The Importance of Mobile Optimisation for Email Marketing

Mobile optimisation is the process which ensures that your Email campaigns display correctly no matter if they are opened on a mobile or desktop device [Tweet This].  As the percentage of email opens soars, we will outline why mobile optimisation is essential to your email marketing efforts.

The Growth of Email on Mobile

There are more mobile phones in the world than humans.  Data from GSMA Intelligence shows that there are more mobile connections than living humans in the world at the time of writing.  This statistic reflects that there are a large number of people who have more than one mobile phone connection.  Similarly, the number of email accounts per user continues to increase demonstrating the pervasiveness of email as a marketing platform.

As a result of these changes, mobile has become the place where many people now open their emails.  The majority of emails are now opened on mobile devices according to an article by Marketing Land which found that 68% of emails were opened on mobile at the time of the report.

How Mobile has changed the way people interact with Email

The consequence of the statistics presented in the Marketing Land article are multiplex.  Email recipients are now likely to read their emails when they are on the move.  It is no longer common to sit down in the office to catch up with emails as more and more people adopt one or more mobile devices which can be used instead.

Use of mobile devices also means that email recipients are likely to see their emails throughout the day.  Whereas before, email recipients may have only seen their emails during working hours, the adoption of mobile increases the amount of time recipients can read and engage with emails they receive.

Email recipients are likely to spend less time reading their emails and want the emails to be fully functioning and responsive according to the device they use.  This provides email marketers with new challenges which they have to adapt to if they are to be successful in the future.

Mobile Optimisation for Email Marketing

Optimising an email campaign for mobile should be a high priority for anybody with an email marketing campaign.  To optimise your email marketing campaigns, consider how your email is written, how the email appears on the screen and how your recipients will interact with your email campaigns.

Adapt your Copy

Keeping your content brief is especially important when considering mobile devices.  Your email recipient will read your content on a small screen meaning that your email text needs to be succinct.  Overwhelming the recipient with a large amount of text is likely to result in disengagement.

Cater for your recipients

Use your email analytics to see how your recipients are opening your emails.  Check to make sure that you are optimising your content for the devices your contacts are using.  If a high percentage of your recipients are opening their emails on an Ipad or Kindle you may want to place greater emphasis on these devices when you are creating your email campaigns.

When looking at the devices your recipients use, consider whether your emails are likely to be forwarded.  When an email is forwarded, you will not know what device or email client the eventual recipient will use.  To ensure that all email recipients can view the content of your email, include a plain text version of your campaign.

Use a Responsive Design

A responsive design means that the email will adapt to the environment it has been opened in.  When viewed on a mobile phone, for example, content in the email body should stack to enhance readability.  When content is stacked, elements which were originally spaced horizontally are stacked in a vertical column.  This improves the email’s readability and reduces the amount recipients have to scroll.

If the content is not fully responsive and fails to stack, your recipients have to scroll significantly to read all of the email content.  Increasing the amount that a reader has to scroll to read your content detracts from the recipient’s experience.

When using a mobile device, click hotspots need to be sufficiently spaced and large enough to avoid any accidental clicks.  Accidental clicks result from links which are placed too close together on the screen.  The average thumb print equates to 72 pixels on a mobile device; touch hotspots should be larger than this to consistently capture the user’s click intent.

Here is a poor example as the user is required to scroll across from left to right to read the email content:

Mobile

Desktop

Here is a good example of a responsive email campaign from Island as the content stacks vertically, improving readability:

Mobile

Desktop

Link to a Mobile Friendly Landing Page

When considering the recipient’s email experience, look at the landing page design too.  Directing the email recipient to a mobile friendly landing page gives the user a consistent experience across all company mediums.

Linking to an unresponsive landing page decreases the likelihood that the mobile user will complete the desired action.

Use Appropriate Visuals

Images sent by email are displayed at half size.  As a result, marketers need to ensure that their images are of a sufficiently high resolution. Senders need to ensure that text is still readable on mobile especially when the text is contained within an image.

Using a web safe font increases the likelihood that the text in an email will be readable even at small resolutions and also means that text will be supported across the majority of web browsers, operating systems and email clients.

Optimise Email Preview Text

Email preview text is used alongside the email subject line and sender name to decide which emails recipients are going to open.  Mobile friendly preview text has become more important as the number of emails opened on mobile continues to grow.  A mobile screen affords marketers even less time and space to convince the recipient to open their email campaign.  To ensure that the preview text has been fully optimised, read our preview text guide to receive a step by step guide.

Summary

As the number of email opens on mobile continues to increase, it is imperative that email marketing professionals consider whether their email campaigns are suitable for the devices they are using.  Mobile optimisation is important for success in this mobile era.

If you have enjoyed reading about mobile optimisation, download your copy of The Complete Guide to Email Marketing.

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