The case for mobile email

  • Recent stats from Knotice found that 41% of all emails were opened on mobile devices, with 29% opened on smartphones and 12% on tablets.
  • Another survey from Nielsen found that 68% of UK consumers had used their mobiles to check emails in the previous 30 days.
  • With smartphone users now estimated to account for half of the UK population, there are potentially over 26m mobile email users.
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  • Although 33% of respondents to our Email Census still do not know what proportion of their emails are read on mobile devices (significantly down from 48% last year), 23% state that more than 30% of their emails are now read on mobile devices, compared to just 9% last year. 

What proportion of emails you send are read on mobile devices? (Company respondents)

Strategy for mobile email optimisation

A large number of companies do not have any strategy in place for optimising email for mobile devices, with 32% reporting this as ‘non-existent’, and 39% saying their strategy was ‘basic’.

However, this represents a slight improvement from last year’s survey, with the proportion of respondents saying their strategy was ‘basic’ or ‘non-existent’ decreasing from 76% in 2012 to 71% in 2013.

Agencies paint a slightly bleaker picture of their clients’ email strategies, with 6% more agency respondents (45%) saying that their clients had a ‘non-existent’ strategy for optimising email for mobile devices than the companies themselves.

The proportion of agency respondents saying that their clients’ strategy was ‘moderate’ to ‘very advanced’ has gone up since 2012, however, from 26% to 32%. 

How well would you describe the extent to which your company has (or clients have) a strategy for optimising email marketing for mobile devices? 

Strategy for mobile email optimisation

Of course, as Trendline Interactive CEO Morgan Stewart points out, it’s not about mobile optimisation alone:

It looks like agencies are more focused on mobile-friendly email than they are on relevant content. Interesting how marketers prioritise what is trendy, right While mobile is important, it doesn’t do any good to make irrelevant content look great on a phone. Content always needs to be a priority. Regardless of fads, that never changes.