Mobile is likely having its impact on email penetration—more significantly to the positive (open rates) and less so to the negative (click rates). This is the finding of the Q3 2014 North America Email Trends and Benchmarks report recently released by Epsilon and Email Institute. Specifically, the report noted that YOY email open rates rose 6.5% over Q3 2013, but click rates declined slightly. Mobile is likely a factor in each figure, says the report.
“Mobile devices make it easy for consumers to read their messages on the go, yet they’re less likely to click and purchase due to the mobile experience,” said Judy Loschen, Vice President of Digital Analytics at Epsilon, when the findings were announced. “This requires marketers to get smarter and more targeted with their communications and their digital strategy.”
Smarter in what ways? We turned to Epsilon Vice President of Customer Experience Design Shannon Aronson, and she told Loyalty360 that timing, ease and content are critical with mobile. Her thoughts on each of those factors:
Timing
Aronson: Consumers have very different behaviors on mobile than they do on a desktop. Mobile users do not tend to go back to an email later or scroll down like they do on a desktop. To ensure a successful
mobile campaign, you need to reach the consumer when they are most likely in the mindset to interact with your brand. Consumers respond to email on mobile devices almost instantaneously. They have a sense of urgency with mobile devices, which offers a brand a great opportunity to encourage the open. “Always on marketing” is a great advantage for brands if they take advantage of it—most consumers keep their mobile device by their bed and it is the last and first thing they do each day.
Ease
Aronson: Giving the consumer an effortless mobile experience is a must and will impact future open rates. If you make it difficult for consumers to interact with you on a mobile device, they will become frustrated and ignore messages in the future. Remember consumers 
are creatures of habit. They tend to almost always—90-plus percent—open a brand’s email on the same device.
Content
Aronson: We need to start thinking tiny bite-size emails when we think of mobile. Yes, your emails New Year’s resolution should be to go on a diet. Relevant, personalized bite-size content is important. Consumers spend less time scanning and reading on mobile then the do on desktop, which is already a very short amount of time—seconds. The content must be customized to them and entertaining to grab their attention and get them to react. Remember, they are most likely already multi-tasking.
There are many dangers with brands not using mobile in the right way. The main danger is that they will lose a consumer forever—many consumers decide which brands they interact with based on their mobile experience, especially Millennials. For Millennials, mobile is pretty much their only experience—they do not even use desktops. Over-exposure plays a factor, but not as much as on desktop because of how consumers use mobile email—relevancy, content/personalization, effortless experience (including upload times) and keeping it short and concise are key.