Despite Rise in Mobile Email Opens, 30% of Marketers Don't Know Their Open Rate

Time and time again, statistics continue to show that mobile email marketing is most certainly not on its way out. In fact, it has accomplished quite the opposite. In April of 2011, email opens on mobile phones accounted for only 11 percent of opens. Today, that number sits at 45 percent – a 309 percent increase since three years ago.

However, with the spike in mobile email opens comes a drop in desktop and webmail opens. In April 2011, desktop opens comprised of 53 percent of email opens. That number has now dropped to 28 percent of email opens. Webmail opens dropped from 37 percent to 27 percent of opens now.

Despite this rise in mobile email opens, 31 percent of mobile marketers don’t know what their mobile open rate is. That stat comes from Marketing Sherpa, who also found that, similarly, 33 percent of mobile marketers don’t know their mobile click-through rate either.

Knowing mobile marketing stats can greatly benefit your email campaign – just ask Auto Trader. When the company discovered they had a large number of their consumers opening their emails on mobile devices, they revamped their emails to be more mobile friendly and responsive. After the revamp, they had a 391 percent increase in click-through rates.

A 2013 report from BlueHornet states that if an email from a brand isn’t pleasing to the eyes, 80 percent of consumers will simply delete the email. Thirty percent of consumers will unsubscribe from the company. Only six percent would decide to read the poorly crafted email anyway.

A quote from Luke Wroblewski of Mobile First sums up mobile email design succinctly:

“Mobile forces you to focus. Mobile devices require … teams to focus on only the most important data and actions.  … There simply isn’t room in a 320 by 480 pixel screen for extraneous, unnecessary elements. You have to prioritize. So when a team designs mobile first, the end result is an experience focused on the key tasks users want to accomplish without the extraneous detours and general interface debris that litter today’s desktop-accessed websites. That’s good user experience and good for business.”

Sources:

• “Mobile Marketing: 31% of marketers don’t know their mobile email open rate.” 2014. https://sherpablog.marketingsherpa.com/
• “BlueHornet Consumer Views of Email Marketing 2013.” 2013. slideshare.net/bluehornetemail
• “How to Optimize Your Emails for Mobile: A Beginner's Guide.” 2014. https://blog.hubspot.com/