I recently downloaded the Litmus 2018 State of Email Report. I’ve summarised the key points I believe are important for Modern Marketers and provided some context for Oracle Marketing Cloud Eloqua customers that they may want to review as they move forward with their campaigns in 2018.
GDPR for non EU companies
Besides the updates of the various email clients i.e. Apple IOS, Samsung, GMAIL etc, Litmus also draws our attention to the 25th May 2018 introduction of the GDPR for the European Union.
Even for those companies outside the EU, there is potential for you to be impacted if you serve customers who live within the EU, even if your company is not registered there or you don’t have offices there.
The #1 Email client
The good people at Litmus Labs provide real-time stats showing the top 10 email clients on the Email Client Market Share site. The following email clients are ranked from # 1 through # 5 as at February 2018.
#1 Apple iPhone 26%
#2 Gmail 23%
#3 Apple iPad 12%
#4 Apple Mail 8%
#5 Outlook 7%
It is interesting to note the changes with Gmail
“Gmail picked up six percentage points, most likely at the expense of legacy webmail clients like Yahoo! Mail (down one slot), desktop clients like Windows Mail (which vanished from the top 10 altogether), and native apps on smartphones and tablets.
Because Gmail downloads images to a proxy server and serves those images from that proxy instead of the original server, it limits the ability to detect whether a Gmail open happened on the mobile app or the webmail client. As a result, web and mobile opens are reported together. Learn more about Gmail’s image caching.
Even with that caveat, it’s still clear that Gmail continues to rise and to claim some of the market from the champ—Apple’s iOS Mail app.”*
*SOURCE: 2018 State of Email Report, page 8
I use Google G-Suite for work and also for personal use. The collaboration it provides is outstanding and I use it frequently for sharing documents with clients. It boggles my mind that some IT departments stuck in the 1990’s still block G-Suite. Hopefully as Google gains dominance IT departments will get with the program and allow access for their staff.
Mobile First?
Yes, there’s no dispute that we need to think mobile first. Litmus record the following for 2017:
“Mobile continued to claim more than half of all email opens through the rest seven months of 2017. In August, mobile dipped by 3 percentage points while webmail rose by two points and desktop opens crept up one percentage point.” *
*SOURCE: Litmus 2018 State of Email Report , page 9
In my world, it’s actually desktop that comes out on top. Most of the people I talk to are modern marketers who engage with us via their work email accounts. Sadly, they generally fall within the 7% of Outlook users.
However, we always think mobile first in all of our campaigns. Eloqua produces mobile responsive emails without any need for HTML ensuring we look great across all email clients.
Eloqua Tip
As of March 2018, Eloqua has confirmed the Eloqua Email Design Editor currently supports these email clients.
This one surprised me
Litmus advise “Don’t cut that “view on web” link”. Even with improved email rendering across clients and devices, about 3% of all emails are viewed in the “view on web” version. Check your own stats to see whether your subscribers are clicking on that link. If you need the space for other links or a content-rich pre-header, move your “view on web” link lower in the email to make room.”*
*SOURCE: Litmus 2018 State of Email Report
The key point here though is to look at your own data from your marketing automation platform. For Eloqua users the “view on web” URL is considered a System Action. The default copy in Eloqua and the system action type is “View online version” which allows the email recipient to open the email in a web browser instead.
The link can be placed anywhere in the email, just like any URL. You can use Insight to identify who’s clicking on the View online version link.
Eloqua Tip
From a deliverability point of view, you also want to keep track of the number of people that may report you as SPAM. This is generally a single click function provided by most email clients. Eloqua users can do this using Insight.
GIF’s are a great way to grab a person’s attention.
However Outlook does not display GIF’s, so you need to make sure the image that does display in the GIF contains your call to action. However, Windows 10 Mail has reached to the 21st century:
“Previously, Windows 10 Mail would show only the first frame of the animated GIF, which would appear as a static image. This rendering update applies to Windows 10 Mail only and does not currently extend to other desktop Outlook clients.”*
*SOURCE: Litmus Blog
In Summary
The rest of the Litmus 2018 State of Email report contains a range of specific charts that provide insight into a range of topics.
I’d encourage you to download the report and digest all 56 pages.
Who is Litmus?
If you’re not familiar with Litmus, the following is taken verbatim from the Litmus 2018 State of Email Report.
“Litmus is passionate about email marketing research, because our mission is to help brands get access to the knowledge and tools they need to send better email. Through our industry-leading blog, Litmus Live conferences, ebooks, webinars, Email Design Podcast, and more, we discuss best practices and explore trends to help your team stay on the forefront of the industry.
We are also passionate about software that makes creating high-performing email easy. Marketers use the Litmus Email Creative Platform alongside their existing email service provider to ensure a consistently great brand experience for every subscriber, work more e ciently, accelerate campaign performance, reduce errors, and stay out of the spam folder.
Email marketing is complex. But through hands-on advice and software you can trust, we enable your team to do their best work—creating innovative, on-brand campaigns that engage and delight audiences. With the Litmus Email Creative Platform, you’ll have the tools and insights you need to provide your customers with an incredible email experience—and get the best results in return.”
