With some 44% of email opens now via mobile devices,* fully 50% of email marketers surveyed say they are optimizing or planning to optimize email campaigns for mobile viewers, according to a report by Experian Marketing Services that provides benchmarks for key email engagement and acquisition tactics.
Among those 50% of email marketers following a mobile-friendly approach, the most popular methods are developing a rich-text mobile version (36%), promoting mobile apps (21%), and optimizing email dimensions (18%):
Below, additional findings from Experian Marketing Services.
Subscriber Surveys via Email
When conducting surveys via email, marketers are registering fairly strong survey completion rates overall.
More than 7 in 10 email marketers (71.5%) say they collect input via email surveys, and among them 38% have generated completion rates of 11% or higher.
Notably, most (59%) marketers do not offer incentives to their subscribers for filling out a survey.
Among email marketers who distribute surveys via email, the most popular types are post-purchase (50%), customer service (46%), and online-experience (43%) surveys.
One-quarter (25%) of email marketers say they use unsubscribe (opt-out) surveys. Unsubscribe surveys help marketers identify why customers opt-out of emails subscriptions.
Animated Gifs
More than one-half (52%) of marketers have used animated gifs in their email campaigns, 16% have used horizontal or multidirectional scrolls, and 7% have included video content in email messages:
Including animation in an email is can be a great way to grab viewer attention. Even subtle animation can draw the reader's eye to a specific area in the email, such as a call-to-action button or a special promotion, Experian notes.
Animated gifs and cinemagraphs also produce higher transaction-to-click rates: 72% of email marketers who have used animated gifs or cinemagraphs have recorded higher transaction-to-click rates, compared with bulk emails to the same customers.
Symbols
One in five (21%) email marketers use symbols in their email subject line. An additional 28% don't use symbols but would like to start doing so. Using symbols in a subject line can help email stand out in subscribers' inboxes.
Moreover, emails that contain symbols in subject lines can generate open rates up to 15% higher than open rates for regular promotional emails, according to Experian CheetahMail's 2012 Symbols study.
Social Shares
Facebook (98%) is the social platform most mentioned in email campaigns, followed by Twitter (91%) and YouTube (45%).
One-third (32%) of email marketers mention Pinterest in their campaigns.
Moreover, in 2012, emails that included the words "Pinterest," "Pin us," or "Pin it" in subject lines generated open rates that were 11% higher than bulk mailings, and they generated unique click rates that were almost 25% higher than bulk mailings. Those findings are based on Experian Marketing Services' 2012 Q2 Benchmark Study.
*Note: Based on Experian Marketing Services' June 2012 study of Litmus Email Analytics results: 44% of total opens occur on mobile devices, 29% on desktops, and 28% on Webmail.
About the data: Findings are based on the results email campaigns conducted by Experian Marketing Services' CheetahMail among 146 clients in the third quarter of 2012. Some 53% of respondents were multichannel retail brands.
