More on image links versus text links

Latest posts | Feed | By Mark Brownlow on June 28, 2007

buy nowFollowing yesterday's post about the relative pulling power of image and text links, here's another article addressing that topic.

Chad White reveals more evidence that a button can out-perform a text link when it comes to the main call-to-action.

To some extent this goes against the traditional presumption that links should not be images because of the detrimental effect image blocking has. Which is yet another justification for always testing our assumptions.

My suspicion is that the response lift through a button, rather than text, link depends on how you implement it.

Who wants to recommend the best way to code button links so that:

1. They make an attractive call to action
2. They work in as many email display environments as possible
3. They still work when images are disabled

Or is it just a question of using button and text links together?

Anyone?

UPDATE: Readers have added some good comments to the post.

More on design | Tags: , , ,

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5 Comments:

This is an interesting thought. I think it brings some challenges to B2C consumers who are focused on branding. I can see how it would be a great idea if you had the ability to allow your customer to add a product to a shopping cart through a link in an email. Even designing a graphic so that it gives the appearance of a button could visually be enough to grab a customer. This would obviously take us back to the discussion of image blocking. I am interested to hear the thoughts of others...
By Anonymous Jonathan Wilbur, on 28 June, 2007  
 

Hi Mark,

We've been testing image CTAs vs. text ones with our blog's email updates. We send a portion of the post via email, then drive them to read the full post either with a text link or a simple "Read More" image.

So far, the image is outpulling the text (we're using click % / open % as our metric), and while it's a notable margin, we don't yet have enough data points to call it statistically significant.

Barring a sharp turnaround in results, the image will win out.

Once our results are statistically significant, we'll be blogging them. I'll also drop you a line about it.
By Anonymous Justin Premick, on 28 June, 2007  
 

Thanks Jonathan and Justin. I'm very curious about this.

I recall (vaguely!) website studies where image buttons outperformed text links. And other studies where the opposite was true.

So I'm wondering if there's more to it all than simply image versus text. Any other insights very welcome.

(And I'm looking forward to seeing your results Justin!)
By Blogger Mark Brownlow - Email Marketing Reports, on 28 June, 2007  
 

Hi Mark,

Great topic and a question I'm often asked by my clients. I try to always remind marketers you should design emails for more than one audience as you often have more than one type reading it. So you can use both image based buttons and text based calls in the same email, boosting your chances of a successful clickthrough with and without images displayed. Another common trick is to use HTML based buttons (table cell's, shaded, bordered) with the "hover" style to add a little interactivity.
By Anonymous Stefan Pollard, on 28 June, 2007  
 

Thanks Stefan. So assuming you don't use both (which I agree is a strong option), the issue is actually "buttons versus text" and not "images versus text." Since a button does not have to be an image. Like you say, you can use HTML to give the text link the appearance of a button.
By Blogger Mark Brownlow - Email Marketing Reports, on 28 June, 2007  
 

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