How To Choose the Best Colors for Email Marketing

Traffic lights.

What do you imagine when you hear this phrase?

I bet it is green, orange, and red. All those colors have a specific “Drive or wait” meaning.

You are good to go when you see green. But would you go if there is red? No. And if so, you would probably feel guilty. Why?

It is the power of psychology. And colors play a huge part in it. Without even noticing it, they influence our emotions and actions. That is why choosing colors is quite a science for all marketing disciplines, including email marketing. 

Color psychology connects colors with emotions and behavior, analyzing the colors' role in your mood and how they affect your actions. When designing your email, it is important to adjust the colors based on your email goal and support the email UX and graphics. The first impression is the most important.

Now, you probably ask: What colors should I use? What colors to avoid? How many colors to include and how to combine them? Let's answer them together in this article.

Understanding color psychology is critical for successful email campaigns. All colors have associated meanings and when used correctly, they can help achieve your marketing goals.

Colors have the power to catch people's attention. You can even evoke the desired emotions in readers. You can induce for example the feeling of trust, happiness, luxury, or urgency to take an action. And therefore, improve sales and conversions.

Each color represents different emotions. Be careful, as it can vary among cultures. What is perceived as usual in Western culture doesn't need to be true in Eastern culture. Therefore always consider your target audience and where they come from. 

Let's have a look at the most common and adopted color meanings.

White is an essential color.

It is a combination of all colors, which makes her the mother of all other colors and shades. 

It represents independence, innocence, purity, safety, and minimalism. It is also a symbol of new beginnings.

In Western culture, it is often used for topics related to weddings, or the winter season. Apart from that it is a typical color for Hanukkah events (together with blue).

Tip: Don't be afraid of white color. In combination with text and other colors, it is a good friend improving the readability.

Black is a symbol of authority and elegance, power and luxury. This color is sophisticated and classic. It works with all other colors. However, be careful using it as an email background color.

It is quite typical to use black in the fashion or car industry.

Red represents energy, power, and love. On the other hand, it can be perceived as blood, danger, or aggression. In all cases, the feelings it evokes are strong and urgent. It makes red an ideal candidate for CTAs. It has great visibility and creates accents in plain texts, stimulating people to make quick decisions.

Tip: This color is strong on its own. Combine it with light colors, such as white, or shades of grey.

Blue is the color of water and sky. It is a color that has the power to calm us down. It offers reliability, trust, credibility, and loyalty. It is also a color of education and technology. 

On the other hand, too much blue color can be associated with distance and being unfriendly.

Green is a color of nature. How do you feel when you are in the forest? It has a calming effect, expressing freshness, relaxation, and protection. 

However, not all types of green are calming. Some shades of green evoke sickness and confusion (yellowish green). Avoid such shades to make your readers open your email and spend time with it.

Green is often associated with ecological and environmental projects. It is a great way of connecting your idea to your email and branding.

Yellow is a color that grabs attention. It is perceived as an optimistic, cheerful, and happy color. For this reason, it is often used in promotional emails.

Orange is an outstanding color, but it has a lower accent than red. And just like yellow, it symbolizes optimism. It represents a fresh, youthful, creative, and adventurous mood.

In Western countries, it is used to represent Halloween and the fall season.

Purple is a color of emancipation and feminism. It is often used for design highlighting Women's Day and Mother's Day. Except that, it is perceived as a color of royalty, majesty, spirituality, and mysteriousness.

Before we get to the color combinations guide, here are answers to the frequently asked questions regarding color choice for email campaigns.

What is the color of joy? Yellow.

What is the color for business? Blue.

What is the color of happiness? Yellow. 

What color represents trust and loyalty? Blue. 

What color represents confidence? Orange, red. 

Which color represents strength? Red. 

What are the energetic colors? Red, orange, and yellow.

What color that stands out most? Red. 

What is the best color combination with black? Black goes well with saturated colors, such as red and orange, or yellow. 

What are the best color combinations for readability? Light background colors together with contrasting text colors. 

To get a deeper overview of feelings associated with colors, you can have a look at the color-emotion schema below.

Color theory is a specific discipline for UX/UI designers. It has a collection of fundamental principles and guidelines about how to use colors. The color wheel is an elemental guideline helping when choosing and combining colors. 

There are two types of color wheels. RYB (red - yellow - blue) color wheel is typically used by artists. RGB (red-green-blue) color wheel is designed for online use - and therefore also for email marketing. Color wheel can help you understand color harmony and find the best color combinations.

Colors communicate their identity and are associated with specific feelings. When you combine colors, you also need to combine the feelings. Not all colors get on well with each other. Here is a little guide on how to choose the right color combinations for your email.

Choosing colors from the opposite side of the color wheel is the fundamental rule of color UX. You will never go wrong with this approach. One part of the color schema contains warm colors, the other cold colors. By combining the opposite colors you will get bright and contrasting combinations.

Two colors are not enough? Try a triadic rule. Take a color schema and choose colors making a triangle together, as you can see in the picture below.

Do you want your design to be smooth, not contrasting? Choose three colors next to each other in the color wheel. One is always a dominant one, and the rest is accenting it. But together it creates a balancing effect.

If you are searching for four colors, there is a tetradic combination. Similarly, as in the previous cases, you need to find four colors in the colors schema, always two on the opposite side. With this approach, use one color as a dominant and let the rest only support the design.

Basic email UX guidelines can help you create an effective and user-friendly email design. Let's have a look at a few basic rules you should follow.

Using colors according to support the psychological effect is a great way to improve your marketing performance. However, you should first set your branding style and remember consistency is key. Set your branding colors and logo and keep using it. Stick to your branding design principles, so that people can associate the colors and style with your company.

When using more colors, one is usually more dominant than the other. The best proportion is to choose a dominant color, which builds 60 % of the design. The other covers 30 % and the last color 10 % of the area.

Black and white are classic email text colors for a good reason. They create a perfect contrast. In email marketing you need to highlight specific parts, include catchy CTAs, and make people take action.

Many people are only scanning the text. The contrast will grab their attention and make them think about the text.

Apply one background color to the entire email and make sure you are using high-contrasting colors (background - text). This way the text will be easy to read. Also, avoid green and red backgrounds, since those colors might be hard to consume for readers with a certain level of color blindness.

How do you feel about colors now? They have much more power than we think. And how to incorporate them into your email marketing? Topol platform can help you with that. It is an email editor designed to create beautiful and responsive emails. It offers pre-built templates designed by professionals - taking color psychology into account. Balancing creativity and efficiency, the platform is fully flexible and customizable - allowing you to personalize your email. Try our free trial and let us know if you have any questions!