What Is an Interactive Email?

In March of 2019, AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages) technology for e-mails was released, which allowed for the creation of interactive letters, similar to mini-websites. Thanks to AMP, it has become possible to take surveys directly in an email, fill out questionnaires and briefings, leave product reviews, scroll through sliders with product photos, add product videos and much more. These emails attract the attention of subscribers and marketers. AMP technology also allows the content of an email to be changed, even if it has already been sent.

In this article, we will discuss why you should use interactive AMP emails and how you can use them. The material will be useful for layout designers, as well as marketers who can learn new ideas on how to develop their email marketing strategy and maximize the involvement of customers.

AMP Email Compatibility

There are three important conditions that you need to consider in order to send emails with AMP elements.

The first of them is email client compatibility. AMP elements are currently supported only by a few mailbox providers: Gmail, Yahoo Mail, and Mail.ru. You will also need to obtain permission from all of them before sending AMP emails.

Yet another thing to consider is whether the email mailing service you are using offers support for AMP content. UniOne allows you to send emails with such elements using the built-in online editor and ready-made blocks.

Finally, don’t forget to test and QA each email with interactive elements that you are sending. This would allow you to avoid possible mistakes and save your money and reputation.

Why Are Interactive Emails Effective?

Interactive emails are distinguished by the user's interaction with the elements of the letter. Therefore, they take more of a client’s attention, and marketers utilize these additional chances to engage the user. Interactive elements are much more fun than just scrolling through emails and clicking on links.

For example, the customer may be interested in plane tickets or a new book. With AMP technology, clients can tag them as favorites or add them to the cart right inside an email, being able to return to the purchase later.

There are many visual elements for interactive emails that you cannot find in a conventional HTML email. Therefore, AMP makes it easier to win the customer's attention and increase the conversion rate.

So, email messages with interactive content will help do the following:

• Reduce the funnel. As noted above, instead of going to the website and clicking all the way from the promo page to the desired section, you can put the product in the basket without switching away from the letter.
• Increase engagement. Interactive elements and surveys invite the client to interact with the letter. He clicks on buttons and images, getting more involved with the content.
• Attract attention. Interactive messages are still a novelty. They have not yet become boring or even widely used. Everything new and unusual attracts attention.
• Maintain up-to-date information. By implementing integration with your website, you can upload product data directly into the email. For example, you send the client a selection of products that may be interesting to him, along with prices and availability. If you use AMP components, the information in the email will reflect the changes on the website. If a certain product gets cheaper or runs out, this will be reflected in the letter.
• Save customers' time. The ability to perform actions without leaving the email saves time. For example, you may set up a notification on the ticket agency's website, and you will receive an email as soon as the sale opens. Without AMP, after receiving such a message, you will have to go to the website to order, while with AMP you will be able to arrange everything right inside your email.
• Use more features for the design of content. AMP is not only about the exchange of data with the website but also offers visual dynamic content-sliders, galleries, accordions and others. All this helps you place visual accents and design the content more compactly, and fit more on smaller screens.

Interactive Email Elements and Examples

There are a lot of ways to use interactive elements in your email marketing companies.

1. Gamification, Quizzes, and Polls

These three categories have a lot in common. Quizzes, polls and gamification elements are fun and easy to make. Now you can simply embed them in your email. This saves the customers extra steps and they can interact with these elements right inside an email.

The goal of the gamification of content in your email is to cause positive emotions. A message with a game inside stands out from boring work correspondence and monotonous advertising offers. Thematic puzzles, mindfulness tests, dynamic games with discount promo code prizes — all of these increase email conversions.

You can see an example of a poll below.

2. Tooltips

Tooltips are user-initiated messages that provide additional information about a page element or function. Although tooltips are not new to Internet marketing, you can use them not only for websites and apps but also as interactive elements of an email.

3. Videos and Animation

We recommend adding videos in emails for these three reasons:

• Video breathes life into text and visual series. The letter becomes visual and so less boring.
• CTR grows. You can get an increase of up to 85%.
• Open Rate is known to increase if you specify "Video" or "Review" in the subject of the email.

If you make your animations intelligently and with good taste, they:

• Attract attention
• Animate the text
• Clearly illustrate the idea
• And just look beautiful

Animation is a great alternative to video.

You need to click on the video in the email. The animation is played automatically. Without performing additional actions, the reader sees a full-fledged fragment of the video, collected from several photos.

4. Buttons

Most likely, you have included the CTA button in all your emails to increase the conversion rate. However, have you ever thought about animation? When your subscriber moves the mouse pointer over the button or clicks on it, make it change colors to attract their attention.

Your CTA is one of the most important parts of an email, so adding interactive elements to it will help you achieve results.

5. Star Rating

Adding a rating as an interactive element to an email so that the customers can evaluate your product, tool, or services — is a great idea. Don’t forget to create a “thank you” page. Here you also have two options. Those who gave you 4-5 stars get redirected to the “thank you” page. Those who gave you 1-3 stars may be redirected to the page where you can ask them why they didn’t like your product.

6. Image Carousel

A carousel, or slider, is a way to design a clickable showcase with brand products. Here you are not limited in your options. Choose your best product pictures and create a carousel. You can add information about those products, such as prices, discounts, descriptions etc.

7. Anchor link

Promote your product with the help of anchors in email newsletters. Add links with keywords to the text and images. Make sure that they look natural and correspond to the content of the mailing list. This will help your customers navigate the e-mail.

8. Shopping Carts

A shopping cart as an interactive element in your email will help you a lot. This will save the customers time and make the ordering process for them faster, easier and more convenient.

9. Product Page

Here you have lots of options, too. Add your top seller page or promote a new product. Make your product page simple, convenient and user-friendly.

10. Reviews

There are two options you can try. The first is to give your customers the ability to submit a review of your product directly from an email. The second is to include reviews from your previous customers, opinion leaders, bloggers or experts. Also, don’t forget to properly motivate your customers to submit reviews!

Conclusion

Improving the design of email newsletters and following fashion trends is certainly effective.

But you should not focus on design only. For the success of a content strategy, a wide set of tools is needed: automation, the technical part, segmentation and analytics.

Give your readers what they want: interesting and useful letters that are visually appealing and convenient to read!