OPTIMIZATIONMOBILE

Success Guide

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Why Should Email Marketers Care?As a marketer, you spend a lot of time and resources on your email campaigns and expect them

to deliver your message to customers without a hitch. However, the rise of mobile has made your

job a lot harder.

In 2013, it’s predicted that mobile email opens will surpass desktop opens.1 So, if you haven’t

integrated mobile optimization into your email development, there’s a good chance your entire

message is not being seen. If your customers are scrolling across the page to read all the

information, the links are too small to click, or if the text shrinks to a non-visible size, your

emails stand to benefit from mobile optimization.

StrongMail’s Mobile Optimization Success Guide is more than a “Look Book,” it’s a “Look & Action

Book” that is designed to help the 58% of email marketers who aren’t currently designing their

emails to render different on mobile devices.2 In the following pages, you’ll not only see how

StrongMail’s strategists helped major brands mobile optimize their email marking campaigns

(that’s the “Look” part), you’ll also learn how you can employ the successful strategies in your own

organization (that’s where “Action” comes in). To kick things off, here are a couple of stats to help

convince you to keep reading.

Mobile Optimization

1 Knotice, “Knotice Mobile Email Opens Report: 2nd Half 2012,” 2013 • 2 MarketingSherpa “2013 Email Marketing Benchmark Report,” 20133 eMailmonday - “Party Safe Mobile Email Stats,” 2013 • 4 eConsultancy, “Email Marketing Industry Census,” 20125 BlueHornet “Consumer Views of Email Marketing,” 2012 • 6 Litmus, ”Email Analytics” Jan 2013 • 7 eDialog, “The future of Mobile Messaging,” 2011

Top 5 Things Marketers Should Know 1. Mobile email will account for 15 to 65% of email opens, depending

on your target audience, product and email type.3

2. 48% of marketers don’t know what percentage of their email

is read via mobile devices.4

3. If an email does not display correctly, 69.7% will delete it immediately.5

4. 42% of email is now opened on a mobile device, which is expected

to rise to more than half in 2013.1

5. 80% of consumers find reading marketing emails on mobile devices

less easy than on a PC.7

MOBILE OPTIMIZATION?

Think PlatformWhile you cannot design independently for every device, you can start by designing with different

platforms in mind. For instance, a desktop user probably has more time than someone reading an

email on a smartphone.

Showing What's Relevant and Hiding the Rest Ensures Optimal Display Across All Devices Sales of smartphones and tablets have already exceeded desktop purchases. And by 2015, it’s

predicted mobile devices will generate four times the sales of PCs and laptops (1.7B vs. 400M).8

Plus, time spent consuming media on mobile devices is growing 14 times faster than desktop viewing.9

It’s clear that the landscape has changed. Not only are consumers reading email on multiple devices,

they are reading them in multiple environments.

WHAT IS

CONNECT with your audienceSmartphone users are most likely to be thumbing through your email when they are on the go and

under a time crunch. Bringing the most relevant information to their fingertips will help provoke

action. Mobile optimization can do this by hiding the secondary information and displaying the

most relevant.

8 Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers , “2012 KPCB Internet Trends Year-End Update,” 20129 eMarketer, “Key Digital Trends for 2013,” 2012

Time Spent Reading Email: Mobile vs. Desktop

MOBILE OPTIMIZATION?

RESPONSIVE STRUCTUREResponsive email design uses the same markup languages

that you’ve always used for your email design. It uses

CSS3 media queries to display different layouts of an email

depending on the size of the viewing screen. You can display

or hide elements for a true mobile experience.

SCALABLE LAYOUTThis is the simplest, yet most effective way to approach

mobile optimization development. A scalable layout starts

early in the design process. It is readable and clickable no

matter which size environment it is in. It is a single design with

only one HTML version.

FLUID CONTAINER This layout approach will automatically adapt to the width of

the screen the email is being viewed on. It relies on no media

query. Similar to scalable design, it will wrap copy length to

the appropriate width of the screen.

