The Test: Vertical Vs Horizontal Email
Oct 19 2009
I have shared many campaigns that always wow me when they turn the email from vertical (as we all normally expect) to horizontal (scrolling right to left). We have used (at eROI) this approach a few times with client campaigns and had great success. But a few weeks back I wanted to test one vs the other to a random segment of a client list.
Now understand that this was a test. Only a test. We wanted to see if we tried the same creative in a different inbox presentation if it made a significant difference to the overall campaign metrics. Same time of day, same offer, same imagery. Controlled.
Well I wanted to share with you two versions of this campaign and before releasing the results with you to see if you have any ideas on how they performed. I know many of you will have some thoughts about it and hope to hear your hypothesis about the outcome.
You can click on each image to see them in a larger format.
Working with the creative with this client is a pure joy as they have some of the most amazing photos to work with. You might not think it matters, until you take a look. Amazing. Heck I never get tired of seeing some of these images as they are so powerful and magnificent.
So here we go and I await your thoughts.
Let’s lead with vertical as is what you expect. Notice all the best practices employed in this email. Pre-headers, large headlines, clear buttons to drive action above the fold, and powerful images to drive the downward scroll. At the bottom of the main call to action you will find secondary offers, as well as clear social integration elements.
Just what you would expect in an email. I know that main image is really long, but it is powerful enough to make the reader want to see it all. Trust me here.
We then took the creative and changed it to work in a horizontal format. I know what the hell are they thinking trying to make people do something they are not used to and we could bet very few of them have ever seen in their inbox before. So what did we do to make it work right? First careful attention is paid to width. As you can scroll down forever in an email inbox, you cannot do so from left to right. There are boundaries in some popular email clients that do not allow emails to be larger than 2500 pixels. We err on the safe side and go no larger than 2220 pixels in most cases. We also added an anchor tag placed right where most preview panes would allow it to be seen that allowed the user to move right without scrolling but just a simple click. Little trick but it works great.
We also took the most important step and tested it on all email clients as well as mobile just to make sure that there would not be any issues with the experience. When you are messing with the norms, it is good to know how to make it work right.
So with seeing the two of these emails, which do you think did better? Or did one do better than the other? Hmmm we will have to let you know later as I would really love to hear your thoughts.
- Posted by Dylan Boyd
- @dtboyd
- at 6:36 AM
Published in Best Of Email, Best Practices, Email Design, Email News, New Marketing Ideas, eMail Marketing Optimization
(3 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)
Loading ...
October 19th, 2009 at 8:32 am
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by eROI, Maciej Ossowski. Maciej Ossowski said: RT @eROI: The Test: Vertical Vs Horizontal Email – http://bit.ly/lg3HM – I'm definitely for the vertical option. And You? [...]
October 19th, 2009 at 9:13 am
Great test; look forward to the results.
I’ll go out on a limb and say the horizontal. The novelty should captivate a few people and the side content feels more integrated. Also, it almost has the feel of a movie with the panoramic photo so that should drive more interest as well.
October 19th, 2009 at 10:32 am
I can’t wait to see the results. I assumed that the Vertical tested better as first, but then after seeing the creative with the anchor tag clicks I hope the horizontal one does better. Either way both emails look great!
October 19th, 2009 at 11:00 am
Social comments and analytics for this post…
This post was mentioned on Twitter by maciej_ossowski: RT @eROI: The Test: Vertical Vs Horizontal Email – http://bit.ly/lg3HM – I’m definitely for the vertical option. And You?…
October 19th, 2009 at 11:36 am
A similar effort was tested for AAA Ohio as part of an email wars panel at the ExactTarget Conference, Connections 09.
The results were interesting, and the click through data even more so…
October 19th, 2009 at 12:48 pm
Love the creative, WOW!
Horizontal for sure on this one! I believe it has a cinematic quality to that draws the viewer into the scene. The vertical doesn’t do justice to the creative!
Can’t wait to see the results!
Good idea with the anchor tag too, clever.
October 19th, 2009 at 3:05 pm
Thanks Chester. I heard about that test and the results. We have done them for a long time. They are not for everyone and do not work the same with every audience.
You can find some others here.
http://theemailwars.com/2009/08/29/going-wide-with-great-results/
October 20th, 2009 at 12:33 pm
I think vertical works best.
October 20th, 2009 at 4:01 pm
I also think that the “old” vertical layout is the right one for email.
What about rendering in Outlook 2007? Does it work? And GMail? Is the horizontal email usable? What about mobile reader? Do they handle horizontal scrolling?
We already have issues trying to be compatible with a lot of clients, so I think there is very few space to be creative in layout. Better to be creative with the message, not the format.
October 20th, 2009 at 8:57 pm
Stefano:
It renders right on all clients. Side scrolling as well. That is why we tested in our own testing environment at eROI as well as through ReturnPath.
It is worth testing. Will reveal the answers soon.
October 21st, 2009 at 7:02 am
@Dylan:
I’ve seen many horizontal email not working in gmail and outlook, that’s why I asked. If you found a different working technique then I would be happy to test it ;-)
E.g. In italy we have some webmail that won’t show the horizontal scroll bars and some other webmail that do not support anchors… so if you use anchors you break the functionality for someone, if you don’t use anchors then you break for someone else.
October 21st, 2009 at 7:04 am
Forgot to provide a link to one “bad” example of horizontal email by Mazda:
http://emailmarketingblog.it/blog/2009/02/17/scorrimento-orizzontale-e-900px-di-altezza-per-mazdalive-non-ci-siamo
The article is in italian, but screenshots have no language, so you’ll get the idea anyway :-)
October 22nd, 2009 at 8:20 am
[...] The Test: Vertical Vs Horizontal Email – The Email Wars – Et pourquoi pas tester l’e-mail horizontal ? Résultats du test dans quelques jours. [...]