Latest / The Email Marketing Podcast with Fexingo: Newsletters, Open Rates, and Subscriber Growth / Why Email Accessibility Boosts Subscriber Engagement
Transcript
- Lucas: So there's a number that's been stuck in my head since I read the Email Experience Council's 2025 benchmark report. Accessible emails — emails designed for people who use screen readers, who have low vision, who rely on keyboard navigation — those emails see a 28 percent higher click-through rate and about 15 percent higher conversion. Luna: That is a big gap. And I assume it's not because disabled subscribers are clicking more aggressively. It's probably because accessible emails are just... better emails. Lucas: Exactly. That's the thesis. Accessibility forces you to write clearer copy, use simpler layouts, and make sure your call to action is actually visible and clickable. Those same things benefit every subscriber. It's a classic curb-cut effect. Luna: Right — the curb cut example. A ramp for wheelchairs also helps parents with strollers, delivery workers with dollies, cyclists. So when you design for the edge case, you end up making the experience better for everyone. Lucas: And yet, when I look at the emails I get in my own inbox — from big brands, even from companies that pride themselves on good design — most of them fail basic accessibility checks. I ran a quick audit last month using the WAVE browser extension on a sample of twenty marketing emails. Only four passed. Luna: What were the common failures? Like, missing alt text on images? Lucas: That was the most common, yes. But also low color contrast ratios — light gray text on white backgrounds. And a lot of them used images of text, which screen readers just skip entirely. So if your big headline is embedded in a JPEG, a blind subscriber gets nothing. Luna: And that's also the subscriber who opens your email with images blocked. Litmus data from last year showed that 62 percent of email opens happen with images off by default. So even if you're not thinking about screen readers, you're already serving a text-only version to more than half your list. Lucas: Great point. So the accessibility fix and the images-blocked fix overlap a lot. Start with semantic HTML — use actual heading tags, not just bolded <p> tags. Use bullet points for lists. Put your call to action in a real <a> tag with sufficient padding. These are not exotic web-development skills. Luna: But they do require your email team to think differently. Most emails are designed in a drag and drop builder that spits out table-based layouts. Getting a designer to write alt text or check contrast ratios feels like slowing down the assembly line. Lucas: And that's the objection I hear most: 'It'll take too long. We've got a campaign dropping in two hours.' But the EEC study also found that teams that incorporated accessibility from the start — not as a retrofit — saw no significant increase in production time after the first couple of campaigns. It's a learning curve, not a permanent tax. Luna: So what's the smallest actionable step? If someone listening has never thought about email accessibility, what's the first thing they should do Monday morning? Lucas: Three things, actually. One: write descriptive alt text for your hero image. Don't just say 'image.jpg.' Say 'Woman in blue jacket holding a coffee cup in a sunlit office.' Screen reader users rely on that context. Luna: And make sure the alt text conveys the function, not just the appearance. If the image is the link to your sale, the alt text should say 'Shop the spring sale' not just 'Spring-themed illustration.' Lucas: Exactly. Two: check your color contrast ratio using a free tool like WebAIM's contrast checker. Aim for at least 4.5 to 1 for normal text, 3 to 1 for large text. If your brand guidelines use light gray on white, you need to bump that gray darker. Luna: And three: test with a real screen reader. VoiceOver on Mac is built in — just press Command-F5. On Windows, NVDA is free. Listen to your own email. If you can't navigate it with arrow keys, neither can your subscribers. Lucas: I did that with one of our own recent Fexingo newsletters. Took me maybe five minutes. I discovered our 'Read more' link was invisible to the screen reader because it was just an unstyled <span> with a click handler. Easy fix. Luna: And that's the thing — these fixes are usually one-line changes. The hardest part is building the habit of checking. Once you have a checklist, it becomes part of the workflow. Lucas: A checklist is key. I'd recommend starting with one accessibility tweak per campaign. This week, add proper alt text. Next campaign, fix the contrast ratio. The campaign after that, ensure your email works in dark mode — because dark mode is also an accessibility feature for people with light sensitivity. Luna: And dark mode is another case where the edge-case fix helps everyone. I think something like 40 percent of subscribers now use dark mode in their mail client. If your email has hard-coded white backgrounds, those become blinding in dark mode. Lucas: Right. Use media queries to detect dark mode and adjust your colors. Most email platforms like Mailchimp and Klaviyo now support those