What is AMP for Email? + AMP Email Examples & Tips from the innovators

Oh yeah, it’s something interactive in your inbox. It is fun and exciting and it’s called: AMP for email. But what is AMP for Email? How do we use AMP Email? and what can it do? Read on partner..

What is AMP for Email?

AMP for email is a framework to add interactivity inside email emails  messages. This dynamic email format provides a subset of AMPHMTL (Accelerated Mobile Pages). With AMP for email your email shows app-like behavior, we are only used to sesing on dynamic websites.

The core AMP for email breaks functionality breaks down into three categories:
1. Offer a rich inbox experience,
2. Allow complete actions and form submits from inside the email and
3. Serve dynamic and real-time updated content in your emails.

1. Offer a richer inbox experience with AMP for email

AMP email is less constrained than traditional email, allowing senders to create a rich user experience. You can for instance add image carousels to your email, use tabs and accordions show and expand on content and offer multipage content without leaving the inbox.

This is thanks to the Interactive components and AMP’s layout options, if AMP is not supported by the inbox provider, there is a graceful fallback to the normal HTML email.

Here is an example of a dropdown that changes the products shown:

2. Complete actions from inside the email

AMP for Email makes it possible to complete simple actions (like booking a calendar appointment or RSVP-ing an event) directly within the email. Users can interact with content without leaving their inbox and without needing to click to visit a website.  That includes purchasing, order forms & surveys, which was never possible before.

A combination of the interactive components, Dynamic data and Form submissions, giving it endless potential to build “email applications”.

3. Serve dynamic real-time content in your emails

AMP for email allows for dynamic Content.  A sender can refresh the content in real time after sending. Dynamic data via API calls allows this.

This is huge win. All pricing, products, stock levels, but also content and articles can be up to date – as they are updated at time of opening or at the click of of button.

Want to hear more about AMP?
Join Me, Elliot Ross, April Mullen and Steve Tuck for the AMP for Email webinar of the year, on demand here

What does Google AMP for Email look like?

As Aakash Sahney the Product Manager of Gmail and Chat says: “Developers can create more engaging, interactive, and actionable email experiences.” He shows examples and possibilities in the launch presentation:

Will email marketers adopt AMP for email?

Interest in interactive email is high. When asked marketers told Litmus that interactive email is the top email design trends. And as Google AMP promises a lot of interactivity….. A poll by Litmus, showed that 31% of the people that knew what AMP was, also thought it very likely that their email program was to take advantage of AMP.

9 top AMP for Email elements (for marketing use)

1. AMP form

AMP from is a block to directly display a working form inside the email. You can send surveys, collect feedback and update preferences. It saves a click to go a landing page and form completions are seen to be higher.

2. AMP list

The AMP list feature is especially powerful for email
readers to see
real time updated email.
AMP list keeps your email fresh, because it can update
the content so there are no longer products that are out of stock – or (flash)
offers that are no longer valid.

3. AMP accordion

The AMP accordion allows you to hide / expand on content. There is always limited space inside your email. Save users from information overload. Use it for FAQs, product information, content etc.

4. AMP selector

The AMP selector add the ability to select multiple options in a form. So you can make a product picker or as multiple questions at once.   The selector allows users to choose the same items by size, color, etc. For instance, you could let users pick out a color of shoe or smartphone modification right in the email—no need to insert dozens of product cards.

5. AMP image carousel

The AMP for email image carousel is a compact way to
show multiple images in your email. There are multiple controls to navigate through the images – like left
and right arrow clickers and small versions of the image.

6. AMP sidebar

The AMP sidebar is a collapsible slide in element for temporary access like for navigation, menus, etc.  The sidebar can be opened or closed with a tap while the main email content remains completely the same under it. Designers can also use it to show a permanent version of in the email body (called toolbar), or a desktop only sidebar.

7. AMP timeago

The AMP-timeago can make your email time driven. A countdown, display different content based on the lapsed time or even a timer to play / complete a game.

