Chad White of RetailEmail.blogspot and the eec has just put out a new report on the use of animation in retail email.

The use of animation in email is interesting: on one hand, it can help your creative be more eye-catching and attention getting, however, on the other hand – it just won’t work in some email clients (i.e. Outlook 2007) and image-blocking software can make it ineffective.

My recommendation is go ahead and use animated gifs (not flash in email) but be aware that some recipients may not see the animation – only the first image in the cycle – so be sure that image can stand alone without animation.

Check out Chad’s executive summary, the full report is free for eec members, and costs $99 for non-members.