50 retail emails from Friday, Aug 5th 2011 (no animated Gifs)

Looking at image weight and ease of implementation for alternate mobile images.

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Average image download = 258.4K (12921 / 50)

Only 2 out of 50 under 100K

The average consumer receives 35 emails per day (radicati 2010).

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1 image not sliced = 25 out of 50

Easiest to implement - 1 image & 1 URL

Sliced image with 1 URL = 12 out of 50

Simply make 1 image or use sliced dynamic images

Sliced image with multiple URLs = 13 out of 50 

While you can reduce the file-size, it’s trickier to alter the creative. We can’t change the position, or size of the URLs.

 

Retailer

Images

Sliced

No. URLs

American Apparel

17K

No

1

A&F

232K

Yes

>1

Ashford

141K

No

1

Barneys

129k

Yes

1

Becker Surf

128K

No

1

Bluefly

264K

No

1

Bobby Jones

499K

Yes

>1

Boston Proper

602K

Yes

>1

CafePress

194K

No

1

Coach

549K

Yes

>1

Cole Haan

283K

Yes

>1

Costco

503K

Yes

>1

Crate and Barrel

523K

No

1

Dior

155K

Yes

1

Forzieri

136K

Yes

>1

Free People

102K

No

1

Gap

263K

Yes

>1

Horchow

166K

No

1

JR.com

973K

No

1

Juicy Couture

120K

No

1

Karen Millen

286K

No

>1 (IM)

Kenneth Cole

174K

Yes

1

Kitson LA

110K

No

1

Kohl’s

333K

Yes

1

Lands’ End

311K

No

1

Levenger

560K

Yes

>1

LOFT

143K

No

1

Lombok

147K

No

1

Lord & Taylor

166K

No

1

Luggage Online

242K

Yes

>1

Neiman Marcus

117K

Yes

1

Oasis

432K

No

>1(IM)

Old Navy Canada

502K

Yes

>1

OnlineShoes.com

185K

Yes

1

Pier 1 Imports

254K

Yes

1

REI Gearmail

179K

Yes

>1

Restoration Hardware

134K

No

1

Ron Herman

149K

No

1

Saks FASHIONfix

145K

Yes

1

Saks Fifth Avenue

175K

Yes

1

Sears

296K

No

1

Shopbop

122K

Yes

>1

Spiegel

181K

No

1

Sur La Table

320K

Yes

1

The Clymb

250K

No

1

THE OUTNET

82K

No

1

Timberland.com

270K

No

1

UrbanOutfitters

183K

No

1

Victoria’s Secret

230K

Yes

1

YOOX DESIGN

264K

Yes

1

 

Using media queries, the desktop assets in the images column above also get downloaded (though not visible). Along with the 30-50K worth of alternative mobile images you prepare. Whereas a server side solution only downloads the one small mobile image. 

As an aside, using image maps (IM) is an outgoing trend. Most retailers use the more reliable method of slicing their images, if they want to add multiple URLs.