Commentary
Mobile Email Opens Pass Browser Opens
- by Jack Loechner , Staff Writer @mp_research, January 11, 2013
According to the Return Path global bi-annual mobile email report, 37% of people are now opening email on mobile devices compared with the 30% opening through webmail in a browser. Mobile open share has increased 300% since 2010, and shows no sign of slowing, says the report, with four out of 10 emails sent being read on a mobile device.
Mobile usage is greatest among the retail (40%), consumer product (40%) and real estate (38%) industries, says the report. The study also found that the type of information being reviewed impacts open rates on mobile devices. A significant amount of banking-related emails (60%) are still opened on desktops, likely for security reasons.
Matt Blumberg, CEO of Return Path, says “... marketers who rely on open rates... to evaluate campaign success... without using analytics to gather email intelligence... stand to lose significant revenue... ”
Ensuring email marketing campaigns are optimized for both mobile and the desktop has emerged as a necessary step for marketers, notes the report, as mobile email has twice as many click-through conversions than search or social. Email users still make most of their online purchases through a desktop computer, proving that optimizing for both platforms is essential, says the report.
The study shows a variance in mobile usage by region, as more Americans open email on mobile devices than their European and South American counterparts. In most regions, Android and iOS dominate the mobile marketplace. And, the study uncovered data that suggests mobile behavior varies depending on the smartphone operating system:
- More Apple users are using their devices to open and read email than any other group, with the iPad seeing more growth in email opens when compared to the iPhone
- Windows Mobile saw an 85% increase in email opens since April 2012, but still only comprise 0.3% of total email opens on smartphones
For more information from Return Path, including access to infographics, please visit here.
Jack Loechner is the Editor of The Center for Media Research's daily Research Brief. You can reach him at jack@mediapost.com.
Wow! This makes a difference...now can we quit calling it "mobile" when much of that change is driven by tablets....
Email marketing has the highest ROI of any online marketing channel. More and more users are sending and receiving emails via their mobile devices, anytime, anywhere, because now they can. I couldn't agree more that increasing mobile email usage is raising the stakes for ensuring that emails are optimized for mobile in terms of displaying correctly, facilitating engagement and supporting reporting and anlytics.