Most emails are still static: an image, some copy and a button. Interactive email changes that by letting recipients do things inside the email itself, such as flicking through a product carousel, opening an FAQ, spinning a product 360° or revealing a promo code, without leaving their inbox.
It's one of the most effective ways to make your emails stand out, but it comes with real technical constraints. Here's what's possible, which email clients support it, and how to use it without leaving anyone behind.
What can interactive email do?
Almost any interactive element you'd find on a website can be adapted for email in some form. Popular examples include:
- Product carousels: swipe or tap through products or features.
- Accordions: expandable FAQs or tech specs that keep long content tidy.
- Tap-to-reveal: hidden content revealed on tap, perfect for launches and offers.
- 360° product rotators: spin a product to see it from every angle.
- "Choose your own adventure" quizzes: guide recipients to the product or content that suits them.
- Gamified giveaways: spin-to-win, scratch cards or puzzles that reveal a promo code.
- Expand and collapse sections: long content made scannable.
We built a fully working example of a gamified email from scratch in our interactive character builder tutorial.
Two ways to build interactivity
1. Interactive HTML and CSS
Most interactive email is built with clever HTML and CSS, usually based on hidden form elements like checkboxes and radio buttons combined with CSS selectors (often called the "checkbox hack"). It works in email clients that support the necessary CSS, most notably Apple Mail on iPhone, iPad and Mac, plus some webmail clients.
It needs no special setup, and the same email simply falls back to a static version where interactivity isn't supported.
2. AMP for Email
AMP for Email is a framework that adds dynamic, app-like features to email, including live content, forms and carousels. It's supported by Gmail and Yahoo Mail, among others.
AMP comes with more requirements: you need to register as an AMP sender with each provider, meet their authentication and content standards, and send an AMP version alongside your regular HTML. The extra effort can be worthwhile for high-value campaigns, but many brands stick to HTML and CSS for its simplicity.
How many recipients can see it?
Combined, the two approaches can reach a large share of email opens. In Litmus's January 2025 email client market share data, Apple Mail and iOS accounted for around 49% of opens and Gmail for around 30%. Together that's close to four in five opens in clients capable of some form of interactivity.
Two caveats:
- Apple's share is inflated. Apple Mail Privacy Protection pre-loads emails, which counts as an open in market share data whether or not a person reads it.
- Your audience is what counts. Business audiences use more Outlook, which supports very little interactivity. Check the email client breakdown for your own list before planning a big interactive campaign.
Always design for the fallback
However good your interactive version, a significant share of recipients will see the static version. Treat interactivity as a progressive enhancement:
- Design the email so it works completely without interactivity. The message, offer and call-to-action should all be clear.
- Add the interactive layer on top for clients that support it.
- Test both versions across your key email clients before sending.
A well-built interactive email shows each recipient the best version their email client can handle, and nobody gets a broken experience.
Is it worth it?
Interactive email takes more effort to build and test than a static email, but it can deliver strong engagement. Vendor studies often report big uplifts in click-to-open and conversion rates, though results vary widely by audience and execution. The best way to know is to test it: send an interactive version to part of your audience and compare it against a static version, using the primary metric that matters for that campaign.
It's most effective when it gives recipients something genuinely useful or fun to do, such as exploring a new product, finding the right option for them or revealing an offer, rather than adding movement for its own sake.
Make interactivity repeatable
Building interactive emails from scratch every time is expensive. The better approach is to build interactive modules once, as part of your email design system, with fallbacks built in, so your team can drop a carousel or accordion into any email. We build interactive templates and modules for platforms including Stripo, Taxi for Email and HubSpot. Book a free consultation to talk about yours.