GIFs, Gradients & Great CTAs in Plus-Plus Emails

How do you make product emails as fun and engaging as the toys they promote?

For Plus-Plus, it means playful creativity, smart design, and making products feel alive in the inbox. This colorful construction toy brand shows how lifestyle storytelling and e-commerce strategy can work together.

In this episode of Feedback Friday, Matt Helbig chats with the team at Marketing Rhythm: Robbie Fitzwater, Jesse Godfrey, and Kathy Do. They break down the email campaigns they designed for Plus-Plus, from bold layouts and gradient CTAs to lifestyle imagery and GIF animations built in Figma. The team shares practical techniques for creating emails that are fun, engaging, and effective.

If you work in ecommerce, design, or retention marketing, this episode is full of ideas to help you craft emails that stand out and perform.

TL;DR

• Playful layouts and shoppable footers
• GIF animations with Figma and EZGIF
• Mobile-first CTAs that drive taps
• Lifestyle imagery blended with product shots
• Gradient design that breaks template norms

🎥 Watch the full breakdown or read the transcript for strategies you can apply to your next campaign.

Matt Helbig: What’s up, email geeks? Welcome back to another episode. We are joined again this week by the amazing team from Marketing Rhythm, a VIP squad of incredible email marketers and designers. I’m really excited to walk through some of these emails, a different take on the types of emails we usually cover on this show.

I don’t think we’ve ever looked at a toy selection before, so I’m really excited to dive in and talk about these. First off, this big attention-grabbing GIF up top, cycling through different colors. Is this something you guys designed and put together?

(See the full email)

Jesse Godfrey: This is honestly one of my favorite emails ever. And this was all Kathy, so I’ll let her speak to that.

Kathy Do: When I first got this request, I really loved the colors of this line, and I thought each color needed its own moment. We work a lot in Figma, and they have a smart animation feature that is usually used for websites. But since I design emails, not websites, I thought it would be fun to implement that into this GIF.

Matt Helbig: I’m gonna be honest. I feel like I’m getting a Tide Pod effect here. I kind of want to eat these. I don’t know why, but they just look… edible.

Robbie Fitzwater: You are a 14-month-old.

Matt Helbig: Exactly.

Jesse Godfrey: You cannot eat Plus Plus. Do not eat these, guys.

Robbie Fitzwater: Do not consume them. They’re like food-grade plastic. But no, definitely don’t eat them.

Jesse Godfrey: Right. Building on what Kathy said, this was super clever on her part. She figured out how to use Smart Animate in Figma to frame-animate the spinning motion of these Plus-Plus pieces around the circle. We actually did a screen recording to capture that rotation. It’s a great example of being innovative and nimble as a designer, doing something really cool with the tools you have at your disposal.

Kathy Do: This design also introduced me to EZGIF.

Matt Helbig: Nice. Scrolling down to the rest of the email, I really like the different layouts on desktop and mobile. I want to call that out. The way the content switches up and stacks differently works really well. And then, the nice contrast and attention-grabbing CTA at the bottom. I really like that full-width style. It ties into this type of email and feels very tactile.

Jesse Godfrey: The full-width button is kind of a controversial topic. I’ve heard people say, “Why do that?” and others say, “I love it.” For us, we use it pretty consistently. For me, it comes from a mobile-first mindset. A lot of users in retail see these on their phones, so making sure it feels appropriately sized in that context, even if it looks bold on desktop, makes sense.

Matt Helbig: Yeah, and I’m a fan of this trisection layout. Normally, I prefer one-column emails, which don’t always work out. But I really like this. It ties the products together in a way I haven’t seen many brands pull off effectively. Nice work. Really cool to see. And again, that very shoppable, category-specific footer. I’m a big fan. Alright, let’s keep walking through these.

(See the full email)

I’ll say this. I do like a product on a white background, but sometimes it’s nice to see the product in use. It’s great to pull in lifestyle imagery. Not sure if you guys have done that in other emails, like people playing with the toys, but I really like that real-life aspect.

Jesse Godfrey: Plus-Plus blends product and lifestyle photography, so we use both. In this case, showing an environmental shot instead of just an isolated shot gives more context. It signals that maybe this isn’t just for young kids. An adult might enjoy it on their desk, for example. So lifestyle imagery can really help set the audience context.

