A recent study by Curalate reveals that, as a whole, marketers are failing when it comes to generating the right creatives for each channel. While 86% of marketers agree that the type of channel (social, email, online ads, etc.) dictates which image to use, 78% say they wind up using the same graphic across nearly all channels. That means they’re using the same image to hype a product or service on Facebook as they do on Twitter, and in Google Ads, too. That’s a problem for a few reasons:
- Different channels have different purposes, and users expect a certain type of experience on each channel.
- Users following your company across several channels are being hit with the same content, which can get boring.
- What works well on one channel rarely works as well on others.
Even worse: 11% of marketers think their team is doing great at leveraging images, and only 7% believe their content is overall successful. The majority reported that graphic content is weakest on mobile devices.

The above graph tells us more, though, and it’s something I’ve been trying to point out for years:
Social media marketing is crazy important, but email marketing still returns higher click-through and conversion rates.
The reason is simple. Your email list is better comprised of people who want to hear from you. Email is not as easily missed as social posts that may scroll off one’s timeline, and emails, over time, can continue to bring in shoppers – even a year or more later.

Ecommerce and mobile commerce visuals are equally important because they target those who are already at your site, opposed to trying to suck in random users across the web.
Another interesting result from the study? Measuring the ROI of visual content is important, yet many doubt their ability to properly measure and report on conversions. Typically reports focus more on clicks, traffic and overall revenue. This often boils down to improper configuration of analytics and failing to use trackable URLs when linking to webpages.
You can read the full study right here.