an option, but a regulatory imperative.

Regulation	Scope	Key impact on emails
Telecommunications Act (USA)	Section 255 requires telecom products and services to be accessible.	Mandates accessible communication channels, including email content, for all users.
Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA, USA)	Ensures equal opportunity for individuals with disabilities in public accommodations.	Increasingly applied to digital content, requiring accessible emails and websites.
European Accessibility Act (EAA, EU)	Requires digital products and services to be accessible by June 2025.	Directly impacts email design for businesses operating in the EU, enforcing accessibility standards.

Strategies for balanced email design

To effectively manage these challenges, telecom companies should prioritize a balanced approach to email design. Implementing a modular email structure allows for the reuse of accessible components, streamlining the creation process even for teams with limited coding experience. This ensures consistency and helps to maintain a healthy balance between images and live text, which is key to protecting email deliverability.

For images that are essential to your message, optimize them for web use by compressing their file size without compromising quality. Proper image hosting and robust fallback strategies are also vital. Always include descriptive alt text for all images, providing context for screen readers and ensuring the message is conveyed even if images are blocked or don't load. This is a non-negotiable step for accessibility and a good practice for deliverability (or avoiding blocklists).

Regular testing of your emails across various clients and devices, including accessibility checks, is paramount. This includes testing how your emails render in both light and dark modes to ensure sufficient color contrast and readability. Utilizing a reliable email deliverability tester can help identify potential issues before they impact your audience, allowing you to proactively address any design or rendering problems.

Best practices for email design

Prioritize live text: Ensure your core message is conveyed through HTML text, not just images.
Optimize images: Compress image file sizes and use appropriate formats for faster loading.
Use descriptive alt text: Provide meaningful descriptions for all images to aid screen readers.
Test dark mode: Verify color contrast and readability in various email clients and modes.
Implement modular templates: Build reusable, accessible email components for consistent and efficient creation.

Views from the trenches

Best practices

Always include sufficient live text, especially for critical information, to improve accessibility and deliverability.

Utilize well-structured, modular email templates that simplify the process of creating accessible emails, even for non-coders.

Proactively test email rendering across various clients, devices, and modes, including dark mode, to catch potential issues early.

Conduct A/B tests on small audience segments to validate email design choices and measure their impact on engagement and deliverability.

Common pitfalls

Relying solely on images to convey important messages, which creates accessibility barriers for screen readers and users with images blocked.

Overlooking the specific legal accessibility requirements for the telecom industry, leading to potential fines and lawsuits.

Neglecting dark mode testing, resulting in poor color contrast and readability for a significant portion of your audience.

Underestimating the impact of large email file sizes on loading times and overall user experience, which can hurt engagement.

Expert tips

Emphasize that modern deliverability isn't solely about image-to-text ratio, but overall engagement and user experience.

Educate stakeholders on the tangible legal and financial risks of non-compliance with accessibility regulations specific to telecom.

Advocate for investment in templating systems that empower marketing teams to build accessible emails without extensive coding.

Remind teams that while visual branding is important, it must not come at the expense of universal access and clear communication.

Expert view

Expert from Email Geeks says that whether an email is all text, all images, or a mix does not solely determine deliverability. Many companies successfully send emails in all three categories, but accessibility must be highly considered for B2C audiences, especially in regulated industries like telecom.

2024-07-20 - Email Geeks

Expert view

Expert from Email Geeks says that as a telecom company, there are extra legal reasons to ensure accessibility due to the Telecommunications Act, which requires all products and services to be accessible. Unlike retail, telecom companies cannot easily get away with image-based emails without risking non-compliance.

2024-07-20 - Email Geeks

Navigating the complexities of email marketing

For telecom companies, the journey of email marketing is a nuanced one, requiring a deep understanding of deliverability, accessibility, and legal compliance. While image-heavy emails may offer visual appeal, their potential impact on loading times, user experience, and especially accessibility means they must be approached with caution and strategic planning. The outdated fear of image-to-text ratios is less relevant than the critical need to ensure every subscriber can engage with your content.

By adopting a balanced approach that prioritizes live text, optimizes images, and rigorously tests for accessibility across all viewing environments, telecom companies can mitigate risks. This proactive stance not only enhances the user experience for all customers but also ensures adherence to legal mandates, safeguarding your brand reputation and preventing costly compliance issues.