Question

Topic: E-Marketing

How Big Is Too Big For An Email Attachment?

Posted by telemoxie on 12/5/2006 at 11:06 AM ET 2000 Points
I make outbound calls to targeted companies on behalf of my clients, and when sending info to follow up the call, I'll typically ask if folks prefer regular mail or email. More and more people prefer email every day.

Years ago, I would not send attachments (just links to a client's web site) - but attaching files (especially PDFs) seems to be less and less of a problem over time.

Please note: this info is not going to someone who visited a web site or requested info. They have not yet expressed interest in my client's product or service, and they are not yet a "qualified prospect". At this point, they have just politely agreed to receive info, and possibly forward it to others in their organization.

In such a case, if you were the receipient of such an email, and the email naturally had a link to my client's web site, would you prefer to also receive an attachment? If so, how large an attachment (file size) would be appropriate?
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RESPONSES

  • Posted on 12/5/2006 at 11:20 AM Accepted
    How big is too big for an attachment? It depends. Many email systems will have a limit for the maximum attachment size (say, 10MB, but it could be set higher or lower than this). Messages with attachments exceeding the limit will typically not be delivered, though sometimes large attachments will simply be stripped (that is, your recipient will receive the email with no attachment).

    The second (and perhaps more important) question is: how large can your attachment be without irritating the recipient? Particularly if your recipient is on a slow connection, larger attachments mean longer transfer times, which I would contend is usually a bad thing.

    Also consider whether the person you're emailing expects you to be sending a large file attachment. If you're sending a PDF to a client and the client is waiting, an 8MB attachment might not be a problem. On the other hand, if your email is coming "out of the blue", even a 500K attachment might be viewed as annoying and unwelcome.

    My personal rule of thumb these days is to try to keep attachments under 1MB each, if possible. Though as you could reasonably infer from all of the above hedging, this is something of a grey area. As I said earlier: "it depends."

    Good luck,

    Scott
  • Posted by adammjw on 12/5/2006 at 11:33 AM Accepted
    Dave,

    I would opt for a link to a website, especially with regard to prospects and not anxious customers.
    More and more companies are putting in place rigorous security measures to stop unsolicited mailings and yours could be treated as such by system administrator.
    The result might also be that instead of turning people on you would turn them off as we often say "yes" and ten to forget it if this is no vital issue to us.

    rgds

    Adam
  • Posted by telemoxie on 12/5/2006 at 12:13 PM Author
    Thanks for the comments so far. Please keep them coming.

    As a "prospect centered" marketing guy, I'm much more interested in knowing what you prefer to RECEIVE, than what you prefer to send.
  • Posted by Stephen Denny on 12/5/2006 at 4:57 PM Accepted
    You always run the risk of your target co's spam/virus blocker taking out any message you send if there is any attachment -- and that includes your signature, if you always attach a 'card' to your email.

    Send a follow-up email with a link to your site. It's more professional.
  • Posted on 12/5/2006 at 7:33 PM Accepted
    My preference would be to receive a link, and when I get to the website the option to download a PDF.

    I think attachments are a little presumptuous, and many worry about viruses and/or malware in attachments. (I'm not totally paranoid about them myself, but I do think about the possibilities ...)

  • Posted by darcy.moen on 12/5/2006 at 8:12 PM Accepted
    Attachments are rather passe. Links are much better.

    Given the choice to send an attatchment, include a link, or direct traffic to a web site...I'll take the direct traffic anyday.

    Links are trackable.
    Attachments are 'scary' and 'mysterious'.
    Attachments are prime spam filter fodder.

    There are so many negatives....

    Do links. You may find folks are much more interactive, and much more received.

    Darcy Moen
    Customer Loyalty Network
  • Posted on 12/6/2006 at 1:27 AM Accepted
    Definitely prefer to receive a link than a pdf. However is the content of the pdf like read-n-file type? As a prospect would i be interested in filing it? Then the link shd have an email option to send pdf.
    Also you havent mentioned exactly what kind of outbound telecalling you do- if its financial services- say loans, credit cards, deposits where the amount promised, installment amount and the interest rate matter, the client would like a pdf.
    If its an offer communication with nice graphics and call to action- a link is the best bet.

  • Posted by michael on 12/6/2006 at 9:15 AM Accepted
    Steve,

    I like to receive (and we send) an e-mail announcing a forthcoming attachment. It gives me a sense of whether or not there is still interest and shows that we're sensitive to their system. I also get the opportunity to ask them if they want PDF...though that's what they always want.

    I definitely do NOT like to receive any zipped files.

    Michael
  • Posted by Jeff K. on 12/6/2006 at 10:50 AM Accepted
    Typically, I do not mind receiving an email under 1MB. However, what I prefer is to receive an HTML rich email that has graphics and links that download on the fly. Here's how that works:

    You as the business work with an email database company, such as www.ConstantContact.com. (There are others out there as well.) They charge you based on the size of your database and you can send out as many email campaigns a month as you want. (The cost is actually pretty minimal) Once you have your database with email address, you create an email campaign, which would include some graphics that would be located on your web site, along with links to documents on your web site. Now those documents can be as large as you want, because the reader will make the choice if they want to download them, rather than being forced to download them when they open the email. You also will receive all kinds of statistics that show open rates, click-throughs, etc. They have a 60-day free trial, so it might be worth giving it a try.

    Hope this helps!

    Jeff
  • Posted by telemoxie on 12/6/2006 at 3:38 PM Author
    Comments have been very helpful, thanks so much.

    Some of the comments suggest setting up web sites to accomodate larger files (and track interest). Since I am not involved with my client's web sites (and since each one would be maintained by a different company in a different programming language) I've wondered for some time about setting up a page myself where I could have info on each of my clients' offerings, and send emails with links to the info... and based on the above comments, I think I'll explore that idea just a bit more.

    I'll leave this open another day or so in case anyone else wants to contribute.
  • Posted on 4/12/2007 at 7:40 AM Member
    Besides all considerations on the attachment size and spam filters, I believe the most important is traceability.

    If you send a file attached to an email, you'll never be able to know who actually downloaded it.

    On the other side, sending an email with a link will give you a wealth of information:
    - who clicked on the link and landed on the site?
    - who downloaded the file from the site?
    - who stayed in your site and what pages they visited?
    - ...

    From the moment someone clicks a link on an email (as long as it is properly "coded" so you know who the person is), you will know what he/she is looking at in your websites, for the rest of hi/her life (or until they delete the Cookie you placed on their PC).

    As a demand generation marketer, every time I want to share a file, i only send an email link (even if the file is very small, say 100Kb)... The return I get is lots of information and neat statistics that help me plan for the next campaigns and track them.
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