Moving chaos, forgotten boxes, and the universal struggle of figuring out where the bathroom is in a new place somehow turn into the perfect setup for a smart chat about a wildly overlooked email tactic. You’ll hear how adding a simple animated gif can lift clicks, stop the scroll, and make your emails feel more alive, all thanks to the always blunt brilliance of Jay Schwedelson and the ever-game-for-any-topic energy of Daniel Murray.

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Follow Daniel on LinkedIn and check out The Marketing Millennials podcast for sharp, no-fluff marketing insights. Subscribe to Ari Murray’s newsletter at gotomillions.co for sharp, actionable marketing insights.

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Best Moments:

(01:01) Jay admits he’d help Daniel move but really, absolutely would not

(01:43) Daniel predicts the inevitable two-week unpacking saga

(03:00) Daniel breaks down why gifs instantly stop the scroll

(03:32) Jay explains how animated gifs lift click rates by about 20 percent

(05:00) Daniel shares how to turn video moments into compelling gif teasers

(07:40) Jay reminds everyone that AI makes creating gifs ridiculously simple

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Check out Jay’s YOUTUBE Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@schwedelson

Check out Jay’s TIKTOK: https://www.tiktok.com/@schwedelson

Check Out Jay's INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/jayschwedelson/

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Pre-order Jay Schwedelson’s new book, Stupider People Have Done It (out April 21, 2026). All net proceeds are donated to The V Foundation for Cancer Research—let’s kick cancer’s butt: https://www.amazon.com/Stupider-People-Have-Done-Marketing/dp/1637635206

Daniel Murray: Welcome to a new special series called The Bathroom Break, that extra 10 minutes, you either have to listen to marking tips or use the bathroom or both, but I don't recommend. But that's your choice.

Jay Schwedelson: This collab is gonna be super fun. We have Daniel Murray from the Marketing Millennials and me, Jay Schon from the Do This Not That podcast and subject line.com.

Jay Schwedelson: Each episode in this series, we are gonna go over with tips about different marketing topics. And if you want to be in the bathroom, fine, just don't tell us about

Daniel Murray: it. Thanks for checking it out.

Jay Schwedelson: We are back for the bathroom break. I'm here with Daniel Murray from the marketing Millennials. I'm Jay Sch Delson from Do This, not that.

Jay Schwedelson: And this is a big week for Daniel. 'cause Daniel is moving. He uh, he texted me, goes, I'm moving, which is always a subtle opening of like, Hey, do you wanna help me move? 'cause we live sort of near each other. And I, I literally texted back, I would help you, but I don't want to.

Daniel Murray: He did. It's a little judge. I have proof.

Daniel Murray: He texted me that and then I said, I replied back that. Um, when people ask someone to ask over 30 years old to move, it's like, Hey, here's a free lunch. But also you get back surgery as you're present as well. So I would never ask Jay to ask,

Jay Schwedelson: oh, no way. No, nothing with boxes. Anything with boxes is a hard no.

Jay Schwedelson: Are you a good packer? Are you good at pack?

Daniel Murray: No horrible Ari's a horrible packer too. We're like horrible at doing it. Um, so it's gonna be a mess. It's gonna be a mess.

Jay Schwedelson: I wanna know a period of time will there be a box that remains stuffed within a box for at least six months after you move.

Daniel Murray: Um. No, but it'll take, like, it'll take like two weeks to get everything out of a box.

Daniel Murray: Is that,

Jay Schwedelson: oh my god. I moved 17 years ago. I think I still have like two boxes that we haven't touched.

Daniel Murray: Well, we're moving from like an apartment to like a small house, so it's, we'll have like a one extra room, um, baby life, but so we've never had this much space in our life. I think we, I think our house are gonna feel empty.

Jay Schwedelson: You're gonna get lost.

Daniel Murray: Yeah.

Jay Schwedelson: Uh. Speaking of getting lost, you're gonna get lost with this episode. I don't even know what transition that was. It makes no sense. What we're gonna talk about though, is a tactic and email marketing that B2B should be doing B2C definitely should be doing nonprofit. Doesn't matter the sector, but everybody sleeps on it.