queries natively. It's a simple toggle. Luna: Okay, so I want to push back a little. Is there a real ROI argument here beyond doing the right thing? Because some marketers hear 'accessibility' and assume it's a compliance box to check, not a growth lever. Lucas: The EEC data says it is a growth lever. The 28 percent higher click-through rate and 15 percent higher conversion — those numbers come from a study of over 500 million email impressions. And it's not just people with disabilities. It's people on slow connections, people on mobile with bad rendering, people over 50 whose vision isn't what it used to be. Luna: So the accessible email is also the email that works for aging subscribers, for people checking email on a bus with spotty signal, for anyone using an old phone. Lucas: That's a huge chunk of your list. And if your competitor's email breaks for them and yours doesn't, you win that click. That's the ROI. Luna: I think there's also a trust angle. When a subscriber realizes an email is hard to read, they don't think 'Oh, they forgot alt text.' They think 'This brand doesn't care about my experience.' And that erodes long-term engagement. Lucas: Absolutely. And trust is harder to rebuild than a click. So the accessibility investment is also a retention investment. If you're cleaning your list and segmenting by engagement, you should also be segmenting by device type and preferred email client to surface where your emails are failing. Luna: You can use your ESP's send logs to see which clients have image blocking or dark mode issues. That's data you already have. It just needs a focused analysis. Lucas: And that analysis might reveal that a big chunk of your high-value subscribers are reading on Outlook for iOS, which has its own weird rendering quirks. You can then build a test segment and iterate. Luna: If these marketing conversations have sparked something you've actually used in your own campaigns — maybe you added alt text this week or finally checked your contrast ratio — that's exactly what keeps this show ad-free. People like you, who find the practical stuff useful, occasionally chip in at buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. Low-key, no pressure, but it genuinely helps us keep these deep dives coming without sponsors or pop-up ads. Lucas: Yeah, listener support is what lets us spend the extra hour hunting down the specific data points and studies we reference. So if you've gotten value from episodes like this one, that's the coffee link — buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. And now back to the playbook. Luna: Alright, so we have a checklist. Where do we go from here? I want to talk about semantic HTML in more detail because I think that's the most intimidating piece for non-developers. Lucas: Sure. Semantic HTML means using tags that describe the content's role, not just its appearance. So instead of <p style='font-size:24px; font-weight:bold;'> for a headline, use <h1> or <h2>. Screen readers announce headings and let users jump between them. A <p> tag gives no navigation cue. Luna: And the same goes for links. Instead of <span> or <div> with an onclick, use an actual <a> tag with an href. That way keyboard users can tab to it and activate it with Enter. Lucas: Exactly. And keep your link text descriptive. Not 'Click here' but 'Read our latest report on email accessibility.' That helps everyone, but especially screen reader users who often navigate by pulling up a list of all links on the page. Luna: One thing I'd add: test your email on a mobile device with the font size set to Large in the system settings. That simulates how someone with low vision might see it. If text gets cut off or buttons overlap, you have a problem. Lucas: That's a great tip. And while you're in the settings, enable Reduce Transparency and grayscale. Some subscribers use those to reduce visual noise. Your email should still be readable. Luna: So we've covered alt text, contrast, dark mode, semantic HTML, and testing. That feels like a solid starter pack. What's the one thing you think will have the biggest impact for the least effort? Lucas: Alt text on the primary image. Because that image often carries the main message of the email. If you describe it well, the subscriber gets the gist even if images never load. And it takes thirty seconds. Luna: Agreed. One sentence per email. That's the entry point. I'd also suggest adding a plain-text fallback for your most important calls to action. Some email clients strip all HTML and show only plain text. Make sure that version still has a working URL. Lucas: Good call. And with that, I think we've given everyone a concrete Monday-morning action item. Write one alt text, check one contrast ratio, test with one screen reader. Three tasks, maybe twenty minutes total, and your next email will reach more people more effectively. Luna: Plus you'll be building a habit that compounds. By the end of the quarter, every email in your library is accessible, and your numbers will probably reflect it. Lucas: And that's the real win — not just compliance, but performance. Accessible emails perform better. Full stop. Thanks for being here, and we'll talk next time.