Earlier this week we attended the DMA2012 (Direct Marketing Association) trade show in Las Vegas. We enjoyed our time there and got to meet a variety of marketing and advertising professionals from all over the world. It was great to show off the Cinegif service and even better to see the positive reaction to the high-quality animated GIFs that Cinegif helps 
create. One of the most asked questions about animated GIFs in general is about their compatibility on the web and through email. My goal in this article is to help answer this question and provide a reference for those looking for the facts.
First let’s tackle compatibility on the web. Cinegifs are 100% compatible with every browser out there. Cinegifs open and play instantly without the need for plug-ins or additional software. Whenever you are viewing a Cinegif through a browser, it will animate and continue to play without interruption.
Click on the image to read the full Campaign Monitor article
As for email, the answer, according to Campaign Monitor, is that 88% of all email opens support Cinegifs with animation, and the other 12% show only the first frame. So 100% of email clients support Cinegifs in a way that displays visually no worse than a still image. The only hold outs are Outlook 2007 & 2010. Outlook 2000-2003 support Cinegifs fully. To the left is a breakdown of their market share as of September 2012.
Even though these GIF unfriendly clients account for 12% of the market today, their use is on a steep decline. Between 2011 & 2012, the total Outlook average email use decreased over 32% according to Campaign Monitor. Below is a table with the winners and losers.
Click on the image to read the full Campaign Monitor article
So the Cinegif friendly world is growing while the “hold outs” and “has beens” are on the decline. It is only a matter of time before Cinegifs will be fully supported, animation and all by every email client. Cinegif predicts that Outlook 2007 & 2010 will represent less than 5% of all email opens by the end of 2013. You can read more about that and other GIF Tipping Points in a previous post.
So how does the world of the Cinegif breakdown in terms of compatibility by client? Since Cinegif uses the standard animated GIF format to deliver its professional quality image file, Campaign Monitor helps to show us the current breakdown below:
Click on the image to read the full Campaign Monitor article
Campaign Monitor goes on to say that “support for animated GIFs is rock solid. Compare this to support for video or CSS3 animation and you’ll see why the alternatives are seldom used.”
Here is an example of what a Cinegif may look like in your next email campaign:
88% of all email opens
Outlook 2007 & 2010 – the other 12%
Cinegifs and Email go great together and we are finding that this use case is one of the most popular for our growing customer base of marketing and advertising professionals. We invite you to try it out and let us know how it goes.
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