• by Stephanie Miller , May 2, 2013

CareerBuilder.com realized last Fall that their subscribers, job seekers and employers were checking their messages on mobile devices.  They tested a few aspects of responsive design on their email messaging, and iterated a template until they got it to render perfectly across the PC, tablet and smartphone spectrum.  They did the work internally with support from the services team at Exact Target.   Then, they quickly rolled it out to the full program.  

Scott Burdsall, Senior Email Marketing Manager, shared campaign result after result with 30% to 50% higher clicks and opens from mobile readers.  They also found that interaction from the PC improved, as well.  "You can't design for the happy medium," Scott said.  "Or you optimize for neither."  

The impact was immediate, he says.  "We are not an ecommerce site, so ROI for us is about page views and interaction with the content," he says.  "We saw an immediate lift all the way through conversion."

This is great news for anyone thinking of testing responsive design or other mobile opitmization strategies.  "It can be ironic that making it better can harm ROI," commented Insider Summit MAster of Ceremonies Morgan Stewart of Trendline Interactive.  "I've seen markters invest in improving the mobile email experience without folloiwng trough to the landing page or mobile commerce experience, and actually harm business ROI."