8. AMP lightbox

This AMP lightbox is a block that pops out and covers the email after a click. Users could see a zoomed image or get a message as result of their actions. It is under debate if this feature will stay on.

9. AMP games in email

Yes, there is not an official AMP Games Element. But mix all the functionality together lets you play games inside your email. Like memory, whack a mole, etc. This also means that your email marketing messages can make use of similar game mechanics and behavior. In other words: Gamification.

Examples of AMP for email

Findomestic, a financial service provider, is using AMP to helps users find the banking product they need right from their email. The stats show an improvement of +128% in open rate and +133% in click rate. (see the full case study here).

Ecommerce platform Ecwid offers their merchants AMP for Email in abandoned shopping carts and reports back a boost in sales by 82% by using AMP for email. Some merchants saw even more dramatic results. (source)

Examples of Google AMP for email and interactive email video from the Brightwave EIQ, the intelligent Email gathering conference.
9:00 → Raj Choudhury Explains why we should be excited about interactive and bi-directional email
17:46 → Chick-fil-A Catering experience
19:09 → Rent.com Inbox search experience
20:30 → Pintrest pinteractive email
Extra bonus: at 34:20 Shinisty shows off how the engage their fans (has nothing to do with amp, but still good)

AMP Email examples by Doodle and Pintrest
Google posted this video where Ben Morss from the AMP team, talks about interactive email with community members, especially AMP for email.

0:18 → What is AMP in email & why should developers use it? (Aakash Sahney, Product Manager, Google)
1:48 → How does Doodle foresee using AMP for email? (Michael Wuergler, Doodle)
2:59 → The Interactive email space & Pinterest’s AMP demo (Seth Weisfeld, Pinterest)
4:39 → When will AMP for email be ready for developers? (Aakash Sahney, Product Manager, Google)

What are the hurdles of Google AMP for email?

AMP email brings great possibilities for innovation to the inbox and with that a fresh perspective to email marketing. But not everyone loves the idea as there are also some hurdles. So what might be holding email marketers back from using Google AMP?

• Limited support from ESPs: 
  Emails using AMP can’t be built the same way as html email. If your email service provider doesn’t support sending (or creating) AMP emails, you wouldn’t be able to send them.
• AMP for email doesn’t work in every inbox:
  AMP for email only works if the inbox provider (like Gmail) supports it. If your email list has a big portion of users with other inbox providers, many of them won’t be able to see the AMP version of your email.
• Unclarity about preformance tracking and reporting:  
  With a traditional email, after any click all website behavoir can be precisely measured and tracked. In order to understand the subscribers, optimize the campaigns, But will we be able to correctly track the actions in the inbox?
• AMP Email takes more time to create and test your email
  The open nature of email marketing and one of the beauties is that it is easy to do. There are a lot of free email templates available for you to use and adopt as you see fit in an easy way. That is because anyone can make a perfectly functioning email. Not so much with AMP templates (yet). It takes extra effort.
• Not an email coding standard and also, not all emails should be (able to be) updated after being sent.

All in all, it isn’t universally love and applied. For more about the pros and cons of AMP, see developers chat and share their likes and dislikes on Github.

Which Email marketing software lets you use AMP for email?

Not every email marketing software service is yet able to let you send AMP emails. Yet sending through an AMP enabled ESP (email service provider) is super important if you want to use AMP Email in your emails. Note that sending AMP Email through your ESP in some cases is only the fact that you can send the additional AMP MIME type, and some will offer AMP design features in their email template builder.

More presentations and resources on AMP for email

Google AMP for Email session at the AMP conference ’19

Mark Robbins from REBEL – held a presentation on AMP for email. Here are the slides he shared.

There are basically three important steps:
1. Find an ESP that supports AMP;
2. Build the AMP-powered emails;
3. Getting whitelisted and registered with Google.

Creating the emails to be AMP-enabled needs to be a part of the email marketing software. As a functionality in the email editor for instance or to send the AMP mimi-part directly (via API or SMTP-relay).