The balance between images and text
A well-balanced email uses both images and text intentionally. Images make your emails visually engaging and reinforce your brand identity. Text communicates information precisely and remains readable in any context. Understanding why each matters helps you make better design decisions and avoid the most common email deliverability traps.
The case for images
Images speak faster than text. In a split second, a well-chosen image communicates mood, brand, product quality, and emotional context. They make your email memorable and significantly increase engagement when used well. Images are also effective for showcasing products, illustrating processes, and breaking up blocks of text that would otherwise feel heavy to read.
The case for text
Text loads instantly, works on every device, is indexed by spam filters, and is readable even when images are blocked. Many email clients block images by default, which means a heavily image-based email can appear as a wall of empty boxes to a significant portion of your audience. Text is also what screen readers use to interpret your email for visually impaired contacts, an email with no meaningful text content is effectively invisible to those readers.
The image-to-text ratio
There's no magic ratio, but emails that are predominantly images with minimal text tend to score worse on spam filters. As a rough guideline, aim for at least 60% text to 40% images by surface area. This isn't a hard rule, but heavily image-based emails with very little text are a common spam trigger.
More importantly: make sure your email communicates clearly even with all images disabled. If the message still makes sense with just the text and alt texts visible, you're in a good position.
Practical guidelines
- Use images to support your message, not to carry it entirely. The text should tell the full story on its own.
- Every image should have meaningful alt text, especially product images and CTAs. See the "Alt texts" article for guidance.
- Keep banner images as a visual accent or introduction, not the primary means of communication.
- For newsletters with multiple articles, use images as thumbnails that complement the text rather than replace it.
- Test your email with images blocked using Message Check before sending.
Support tip The most resilient email design is one where the text alone tells the full story, and the images make it more compelling. If your email only makes sense with images loaded, it's fragile.
Common mistakes to avoid
- Building entire messages as a single image. These emails look broken for contacts with image blocking enabled, score poorly with spam filters, and are completely inaccessible to screen readers.
- Using decorative images without alt text. An empty box communicates nothing. Write alt text for every image that carries meaning.
- Uploading uncompressed images. Files over 2MB slow loading times and can trigger message clipping in Gmail. See "Why your media files should stay under 2MB".
- Ignoring mobile rendering. On a small screen, large images take even longer to load and can dominate the layout in ways that push key text content out of view.
Next steps
- Run Message Check on your current message to see how it looks with images blocked.
- Check the alt text on every image, see "Alt texts" for writing guidance.
- See "The reading test: is your email scannable?" to evaluate whether your text content is strong enough to stand on its own.