Jay Schwedelson: But this time of year, um, from basically November through end of December, for some reason this crushes it. We're talking about animated gifs in email. So Daniel WW why do animated gifs work? What are we talking about? What are we not talking about?

Daniel Murray: Well, I think the first thing we should talk about that nobody has time to read boring long emails.

Daniel Murray: And if you are writing long emails, which I think you can write long emails and there's a space for long emails, but you need to be able to break up texts with, um. Things to stop the scroll. Also, when you open an email, the first thing you'll look at is a, that gif and if it can make you smile, uh, give you a reaction, it helps you stop someone, anybody stopping in their place and not many people do it.

Daniel Murray: It's kind of. A lost art. Um, yes. So it works with everything from newsletter to um, offer emails to, um, cold prospecting, to warm prospecting. You can use it in any type of email and it will help. You stand out in an email inbox.

Jay Schwedelson: Yeah. And in general, it actually lifts click-through rates by about 20%. We use an animated GIF and let's just talk about what we are talking about, what we're not talking about.

Jay Schwedelson: And for those of you out there in some sort of boring B2B industry, like, I can't do this. Yes, you can. Listen, we are a simple-minded species. We are the, the, the shiny object is where we, we draw, you know, follow the light. This is what we do. Okay? And animated gif, what? They're not, they're not videos. You really cannot embed a video in an email.

Jay Schwedelson: Some people say you can. You can mess around. Screw that. It doesn't work. It's a mess. But an animated GIF is just two or three images that are stitched together that move around a little bit. Your call to action button could be an animated GIF that kind of moves around a little bit, or lights up. It could be a dog, it could be your logo, it could be anything.

Jay Schwedelson: And they're like, well, I don't know how to do that. Here's the deal. AI is your new best friend. Is my best friend for sure. All you need to do. Is go to your favorite AI platform and you go to it and you say, Hey, I use MailChimp. I use Constant Contact, I use Klaviyo, I use HubSpot, I use whatever to send my emails.

Jay Schwedelson: I wanna create a simple animated gif. Uh, can you walk me through the steps on. What free tool I could use to create it, how I stick it in my email and whatever else. That's it.

Daniel Murray: I wanna add something you said really important, but I think you scrolled over it a little bit, is that if you have a video, you want them to click out to a demo, you want 'em to click out to, or something to click out to, you can make.

Daniel Murray: Something that's animated says, watch now on there and have, or like have a play button for a YouTube video with some moving things in the background just to show that there is a video that you want 'em to click out to. I think that's super important as a, a way for. Having a new type of call to call to action in your email.

Daniel Murray: So I think that if you're gonna do, if you have other things, like a case study you want them to link out to or something that you want them to link out to, it's good to have like a couple teasers in a gif.

Jay Schwedelson: Yeah, and just, you know, if anybody out, there's like, well, it's gonna mess up my deliverability.

Jay Schwedelson: It's gonna be do this, that, or whatever. It's just not true. It's literally three images that are tied together. So if you have three images in your email to begin with, it's the same idea. They just move around a little bit and we're like, oh, look at that's moving around and it's in our subconscious.

Jay Schwedelson: Nobody ever looks at your animated gift. Like, that is dope. That is awesome. I need to interact with that. But it, but we do it in our subconscious and at the end of the day. Email all about the little things. And if you haven't tested animated gifts in a year, in six months and whatever, you gotta do it.

Jay Schwedelson: There's no downside. It's easy. And this is the time of year, November through December are the highest period of the year where animated gifts work the best. 'cause we're like kinda like in this mood of, Hey, what's up?

Daniel Murray: And also I think. What I suggest with anime gifts is always the theme. It. If you're gonna do something fun, theme it to what's happening.

Daniel Murray: So if it is over the holidays, you could theme it to a holiday, something funny for the holidays. Um, if it's you have an offer, you could theme it to something in the offer, you could do a lot of things where. You theme that, that gift to what is happening. 'cause relevancy is the key to a lot of marketing.

Daniel Murray: So if you can show like something relevant that your audience would care about, like if I was prospecting Jay, I would have like a Golden Bachelor or some re like a gift on it. Well actually this is a big quick pivot. Um, I love that someone made you a Golden Bachelor on, on LinkedIn.

Jay Schwedelson: I know someone made a meme of me as a gold, as a golden bachelor and they post on LinkedIn.