Choose the Right Approach for Your Consumer and Your Business It would be simpler if there was just one answer for optimizing your email campaigns for mobile

devices. There are three principle ways to code your emails so they play friendly with mobile devices:

Responsive Structure, Scalable Layout and Fluid Container. All have benefits and tradeoffs when it

comes to user experience and coding complexity.

Here’s a quick introduction to each approach:

Unfortunately, one option won’t work across all email campaigns, but it is possible to use techniques

from all three options. The trick is to find out what works for you. In the case studies that follow, you

learn from the approaches that StrongMail’s strategists have implemented at major brands.

Types of

IHGOPTIMIZING

THE OBJECTIVE: Develop a platform friendly template that not only zeroes in on the most

relevant information displayed on a smartphone, but has the flexibility to

use the same design for multiple messages and brands.

DevelopDesign StrategyCode Integrate

Click-Through RATE

114.2%Disengagement RATE

14.28%

IHGOPTIMIZING

Click-to-call

reservation link

Removed social icons

to reduce clutter

Moved social icons

to the bottom

Hidden background

for quick load

Text column fits

to screen

THE Look:

SCRIPPS NETWORKsOptimizing

The Objective: Scripps Networks tasked StrongMail with mobile optimizing an email

campaign for The Travel Network. The end product was a success,

as we were able to optimally adjust and/or hide content within a

one-column layout that’s easy on the eye and prioritizes the pertinent

information for the user.

DevelopDesign Code

Click-Through RATE

30%

OPTIMIZING

Increased font size

Image fits to screen

Single column

for easy read

SCRIPPS NETWORKs

Centered logo

THE Look:

Student FlightsOptimizing

THE OBJECTIVE: Increase sales by mobile optimizing Student Flights’ Travel Deals email.

Leverage all important elements in the email, across all devices, while

showcasing a clear call-to-action and informing busy students on the go.

CODEDEVELOP Integrate

Click-Through RATE

35%

OPTIMIZING Student Flights

Click-to-call link

Increased font size

Image fits to screen

Single column

for easy read

Stacked text

THE Look:

How Well Did You Do?If you checked all of the boxes above, you are well on your way to taking advantage of mobile

optimized email. However, if you missed a few boxes or have questions about getting started,

you don’t want to wait too long before getting on the right path.

As mobile viewing of email eclipses the desktop later this year, you (and parts of your template)

don’t want to be left in the dark. At StrongMail, we helped all of the brands above take their

marketing to the next level with mobile optimized email. Our strategists understand the latest

technologies and techniques that can provide the best experience for your customers across

devices of various shapes and sizes. Talk to us today to find out how we can help you as well.

Are Your Emails Mobile Ready? With smartphones and tablets on the rise, it is safe to assume that a large portion of your

customers are already viewing your email campaigns via mobile devices. If you cannot check

off all these statements as “true” you may want to consider revisiting your mobile design.

ChecklistMOBILE

o You provide your customers with the most relevant clickable content in a mobile environment.

o Your email width is less than the screen width of the mobile device it’s being displayed on.

o Your font is at least 13px for text and 25px for headlines.

o You have touch-friendly buttons - a minimum of 29x44px (with 10px padding).

o Your email campaign looks good on both IOS and Android.

StrongMail empowers marketers to achieve their acquisition, retention and loyalty objectives

with powerful email and cross-channel marketing solutions. With StrongMail’s market-

leading solutions and services, brands can quickly, simply and effectively employ these vital

communication channels to expand both reach and revenue. StrongMail provides marketers

with the tools they need to drive more value from their marketing programs: a drag-and-drop

interface for lifecycle marketing, real-time testing and optimization, dynamic reporting and

unparalleled data access. StrongMail has a proven track record helping leading brands with

sophisticated data needs boost the performance of their marketing initiatives across email,

mobile and social channels.

StrongMailToll free U.S. +1 (800) 971-0380

Toll U.S. +1 (650) 421-4255

Toll U.K. +44 (0) 118 903 6068

info@strongmail.com

StrongmailAbout

Mobile Optimization: Email Look & Action Book © 2013 StrongMail Systems, Inc. SM-DI-10313