43 Free Animated Gifs for Your Email Campaign

The new year is the perfect excuse to freshen up your email campaign, and we have a free gift to help with your improvements.

Animated GIFs in emails are getting more and more popular – about 40% of retailers use animation in their emails at least occasionally. You can use them to liven up your campaign, too. We’ve got 43 animated buttons waiting to get clicked on in your messages.

But first, a few thoughts on using animations in your email appropriately.

Making the Most of Animations

Like many email practices, using animated GIFs in your messages has positive and negative effects to consider. They can make a big impact, but using animations too frequently can wear your customers out. Let’s look at the pros first:

The Pros of Using Animations

The Cons of Using Animations

Piperlime provides the perfect example of subtle yet eye-catching animation with their “Free Shipping” email header.

Click to view animation.

Additionally, while you’re likely to see higher engagement using animated GIFs in your emails, using them too frequently will cause your results to flatline as your readers get desensitized to them. Use gifs less frequently for maximum impact and better results.

Put Your Knowledge to Use

Now that you know the best practices for using GIFs in your emails, try it for yourself with our animated buttons! You’ll find three different calls to action in a variety of colors, plus a number of social network buttons for you to use. They all feature a subtle animation to catch your subscribers’ attention.

Get the whole set here:

Download

Like what you see? Subscribe to the blog list below for more freebies plus advice on improving your business’s campaign delivered to your inbox twice a week.

Have you tried using animation in your emails already? What kind of results have you seen?

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By:
Rebekah Henson on Google

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43 Comments

  1. Kenneth Holland

    Hi,

    Am I missing something here? I can’t get the graphics without a password. :)

    1/18/2012 11:57 pm
  2. Rebekah Henson

    Hi Kenneth,
    I’m sorry you’re having a problem with the download. We’ve tested the link several times and the file is not password protected. You might want to check your browser settings to see if that’s causing an issue.

    1/19/2012 9:06 am
  3. Lou

    Also tried and it requested a password to unzip.

    1/19/2012 10:13 am
  4. Mike

    Got the download to work, but could not open any of the files.

    1/19/2012 10:19 am
  5. goldie

    Hi,

    I downloaded however when I click on them, they do not open

    1/19/2012 10:21 am
  6. Rebekah Henson

    Lou, Mike, Goldie and Kenneth,

    I updated the settings on the zip file and re-uploaded it. Hopefully that should fix things. I apologize for the download issues!

    1/19/2012 10:26 am
  7. Steve Leighton

    Rebekah,
    You fixed the problem. Thanks!

    1/19/2012 10:32 am
  8. goldie

    Sorry, still can’t open or view.

    1/19/2012 10:33 am
  9. Brad Fitzpatrick

    Zip file is empty… tried a few times.

    1/19/2012 10:33 am
  10. Sharon

    Cannot extract from zip file without a password…

    1/19/2012 10:33 am
  11. miroslav

    Files still password protected :(
    omg

    1/19/2012 10:41 am
  12. Hilary Lee

    Wow- what an excellent resource! Thanks for sharing!!

    1/19/2012 10:52 am
  13. Hilary Lee

    I am downloading on a Mac using Google Chrome and did not have an issue with passwords.

    1/19/2012 10:53 am
  14. Rebekah Henson

    Everyone-

    We’re looking into anything else that might still be causing issues. If you’re selecting “Open” when the download starts, try saving the file to your computer instead, then right clicking to extract the files.

    1/19/2012 10:53 am
  15. Marlene

    You were right – they didn’t open for me until I unzipped and extracted the files. Then it was no problem. They are great – thank you!

    1/19/2012 11:07 am
  16. Rebekah Henson

    Marlene,
    Thanks for sharing – glad it worked!

    1/19/2012 11:09 am
  17. Jim

    I also can not extract the files without passwords. I’ll try again later.

    1/19/2012 11:27 am
  18. Joseph D. Shiller

    My computer does not know how to open this file:
    ” DS_STORE File (.DS_Store) ”
    Even if I could open it, I don’t know how to use it to create animated buttons.
    I was able to open the various .gif images that were in the file, which all look like the same random pattern. I also would not know how to use these files to create the 6 animated buttons depicted in the email.
    Do these 6 animated buttons represent the 86 GIF’s that were promised in the title? Also is an animated GIF the same thing as an animated button? I am a little confused, since also the example from Piperlime was more like what I was expecting. Their animation was not a button. I was also under the impression that it is not possible to put a button directly in an email?

    1/19/2012 11:32 am
  19. Goldie

    Keep on trying… Asking for a password to unzip. Tried with IE and Firefox. Still can’t open w/o a password. Any ideas?

