More than half of emails worldwide are read on a mobile device
The world of email marketing has changed pretty significantly over the past five years. Where desktop clients like Outlook were once a more important delivery medium, readers of email are now in the thrall of mobile clients and webmail services like Gmail. In fact, new research from Return Path found that 55 % of emails worldwide are opened in a mobile environment in 2017, significantly more than either webmail (28%) or desktop (16%). The following chart provides additional insight –
In conjunction with this, Apple’s iOS was dominant among mobile email users worldwide, with 79% of mobile emails opened on either an iPhone or iPad in 2017 – versus only 20% of emails were opened on a device running Android – an increase of 6 % from 2012.
Email’s maturity as a marketing channel is reflected in its plateaued user rate in developed markets like the US. eMarketer estimates that there will be 248.2 million US email users this year, equating to a penetration rate of 76.0% among the overall population. Those figures are set for marginal increases to 266.3 million users and 79 % penetration by 2021. But email still remains a favorite channel among US marketers, according to a recent survey from the Data & Marketing Association (DMA) and Demand Metric. The study found that at least 88% of marketers in nine different verticals still relied on email to reach their target audiences as follows –
Consumers tend to have a positive disposition toward email, likely because of familiarity and it’s opt-in communication – that gives users a measure of control over how they are messaged. In conjunction with this, brands seeking to connect with these audiences also need to take care not to abuse the channel by overcrowding inboxes.
According to eMarketer’s email marketing performance benchmarks, email’s click-to-open rate in North America has seen a slow decline over the past year, dropping from 10.9% in Q2 2016 to 9.7% in 2017. However, the transaction-to-click rate increased over the same time period, jumping from 3.4% in Q2 2016 to 4.0% in Q2 2017.
Oct 24, 2017 – CAIL – from Mobile industry commentary