Email interactivity involves subscribers taking action directly within the emails without having to leave their inboxes. For brands, this means using limited email real estate more efficiently and lowering the barriers for subscribers to act.
As a testament to evolving email design trends, 91% of consumers want interactive content. So, not including interactivity in your emails in 2025 will be like leaving the doors open for your competitors to grab their attention first.
Although the email design approach is quite new, many ways exist to add interactive elements to your vanilla emails. In this blog, we will explore different ways to create interactive emails and caveats to avoid while doing so.
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What Are Interactive Emails?
According to the leading email marketing agency, Email Uplers, email interactivity is one of the 13 design trends influencing the email marketing landscape in 2025.
So, what exactly are interactive emails?
They are emails that consist of elements in the body with which the recipients can engage by clicking, swiping, playing, or any other method. These can be any sort of email with elements such as polls, surveys, image carousels, quizzes, or even games.
These elements turn passive readers into active participants. Making subscribers part of the experience makes them feel valued and more engaged.
Also, including interactive elements in your emails gives users a web-like experience without redirecting them to a website landing page. So the subscribers will stay with your email longer.
What’s the difference between interacting with an email and clicking a link to visit a landing page, you ask?
On the surface, they might seem similar.
But here’s the truth: Interactive elements often see engagement rates twice as high as traditional click-throughs to landing pages. That tells us there is a difference.
Why? Because taking action in emails is faster and more convenient. When subscribers engage with interactive content, they’re more likely to engage with future emails.
And when those engaged subscribers eventually click through to a landing page, they’re far more likely to convert into customers as they’ve already shown interest and invested their attention.
Moreover, interactive emails also generate useful data about subscribers’ preferences, which can help you tailor future email campaigns more effectively.
So, basically, interactive emails work because they:
- Capture attention better than static emails
- Boost email engagement
- Convert better
- Give more qualified leads
- Generate actionable data about subscribers
- Aid email personalization
- Deliver fun, positive experiences
- Build loyalty
- Enhance brand differentiation
That said, here are some of the most common ways to use email interactivity that you might have overlooked but can’t ignore in 2025.
Top 5 Interactive Email Elements to Use In 2025
1. Live Polls
If you are planning an interactive email campaign that involves a seamless involvement of your subscribers, we advise you to go for Live polls. Live polls are interactive surveys that let subscribers vote and see results instantly. – without leaving their inbox.
Each vote counts as a click, giving your click-through rates (CTR) a noticeable lift. Meanwhile, real-time updates encourage reopens as recipients check back on results. The repeated interaction signals to inbox service providers (ISPs) that your emails are valuable and improve your email deliverability over time.
You can also track overall subscriber sentiment and optimize future campaigns based on real-time feedback.
For instance, you can send personalized follow-up emails based on poll responses. Kate Spade did just that using live polls with a branded progress bar.
Voters received targeted emails featuring in-stock products from their chosen category. While non-voters got “best sellers.” The results? An 84% boost in CTR and a 47% increase in revenue.
2. Image Carousels
If minimalist email design is your brand’s vibe but you also want your subscribers to enjoy a richer email experience, image carousels are the perfect interactive element for your next campaign.
You’ll be surprised at how effectively they add interactivity to emails while saving space.
They work best for showcasing product angles, event highlights, or a collection of images in a single, compact area. Marketers often use carousels to feature product recommendations, new launches, or versatile product previews.
Be more creative, and you can build a step-by-step guide in a visual format, educating your subscribers and enticing them to click through.
Not only do they maximize your limited email real estate, but they also boost engagement by inviting subscribers to click, swipe, or flip through images.
However you plan to use them, know that high-quality visuals and sharp resolution are essential to creating a captivating, full-scale browsing experience in your interactive emails.
3. Hotspots
Want to play smart with your email design? Think Hotspots.
These clever little interactive elements let a single interactive image do all the talking.
Hotspots make it easy for you to layer multiple information points in one clean, visually appealing layout. Recipients can hover or click on various points on the image to reveal additional information.
Hotspots work exceptionally well for product exploration. Subscribers can uncover a product’s features and benefits by clicking on highlighted areas within an image. Or imagine interactive maps where hotspots allow users to discover location-specific details.
Interactive emails with hotspots keep email layouts clean and minimal while offering subscribers a more interactive experience.