Robbie Fitzwater: This particular product was a bit more complex, so we wanted to bring it to life in a fresh way. The rendering of the base plate, the box, and the different colors made the whole thing engaging. And I love how the GIF shows the items popping up with background changes. The aquatic ones have blue backgrounds, others have different backgrounds, and the arrow pointing down directs the eye nicely.

Kathy Do: One challenge with using Figma to create GIFs via screen recording and conversion is that the transitions don’t always work well with dark mode. Adding that subtle arrow gives a sense of transition.

Matt Helbig: I also think some opacity hover effects could help, just to show users that certain things are clickable. Overall, I love these big, chunky CTAs. Like you said, mobile-first is the way to go. This audience probably skews mobile, so having large, tappable buttons works great.

Jesse Godfrey: From a design scheme perspective, we’ve added corner rounding throughout, on buttons, tiles, and callout graphics, to soften things up and give a playful vibe.

(See the full email)

Matt Helbig: Sweet. Alright, let’s look at the next example. I like how this one breaks the mold from the usual templates. That gradient gives me some ‘90s vibes. I like it.

Kathy Do: One of our content strategists, Bailey, actually had the idea of a full email design. At first, I was like, “We can really do that?” But yes, we made the design flow throughout the whole email. It took a lot more time than just designing a header, but I wanted that continuous feel. We scattered the single product image across the email, and the colorful text helps highlight what the product is about.

Matt Helbig: That gradient blur gives it almost a glassy, opaque feel. I’m a big fan of that. It does get a little hard to read in spots, but overall, very cool design. It grabbed my attention and made me want to scroll down.

Robbie Fitzwater: The subtle product movement in the GIF is wonderful, too.

Matt Helbig: Yeah, big fan! So, is this just a kind of moving the layers around for this GIF?

Kathy Do: Yeah, I just broke up all the pieces and moved them one by one.

Matt Helbig: Even a simple three-frame GIF can be effective, especially if you don’t have the budget or product photography for something more extensive. It adds motion, grabs attention mid-scroll, and is a good placement in the email.

Jesse Godfrey: We try to avoid using more than one GIF per email. In this case, the static header was already strong enough, so we added motion midstream instead.

Matt Helbig: Nice. I’m also a huge fan of gradient CTAs. They’re rare, so when I see them, I love it. We’ve done CTA research, and not many brands use gradients, but I think it’s creative and ties the sections together well.

Robbie Fitzwater: The product is called Color Verse, so we wanted to bring vibrant, bright design elements to do it justice.

Matt Helbig: Have you ever broken the mold outside the standard 600 to 680px template, like going full-width with colors?

Jesse Godfrey: Not a ton. We’re not against it, but usually when onboarding a client, we build a design system with universal blocks and frameworks so we can move quickly. That means we tend to stick to base templates. This project was more of an exception where we broke the mold. We often do that when there’s more content depth than usual, fun facts, numbers, things worth calling out, that drive us to change things up.

Matt Helbig: Anything else on Plus-Plus, overall goals, or what they’re trying to achieve with email?

Robbie Fitzwater: Mostly, they want to keep people using and engaging with the product. They have over 10,000 retail partners and sell on Amazon, but they’re also building direct-to-consumer, so emails help keep customers coming back. Their audience includes parents, grandparents, gift-givers, and educators. Rolling out new product lines gives them a way to introduce something fresh to existing customers.

Jesse Godfrey: Plus-Plus also does a great job of being transparent about the people behind the brand. We didn’t see examples here, but in hybrid emails, they’re very authentic and personal. Even the CEO shows up in video content, which we reuse in emails. Their brand voice is fun and human, both in design and in how they present themselves.

Robbie Fitzwater: They’re just a wonderful group, exciting to work with and collaborate with.

Matt Helbig: Cool. Well, thanks so much for walking us through these emails. I’m a big fan. Definitely check out Marketing Rhythm, they do amazing email work. If you have questions or inquiries, reach out to them. Sweet. Thanks again for chatting, and have a great rest of your week.

All: Thank you.