yesmail email marketing compass | q4 2014 recap: the season of mobile

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The Season of MobileQ4 ‘14 Recap:

Now that the dust has settled and the results of your Q4 email program are in, it’s time to look back and focus on the big picture. With shifting consumer preferences, how has the email landscape changed over the last year and what are subscribers doing more or less of when interacting with their inbox? Yesmail Interactive analyzed data from Q4 2014 and Q4 2013 to gauge how mobile is trending in terms of key metrics like click-to-open rate (CTO), desktop-to-mobile purchase ratio, average order value (AOV), and conversion rate.

In addition, this quick overview dissects mobile further and examines how the use of smartphones and tablets for purchasing has changed year-over-year (YoY.) To top it off, this rundown looks at how responsive design impacts CTO on mobile devices.

Yesmail’s Email Marketing CompassQ4 2014 Recap: the Season of Mobile



Mobile Metrics:Mobile has been the talk of the town for years and while consumers have been fast to adopt it, marketers have lagged in optimizing their content for the mobile viewer. The data below demonstrates a shift in marketing practices leading to healthier programs and higher customer engagement.

Mobile clicks now account for almost

40% of all email clicks,a 10% increase YoY

Mobile CTO has increased by over

20% YoY Q4 2013

10.3% Q4 2014

12.6%

Desktop CTO has increased by over

6% YoY Q4 2013

20.3% Q4 2014

21.6%



Mobile Metrics:What do these metrics tell us? As mobile devices have become indispensable, marketers have started to effectively adjust to the mobile preference expressed by their consumers over the past few years. Be it by incorporating responsive design in their emails, building adaptive landing pages, or optimizing the mobile path-to-purchase, the YoY data shows that, at minimum, marketers have set an intention to truly cater to their mobile audience.

How do we know that? Thirty-seven percent of all emails deployed in Q4 were responsive, a 28% increase from Q3. Marketers seem to have recognized that responsive design doesn’t just make email more accessible for mobile readers; it also significantly affects the bottom line. And in Q4, this recognition and the stride towards optimizing for mobile were amply rewarded – CTO for mobile emails jumped by 40% for marketers who use responsive design in all of their mailings compared to those who use it in none of their campaigns.

Why it matters: Implementing responsive or mobile-friendly formatting is the bare minimum marketers can do to cater to their mobile audience. To ensure continued engagement, brands need to think beyond content formatting and develop specific strategies and call-to-actions for the mobile user. The mobile context should change the email content and cater to the unique functionalities of the device it’s being viewed on. Consider specific mobile subject lines, calls-to-action, and landing pages if you want to simplify conversion for your mobile audience. An invitation to download your app may yield better results and larger interest than ‘Write a Review’ when it comes to mobile.

Q3 Number of

responsive emails:

29%

Q4 Number of responsive emails:

37%

28% Increase

40% Increase

CTO of marketers deploying EXCLUSIVELY

NON-RESPONSIVE emails:

10.1%

CTO for brands deploying EXCLUSIVELY RESPONSIVE emails:

14.1%



Purchase Behavior Metrics:Since both the share of mobile clicks as well as mobile CTO have registered double-digit increases YoY, the higher number of clicks has translated into an increase in mobile conversion rates. To provide an apples-to-apples comparison between 2013 and 2014, this report analyzed the same set of marketers in Q4 2013 and Q4 2014.

Within a calendar year:

Mobile conversion rate (purchase resulting from an email click) grew by 70% while desktop conversion rate declined by 4%

Mobile revenue share grew by a third and made up 20% of all

email-generated revenue

Share of orders completed on mobile devices grew by 21% almost a quarter

of all email-generated orders

Average order value (AOV) for mobile grew by 28%, doubling the annual

growth of desktop AOV

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The Composition of Mobile UsageThere was an interesting YoY shift in the way consumers used tablets and smartphones for purchasing. The use of smartphones for completing orders went up almost at the exact same rate that purchases completed on tablets went down. Most of this increase stemmed from the growth in Android smartphone use. According to our data, the email-generated purchases placed on an Android smartphone grew by almost 50% YoY for the same set of brands.

