On which device are you reading this email?

Quick poll results highlight importance of enabling readability of email across devices

There’s a lot of focus globally on optimising email in order to cater for the mobile user. Tablets are sexy, smartphones are heading towards ubiquity and the good old PC/laptop is . . . rather last season.

But should email senders focus on customising emails for mobile devices to the detriment of the desktop user?

We decided to work with our largest clients to get first-hand feedback on which devices people are mostly using to read their emails. We approached six of our clients with large consumer bases and borrowed some real estate on their emails to run a poll entitled: Which device are you reading this on?

The response options were simply:

• PC/Laptop
• Smartphone
• Tablet

Mobile - increasingly the devices of choice

While this is by no means a formal study, the results did confirm what most of the global research has indicated: 68.6% of respondents were viewing the email on a desktop/laptop, compared to 22.7% on a smartphone and 8.7% on a tablet.

The participating organisations were all operating in an emerging market and spanned across a number of verticals including retail, telecommunications, media and entertainment. The campaigns that carried the poll represented a good range of communication types including newsletters, account default notifications, eStatements and product brochures.

While most of the verticals followed the same split as above, telecommunications had a proportionally higher number of tablet users.

Time of day is definitely a factor

Another interesting finding was a view of the device usage by time of day.

While the majority of respondents on PCs/Laptops answered the poll during working hours (08h00 – 16h00); usage of this device tapered off dramatically after work hours. Comparing this to respondents using smartphones or tablets, it is evident that the usage of mobile devices is higher in the afternoon and evening than in the morning.

From this view we can also see that most of the emails (across devices) were read between 11h00 and 15h00, with a peak read rate at 14h00.

What can we conclude from this exercise?

Firstly, that we have GREAT clients who are open to ideas, so we would like to take this opportunity to thank them for giving us space on their email communications and for allowing us to poll their customers – you know who you are!

Secondly, that while the majority of email recipients who responded to the poll accessed the email on a PC or laptop, there is a significant usage of mobile devices (29% if you add them together).

We anticipate that email access from mobile devices will increase in 2013, and into the future when tablets and laptops converge into a single killer device. Are you ready for the mobile revolution?

Keen to get your emails mobile ready? Here is some suggested reading:

   
Nicola Els
striata.com