Relevant Products: Exclaimer Cloud - Signatures for Office 365 | Exclaimer Cloud - Signatures for G Suite |Exclaimer Cloud - Signatures for Exchange
To add imagery to a signature, you have two options available: you can either add a logo/image by embedding it directly into the signature or hosting it externally and linking to it.
The vast majority of email clients display logos/images in an email signature without any major issues. However, there are benefits to choosing one method over the other.
In this article, we will go over the differences between Embedded images and Web Hosted images. We will also cover the pros and cons of both.
Embedded images
Embedded images are images that have been physically attached to the email or signature by uploading them from a local directory. These are sent with the email which does affect the file size of the email itself.
Pros
- Always on the initial email sent
- Can be seen by all recipients
Cons
- Can be removed by the mail client, device or internal system
- Increases the file size of the email
- Image quality degrades over multiple responses.
Note: For more information, see Images lose quality when replying or forwarding in Outlook.
Web Hosted images
Web Hosted images are stored on a publicly facing web server, such as your company's web directory. This means that the images are referenced in the email signature itself but are never added to the email as a physical element.
Pros
- Does not get removed by the mail client, device or internal system
- Does not lose quality over time
- Does not affect the file size of the email
Cons
- Must require an internet connection to view the images
- Some mail clients require you to Click here to download pictures before you can view them.
- Requires a publicly facing web storage, such as your company's web directory or an alternative image hosting site such as OneDrive or Google Drive.
Which option should I choose?
You need to consider how your customers view the emails you send them:
- If a large percentage of your customers use email clients like Outlook, then embedded images are probably the way to go.
- If a large percentage of your customers view your emails on mobile devices then we recommend you use hosted imagery.