In this article, you’ll learn everything you need to know about AMP for emails. What it is, the difference between HTML and AMP, its benefits, and nuances you should consider before adopting AMP for your email campaigns.
Even though AMP and interactive emails have been part of the industry for quite some time, such emails are still far from becoming the standard in email newsletters. This technology’s advancement may be off-putting for marketers, who usually follow the beaten and proven path of regular emails.
However, this beaten path has some obstacles and pitfalls that marketers face and need to overcome to make their marketing efforts work and achieve results. The most common are:
- low engagement rates due to old-fashioned, static email design that fails to capture attention and engage;
- an inefficient user experience that forces recipients to navigate to external pages, leading to drop-offs;
- complex workflows, such as surveys or product reviews that require multiple clicks and page loads.
So, what does AMP have to do with all this? That's why we're writing this article — to explain how AMP, with its properties and capabilities, solves the problems above. We’ll tell you in detail what AMP is, what benefits it provides, and what nuances it hides so that you can choose whether to adopt such emails in your marketing strategy. Let’s dive right in.
What’s AMP for email?
AMP for email is a framework for adding interactivity to email messages. This dynamic email format provides a subset of AMPHMTL (Accelerated Mobile Pages HTML). With AMP, email exhibits app-like behavior that we’re accustomed to seeing only on dynamic websites.
But what’s this AMP really for? Everyone has long been accustomed to regular emails, so it would seem that improving what’s already ideal is impossible.
The answer can be given in one word: interactivity. Think of how often you’ve received an email that sends you to a separate website page to fill out a form, a questionnaire that’s impossible to complete without redirecting you somewhere else, or just eCommerce emails that show you a whole range of products, thereby turning the email into a long scroll.
(Source: Email from Stripo)
AMP remedies these issues by providing a web-like experience inside the email. The recipient can fill out and view all of the above right in the email using the interactivity that AMP provides.
HTML and AMP: What’s the difference?
We’ve defined what AMP for email is, but how does it differ from traditional HTML emails?
No matter how differently AMP sounds and is defined, it’s an improved form of HTML that provides more interactivity due to limited JavaScript markup, in which you can add AMP components such as:
- "<amp mustache>" for adding dynamic content;
- "<amp-list>" for client-side rendering in AMP;
- "<amp-accordion>" for showing and hiding different sections;
- "<amp-fit-text>" for fitting text within a certain area;
- "<amp-img>" for replacing the familiar "<img>" component;
- and more.
Simply put, AMP emails are also coded in HTML but must identify themselves with specified declarations and the use of predefined elements.
AMP traits and benefits
It’s about time to discuss all the benefits AMP brings to emails that adopt it.
Rich inbox experience and content diversity
AMP email opens the door to new content formats that can move your email marketing forward, making it more unique and engaging. You can create new content you’ve never used in your newsletters. Carousels can grant a compact way to show multiple images. Accordions can structure your content and save email space. Quizzes and puzzles can be used for special occasions and events. These content pieces and much more are at your disposal to boost your email marketing performance.
(Source: Email from Stripo)
Interactive and dynamic content
One of the main advantages of AMP, without which all this interactive content wouldn’t make sense, is the real-time data update, which is similar to a web-like experience. You fill out a form about assessing service quality, click a button in the email, and the filled-in information is already with the sender.
All needed actions are within an email
As we mentioned above, all actions with interactive elements occur inside the email, e.g., the form is filled out in the email, the NPS questionnaire is rated by the recipient directly in the email, and the puzzle is assembled in the email. You get the idea.
There is no need to send the recipient to a separate page. All engagement happens within your precious AMP email template.
Campaign performance boost
Interactivity is a good trait, but it can be even better when supported with better email performance figures. In this aspect, AMP improves performance because using it when creating content provides a significant boost to some pretty important email marketing metrics.
By implementing interactive content built with AMP, you can:
- increase the click-to-open rate by 100% for SaaS companies;
- boost ROI by up to 225% for the e-commerce sector;
- increase the conversion rate by 27%.
As you can see, AMP boosts performance significantly––thanks to novelty, convenience for the recipient, and better engagement that improves the overall email campaign experience for your recipients.
AMP limitations and nuances you need to know
No matter how ideal and must-have AMP technology sounds, it has its own nuances and pitfalls that you should know about before you adopt it in your email marketing.
Mandatory whitelisting
The first important nuance of AMP that you should know is that without whitelisting, you won’t be able to send AMP emails. Whitelisting is a simple yet crucial step in email security. Simply put, you go through registration with Google, which verifies your sender name and SPF and DKIM settings, and only if you pass this test will you be allowed to send AMP-powered emails.
We made a full-fledged guide to ensure that your AMP email campaigns get the green light.
AMP content forwarding and expiry
This is a small but extremely important aspect that’s worth keeping in mind. When your AMP emails are forwarded by recipients, they lose their properties, and their interactivity elements are no longer displayed.
Furthermore, some email clients may stop displaying the AMP part of an email after a set period (e.g., after 30 days).
Technical knowledge
This is an advanced technology, so knowing code and navigating it inside an email are must-have skills — not only to create AMP components from scratch but also to identify errors during testing that can hinder your AMP capabilities.
This all sounds complicated, right? However, by using the right tools, less-tech-savvy marketers can implement AMP content in their emails.
At Stripo, we strive to make interactive content accessible to everyone regardless of their technical skills, which is why we created our Interactive module generator, in which marketers can create a variety of interactive AMP elements in a user-friendly interface without coding skills.
Our generator provides you with a game module that contains the following:
- an AMP HTML version of your interactive module for email clients that support AMP. This works in Gmail, Yahoo, and FairEmail;
- an interactive fallback. This works on all devices and email clients supporting HTML5 and CSS3. It also works in Apple Mail and Samsung Email;
- a text fallback version. This works with email clients that don’t support HTML5 or CSS3, such as some Outlook apps.
As a result, you get not only AMP elements but also support elements to cover all possible email clients, making your content as accessible as possible.
A small number of supported email providers and fallback requirements
Despite AMP technology’s uniqueness and the email marketing boosts it brings, it currently works only on Gmail, Yahoo, and FairEmail. This aspect should be considered when creating AMP emails, imposing additional work to create fallback versions for email clients who can’t receive interactive emails yet.
Besides this, even if your email client supports interactivity, you still need to determine how your email renders all AMP elements thoroughly before sending emails to recipients’ inboxes.
And as the cherry on top, email providers who support AMP emails enforce security checks that only allow vetted AMP scripts to run in their clients.
The email design process is longer and more expensive
Last but not least, this aspect follows from the need to know the AMP code or have specialists on the team who can create AMP emails. Furthermore, the complexity of creating such an email increases the time required to produce the email and, accordingly, the costs.
A solution to this can be modular email design, a process in which emails are created from various pre-built elements (e.g., headers, footers, product cards, banners, buttons, etc.). Just as you can assemble any building from construction blocks with the help of modules, you can assemble any email that suits your needs.
In describing the whole flow briefly, you create an AMP element once and save it as a module so that you can reuse it in other email campaigns without creating it from scratch each time. Just make the necessary edits to the pre-built game. Fast and financially profitable, isn't it?
Regarding “fast,” we conducted our own study and found that modules save time and speed up email creation by five times. In our case study, we described the process and results in more detail, so check it out.
Wrapping up
AMP for email may be tricky to grasp, but it rewards those who use it correctly in their email marketing, boosting vital stats that marketers always strive to keep high and bringing new experiences to rather familiar emails. It also raises engagement, making emails memorable and more fun. So, give AMP email a try and test it for yourself to experience its benefits.
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