Email openings on mobile devices continue to grow

[RafiRiFat336205]

Email remains one of, if not the, most important marketing channel. And with more consumers accessing their emails on the go, it's imperative to ensure that emails have been optimized to be read on mobile devices, such as smartphones and tablets. But that doesn't mean businesses should forget about traditional desktops.

In May 2013, a study by marketing solutions provider Harland Clarke Digital found that US consumers used desktop computers as the primary means of opening emails sent by B2C and B2B companies, 55.2% of the time. Smartphones accounted for a quarter (25%) of all email opens, and tablets for 7.3%, making mobile opens nearly 1/3 of all emails. We should also consider that there are other, smaller percentages of consumers accessing the same email on two or more devices.

Some argue that there is a strong correlation between 1st name last name malaysia smartphones and desktop computers, as opposed to smartphones and tablets, and this is true when it comes to the times and times of day when consumers open their emails. Emails are most frequently opened, on both desktop computers and smartphones, between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. on a typical day. Tablets, on the other hand, are most often used to open emails in the evening, between 6 p.m. and 10 p.m.

But while email openings on mobile devices now account for nearly a third, the experience doesn't seem to be the best for many users. As we've said before, companies need to optimise their emails for mobile devices - a 2012 study by Juniper showed that 41% of respondents were frustrated by poor email experiences, particularly in terms of email design. Another 24% were annoyed that the content of the emails they received was irrelevant to them or not very personalised. Only 6% of respondents said they had made a purchase directly from their mobile device because of a promotion they received in an email.

The majority of respondents to this Juniper survey (37.2%) were unable to say whether mobile email marketing had had any impact on them. In fact, only 14.3% admitted that such emails had helped them save money or find an interesting deal. 21% admitted to reading the emails but not doing anything about it, while 27.5% said they were overwhelmed with emails and had deleted them.

The biggest dissatisfaction when it comes to emails opened on the move is the irrelevance of the content, with 23.5% of respondents citing this. Poor design was mentioned by 13.8%, while 9.6% said it was impossible to reply to the email, 8.8% said it was not mobile-ready, and 7.7% said they had received emails that were so tedious they stopped reading them.