Complete Purchase?

Down 7% on tablets

Complete Purchase?

Up 8% on Smartphones

Q4 2013Android

Smartphone Purchases

Q4 2014Android

Smartphone Purchases

17%

26%

All statistics apply to the same set of clients, measured YoY

Nearly a 50% Increase!

Percent of all purchases completed on a mobile device



Why?Consumers use smartphones and tablets in very different ways. This difference stems from two factors – portability and connectivity. Consumers use smartphones truly on-the-go because these devices tend to be better connected and more portable. According to the International Data Corporation (IDC), 79% of smartphone users have their device on them for all but two hours every waking day.

Tablets seem to have a different nature – they are widely employed as a more convenient alternative to laptop

computers and are typically used at home. According to Forrester Research, almost three quarters of consumers

access the internet on their tablet mostly in their living room. According to Quartz digital news, 66% of US tablet owners are surfing the net while watching TV. In comparison, three quarters of consumers use their smartphones’ internet on-the-go: on their daily commute, on public transit, or in their cars.

The YoY growth demonstrated by mobile, and especially smartphones, in terms of CTO, AOV, and conversion is another indication of marketers’ awareness of the importance of the platform, but moreover, their better-late-than-never dedication to providing an optimal mobile experience to their consumers. Brands’ efforts to optimize should go beyond email design; they should include the development of mobile sites and apps to simplify and enhance the user experience and drive conversion.

Another factor in the growth of smartphone conversion and purchases is the considerable increase of emails employing responsive design. While helpful on tablets, responsive design is crucial for the user experience on smartphones, which typically have three times smaller screen size.

Why it matters: If smartphone conversions are outpacing tablet conversions for your business, consider analyzing your audience by their preferred purchase device, key demographics such as age and location, as well as major items they purchase on each device – desktop, tablet, and smartphone. This may uncover some behavioral patterns unique to your audience, help define key target segments and identify improvement opportunities along the path-to-purchase.

79% of smartphone users have theirdevice on them for all but two

hours every waking day.

http://www.monetate.com/blog/smartphones-vs-tablets-forrester-reveals-the-differences/

http://qz.com/214307/mary-meeker-2014-internet-trends-report-all-the-slides/



Standard Metrics:While it comes as no surprise that email volume increased significantly from Q3 2014 to Q4 2014, it also jumped by 5.5% YoY, a great indication of marketers’ continuous reliance on the channel and its return on investment. In fact, the average revenue per mobile email click was 40 cents, double that of desktop at 19.

What does come as a surprise is the increase in response rate. Typically in Q4, the increase in mailing volume and frequency tends to drive response rates down. The final quarter of 2014 bucked the trend with a 3% increase in both open and unique click rates over Q3.

What happened?Standard email metrics, just like Mobile and Purchase Behavior ones, suggest the same thing – marketers have advanced to a point where they are able to deliver a consistent mobile experience and customers are taking note by utilizing mobile along the entire path-to-purchase. Since mobile-friendly design impacts smartphones to an even larger degree than tablets, it results in faster growth of smartphone conversion. While there is still a lot of room for improvement, the progress brands have made over the last year, while slow, is notable.

Why it matters: This outcome is dictated by a number of factors – the recovering economy, the growing mobile ecosystem, the continuous technological innovation. To a smaller degree, it also reflects a smarter, more strategic approach taken by marketers who focus on applying best practices to improve their game. In the fast-changing landscape of email marketing, adapting to new trends and evolving consumer preferences will remain the key winning strategy for smart marketers.

Click

Average revenue per mobile email click

40 cents

Average revenue per desktop email click

19 cents

Click

yesmail email marketing compass | q4 2014 recap: the season of mobile

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