Jay Schwedelson: It's always amazing. Me open up LinkedIn and I'm like, what? What's this all about? There's a picture of me as like the Golden Bachelor. I'm like, oh my God, what is going on? Yeah, don't do that. I don't need Now I'm gonna get more of them. Screw

Daniel Murray: up. Yeah. Everybody send, send your best, um, AI image of Jay to his inbox.

Daniel Murray: Yeah, please do that. Uh, he would love, he would love to see what you can come up with. Um,

Jay Schwedelson: yeah. Thank you so much. I appreciate that. You know, in general though, just one more relevant thing and then we'll be idiots. I don't think we realize that ai, which is my best friend, anything you've always been like, I always wanted to try that, but I don't know how to do it.

Jay Schwedelson: Just like animated G, how do I actually do that? Whatever it is, just go to AI and say, Hey, I'm a doofus. I don't know how to do this. Can you tell me in simple terms how to do it? And now you have somebody that you don't have to feel like you are supposed to know stuff. Uh, and then you don't know it. You could just ask it.

Jay Schwedelson: Like anime gifts, try it out.

Daniel Murray: Yeah. You also could go to like. Giy, um, and put a video in and it could, it will show you a bunch of, and you can crop it to the perfect Yes. Part of your video, you wanna do it. So there, there's easy stuff like that. A or you could go to AI and tell you, or what you could do is if you don't have a video, like there are tons of AI video platforms that you can make an animated video and then crop it into a gif.

Daniel Murray: So there's so many ways to do.

Jay Schwedelson: Yeah. And on the free version of Canva, they have a whole gif studio where you can make gifts in three seconds. So it's all easy. Um, alright. Speaking of easy, so Daniel, the day after you move, do you find it weird, like when you move in trying to sleep in that new place for the first time?

Jay Schwedelson: I feel like it's a very weird situation whenever you move and you've moved all

Daniel Murray: I. I do, but talking about the bathroom, I, I think it's always weird. Like if you get up in the night and you need to go to the bathroom and you forget where the bathroom is because you're just so disoriented and you, you walk and you walk the same path as your, as your last place, and you, you're looking around, wait, where's the bathroom right now?

Daniel Murray: Yeah. I think that is the, that is the pro problem. When you sleep in a new place

Jay Schwedelson: and isn't like wifi the most, it's like if you don't have your wifi set up, you feel very uncomfortable. At least I do. It makes me very,

Daniel Murray: I know. Ari made me go up two days before I move to go set up the wifi 'cause she will not move in without the wifi set up.

Jay Schwedelson: She refu that I respect. It's a good move. Uh, well it's not a good move is listening to this show. Oh my God. Why did I just say that now? That's not true. It's an amazing move. The bathroom break is something. Listen, go file the marking millennials, leave Daniel a review. Tell him how awesome he is. 'cause he really is very awesome.

Jay Schwedelson: And, uh, do this, not that you can check it out. And Daniel, any other partying words?

Daniel Murray: Yeah, everybody sent congrats to Jay. He was a top a hundred podcast in, in the, the US I think he was like a topping some of the most well-known celebrities in the world. Where were you in the top 50 podcast?

Jay Schwedelson: I hit like, I think 67 or six.

Jay Schwedelson: Seven. You get it.

Daniel Murray: You know how crazy that is. So. Give him a round of applause everybody.

Jay Schwedelson: Yeah, ire, I appreciate that. I'm sure, uh, a lot of people care. Um, alright, you rock. Alright, see you the next one. Daniel, come on man. I gotta get back to work. Get out of there. Alright, while he's still in there, this is Jay.

Jay Schwedelson: Check out my podcast. Do this, not that for marketers. Each week we share really quick tips on stuff that can improve your marketing and I hope you give it a try. Oh, here's Daniel. He's finally out.

Daniel Murray: Back from my bathroom break. This is Daniel. Go follow the Marking Millennials podcast, but also tune into this series.

Daniel Murray: It's once a week, the bathroom break. We talk about marking tips that we just spew out, and it could be anything from email subject line to any marking tips in the world. We'll talk about it. Just give us a, a shout on LinkedIn and tell us what you want to hear.

Jay Schwedelson: Peace out later.