    1/19/2012 11:34 am
  20. Rebekah Henson

    Jim-
    If you’re selecting “Open” when you download the file, try saving it to your computer instead, then right-click to unzip. Also, some versions of Internet Explorer have a bug when it comes to downloading zip files. This link provides a fix for that problem if you’re using Internet Explorer: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/308090

    1/19/2012 11:34 am
  21. Ernest

    I also have downloaded and opened the zip file but as I go to view the particular image I get a error reading,

    “windows cannot complete the extraction”
    “the destination file could not be created”

    please advise.
    Ernest

    1/19/2012 11:39 am
  22. Clif Bridegum

    Thanks so much! I will definitely have to try these out. I had no problem downloading the zip in Firefox. And it extracted just like normal with 7-zip.

    Thanks Again!

    1/19/2012 11:56 am
  23. Erica

    Having the same issue as above- I’ve saved the folder, unblocked it, & it still needs a password…

    1/19/2012 11:56 am
  24. Susan

    I still cannot extract the files. Windows told me to go in through “My Computer” and unblock the files. I did that and still no luck. Still tells me I need a password.

    1/19/2012 12:04 pm
  25. Mike

    still not working…sorry not worth all of the hassle. have a great day!

    1/19/2012 12:08 pm
  26. Aaron Schulman

    Thanks Rebekah and Aweber – These look great!

    Aaron

    1/19/2012 12:16 pm
  27. Ted

    Thanks Rebekah,,no problems from me, download and open went fine,
    Thanks again
    Ted

    1/19/2012 12:20 pm
  28. Marilyn

    I tried to sign up for the GIFS’s but my system told me I was already a member…yes, I used the same e-mail address as my member address.
    Please tell me what to do.

    1/19/2012 1:11 pm
  29. Rebekah Henson

    Marilyn -
    You can use the blue “Download” button at the end of the post to download all the animated buttons. If you’re already subscribed to our blog mailing list, you don’t need to subscribe a second time.

    For everyone experiencing download problems:
    The original zip file was created on a Mac, which seems to have been causing problems for Windows users. We re-created the zip on a Windows machine, which should work for both Windows and Mac users. Thank you for your patience!

    1/19/2012 1:22 pm
  30. Goldie

    Thanks Rebekah,

    Finally worked for me. Can’t wait to try them out.

    Goldie

    1/19/2012 1:52 pm
  31. Bill Rowe

    Just down loaded for 7th time, works OK now after getting a password needed for file

    Thanks

    Bill

    1/19/2012 3:26 pm
  32. Paul B. Taubman, II

    Thanks, Rebekah!

    Worked perfectly the first time. Sorry you had so many issues when you just wanted to give away goodness! These are great!

    I have smaller, less ‘obvious’ social media icons on my site at http://INeedHelpWithWordPress.com – I am going to add your new ones within the hour.

    Thanks again!
    Be Well.
    Paul.

    1/19/2012 3:29 pm
  33. Jim

    Thanks Rebekah,
    The conversion to a Windows version worked for me.

    1/19/2012 4:17 pm
  34. Lisa Lieberman-Wang

    i can easily download zipped file, but get an error trying to unzip.

    1/19/2012 4:32 pm
  35. JP

    Hi Rebekah,

    Many thanks for the Gif Download file. Works fine. ( although just 43 files not 86 )

    My question is – how do I change the text on the Gif file to be what I need for a more person feel?

    Ie – “Lear More” I wish to be “Register Now”

    Thanks for an excellent service.

    JP

    1/19/2012 4:47 pm
  36. Dennis

    Thanks for the free GIF’s.

    1/20/2012 5:57 am
  37. Cliff

    Worked Fine for me, thanks for the resources. ;-)

    1/20/2012 10:00 am
  38. Thom

    What would be really great is a PNG version of the animation so we can create our own animated buttons :-D

    1/23/2012 4:18 am
  39. Ann

    I have successfully downloaded the files to my computer. But if i can only insert images into my emails with a URL, how to I get a URL from the file on my computer? Does AWeber have a repository of images and URLS somewhere? Thank. you.

    1/29/2012 2:45 pm
  40. Rebekah Henson

    Ann,
    You’ll need to upload the image to either your website or a free image hosting service and link to the URL from there in your email.

    This Knowledge Base article has step-by-step instructions for uploading and inserting your image in an email: http://www.aweber.com/faq/questions/204

    1/30/2012 10:11 am
  41. Dorothy

    Hey, would be great if aWeber offered an easy insert of social plugins as part of the email editor!

    1/31/2012 6:14 pm
  42. Rebekah Henson

    Dorothy, I’ll pass your suggestion along to our developers. Thanks for your comment!

    2/1/2012 9:09 am
  43. Frankie Steyn

    Thanks for the gif’s.

    These will come in good use as we just launched our book and need something ‘active’ like this in our email messages.

    2/10/2012 6:11 am

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