4. Shopping Carts
As a brand, it’s your job to make buying frictionless for customers. Especially for those busy shoppers who do not want to hop between email and website just to decide what they like.
Interactive shopping carts can solve this problem by bringing the checkout counter to the email inbox. They transform emails into virtual storefronts where subscribers can browse products, select sizes, colors, or quantities, and even add items to their cart without leaving the email.
This removes the barriers to purchase and facilitates a fast, convenient, and seamless shopping experience.
You can apply them to abandoned cart emails to get customers to reengage with incomplete purchases within the email.
Take inspiration from the Add-to-Cart email example from Kizik. Subscribers can hover over the product image, toggle between different angles, and add the product to their cart, all within the email.
5. Offer Reveal
Who doesn’t love a little mystery? Such as the one added by a virtual scratch-off ticket in your interactive emails.
The “Offer Reveal” interactive element plays on the thrill of suspense and the emotional pull of gamification.
This clever technique comes in handy during high-stakes seasons like Black Friday or Christmas. Times when inboxes are flooded, and standing out is the only way to get noticed. A simple “click-to-reveal” interactive feature can add just enough intrigue so that the subscribers can’t help but engage with the email.
How does it work?
The ‘click’ can be any image, text, or button that reveals a hidden message. From discount codes and birthday surprises to quiz answers, there’s plenty of room to get creative with this playful functionality.
For example, a subscriber can click to unveil a 20% off coupon or hover to reveal answers in a fun, holiday-themed quiz.
Pitfalls to Avoid When Using Email Interactivity
It’s a good sign that sending out an interactive email campaign has become more widespread, with brands using them more frequently and beyond the holiday email marketing. While using various interactive elements in their regular campaigns, you must account for the following caveats:
1. Overdoing it.
However engaging you feel interactive emails are, too much of a good thing can lead to fatigue. Overusing interactivity strips it of its exclusivity. This leaves subscribers feeling indifferent and disengaged.
Taylor Raffa, Mass Email Team Lead at Semrush, vouch for thoughtfulness when using interactive elements. She advises aligning the elements seamlessly with your brand’s message and delivering genuine value to the recipient.
Otherwise, no matter how visually stunning your interactive emails are, they will become just another email in an already crowded inbox.
The takeaway is to use interactivity sparingly and intentionally.
2. Making the email heavy-weight.
Coding an interactive email adds additional code weight. CSS for email interactivity can quickly make your email code bloat.
That’s not good because when the total size goes beyond Gmail’s 102KB limit (not including images), the email gets clipped. The worst part is that if it hides the unsubscribe link, the email may even go to the spam folder.
To avoid this, always check your interactive email size before sending. A lighter email is more engaging and deliverable.
3. Forgetting that most email interactivity is not accessible.
Many marketers make the mistake of overlooking an important segment of the audience while designing interactive emails: subscribers relying on assistive technologies like screen readers.
In such cases, the content within these elements often remains unreadable.
To prevent this, accessibility should never be an afterthought. Use ARIA labels to describe the functionality of interactive elements. That’s how subscribers with disabilities will be able to understand and navigate your interactive emails with ease.
4. Skipping the fallbacks.
Not all email clients play nicely with CSS-based interactivity. What might work seamlessly with one subscriber could lead to broken emails for another subscriber. This typically happens when proper fallbacks are not part of your email interactivity game plan.
Fortunately, there are plenty of clever fallback tactics to hide or replace interactivity gracefully in case it is not supported. As in:
- Alternative fonts for email clients that don’t support custom ones.
- Clear alt text when images are blocked.
- Plain text email version for subscribers who can not view the HTML format.
Wrapping Up
Interactive emails could still be young but no longer a novelty. As email design trends continue to evolve, interactive elements have solidified their position as tools for creating engaging, personalized, and highly effective email marketing campaigns.
The playful and memorable experiences they deliver keep subscribers coming back for more.
But we won’t sugarcoat it – coding a polished, professional interactive email is not simple. Implementing email interactivity that renders flawlessly across devices and email clients can be daunting.
While not all interactive elements require overly intricate coding, parenting with an expert email design and coding agency can really give you peace of mind. Because you know your audience will have a great experience with your interactive emails.
Featured image is created using Canva.
