With the rise of smartphones and tablets, the formatting of our email marketing campaigns are more important than ever. According to a 2015 SmartInsights report, 46% of all emails are now opened on either a smartphone (34%) or tablet (12%). These numbers could be even higher in the B2B and B2C marketing space, where it can be reasonably assumed that sophisticated buyers are using mobile devices to consume emails at a higher rate. There are other reports that estimate mobile and tablet opens to be as high as 66% of all email opens!

Let’s consider 3 stats from the SmartInsights report:

1. 27% of emails are opened on Apple iPhones
2. 12% of emails are opened on Apple iPads
3. 7% of emails are opened on Google Android devices

What does this mean for marketers?

What this means is that 27% of OPENED marketing emails will be viewed on a screen ranging from 3.5” to 5.5” assuming most users have an iPhone 3g or later. This number jumps to 34% when you add Android devices which have generally similar screen sizes. When you add iPads into the equation you are looking at 46% of your emails being opened on a screen that is 3.5” to 9.7” in size.

Why is this important?

Considering that 34% of every email marketing campaign you send will be opened and viewed on a screen that is 3.5” to 5.5”, if your message is not optimized for mobile views, you are instantly failing to engage or capture one third of all your opens. Email marketing is a highly efficient and powerful tool, but neglecting to consider our mobile audience greatly reduces its effectiveness.

What can we do?

As marketers, it is critically important to understand the mediums our target audience is using to digest our marketing messages and ads. Smartphones and tablets have become more prominent than traditional desktop computers so it is critical that we format our email marketing campaigns to adjust for this shift. Here are 3 ideas to help format your email marketing campaigns for smartphone and tablet opens:

1. Place your call to action above the fold and make sure it is clearly visible without recipients having to scroll down on your message. If the goal is to have them “Click Here To Register”, make sure that appears on screen when the message is first opened.
2. Format your emails with a single column template so that your entire message can be digested without forcing recipients to zoom or scroll. We want our message to be easy to digest without requiring any additional efforts from the recipient.
3. Test your campaigns by first sending them to yourself or a small set of employees and have them open them on their smartphones and tablets. After reviewing how your campaign appears, modify the formatting accordingly.

When formatting your email marketing campaigns in 2015, remember that smartphone and tablet opens are poised to exceed desktop opens (if they do not already) and we must account for this shift in consumption by our audience. Failing to optimize our email formatting could result in our message being lost on up to 50% of our opened emails and as marketers we simply cannot afford to miss half our audience.

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Aaron Hockel

Aaron Hockel is a Partner and the VP of Digital Marketing at AltaVista Strategic Partners. A University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC) alumnus, Aaron expertly crafts digital marketing strategies that drive success for clients, leveraging his deep industry knowledge and innovative approach.