Hot Retail Trend:
Responsive Email
Marketing For Ecommerce
Written by Rob Lane.
1. Overview
As more of us flock to using an array of ubiquitous mobile devices, the notion of responsive design becomes more of a must for sites, apps and yes, even email. This is especially true for ecommerce sites deploying email as a pillar of their marketing mix.
Consumers don’t yet expect that their email is going to be responsive, and are pleasantly surprised when an attractive offer comes in, through email, that is elegantly designed to shine on whatever mobile device they happen to be on.
2. Kaufmann Mercantile Gets Responsive Email
A great example of this principle in action comes from one our most progressive clients, Kaufmann Mercantile, who understands that the impression of their company and their products is reflected in the email they send to their customers. Along with all the other great features that Rare offers, such as personalized email powered by predictive analytics, Kaufmann has made terrific use of our responsive email capability (see example below, showing how the desktop version fully responds to a mobile device), knowing that over half of its messages are opened on mobile devices. Their effective use of responsive email has lead to some healthy conversion rates and aligns nicely with Kaufmann’s core offering of high quality, long-lasting products.
3. A Fully Responsive Email Offer Is Rare
The Kaufmann example is rare, and rather unexpected. Low consumer expectations for a fully responsive email offer are fuelled by misconceptions around limits to the usefulness of mobile devices, without considering that we are headed toward an increasing consumer reliance on mobile tech for email, and even as a primary source to access the web:
“One of the most persistent misconceptions about mobile devices is that it’s okay if they offer only a paltry subset of the content available on the desktop.”
4. Mobile Is Becoming The Go-To Email Opener
Email is a great tried-and-true tool for reaching out to customers and building relationships that make both sides happy. Digital marketers should, however, take note that at least half of us open our email on some sort of mobile medium and this trend is on the rise:
“53% of total email opens occurred on a mobile phone or tablet in Q3 2014. This is an increase from the 48% percent seen in Q2 2014. – Experian “Quarterly email benchmark report” (Q3 2014).”
But what happens once we’ve opened our email offer, on the go? If we have to expand and pinch our screens, fiddle with hard-to-read tabs, scroll around for the fields where we have to type in a bunch of info, while we’re sipping a latte, catching up on the latest news, and chatting with our friends… we’re not likely to do much with the offer:
“A recent survey by email marketing solutions provider Campaigner found that half of consumers have never made a mobile purchase, and less than 30 percent of those who have made such a purchase did so directly from a promotional email. Seamas Egan, Campaigner’s manager of revenue operations, said these statistics will shift significantly as mobile design becomes more intuitive and responsive.”
5. Responsive Email Marketing Is Just Starting To Take Hold
Many companies simply don’t offer consistent and fully responsive email in their marketing outreach programs. A 2014 study, by YesMail, analyzing 5 billion emails, sent by enterprise clients conducting email marketing, revealed that:
- 31% don’t use responsive design at all
- 44% use responsive email for fewer than half of all email sent
- 24% use responsive email for more than half of all email sent
- only 1% use responsive email for all email sent
These numbers demonstrate the ‘room to grow,’ referred to by Egan, and represent a significant opportunity for those online retailers who get ahead of the curve, by offering consistently responsive email promotions to their entire customer base.
6. Responsive Email In Action
A good working example of responsive email in action, one of five case studies highlighted by Econsultancy, can be found in the digital marketing efforts of Crocs, the trendy shoe and sandal company. Crocs recently ran a rigorous split test of responsive email design vs. a static desktop version, producing some interesting results:
- Responsive showed an overall 7.66% lift in click-to-open rate.
- iPhone ‘read’ engagement had a 15.63% lift for the responsive version over the desktop version. Crocs is seeing more than 25% of all opens occurring on iPhone which makes optimizing for this device even more important.
- Mobile ‘read’ engagement had an 8.82% lift for the responsive version over desktop version.
Since these tests, and others tests against a static mobile version of email, Crocs has launched a new responsively designed website to support their omni-channel marketing efforts and to capitalize on the greater user experience inherent in responsive designs that work.
Many online retailers are tuning into a growing need to incorporate responsive design into their email marketing efforts, yet few are presently doing so effectively, or consistently. At rare.io we are pleased to help our customers ‘win the inbox,’ by offering fully responsive email marketing, seamlessly baked right into to our application.
7. Conclusion
Rare.io makes it easy to start using automated email campaigns for common challenges like: Welcome Series, Abandoned Carts, Order Follow-up emails and more! You can learn more about our powerful email marketing automation features here or go ahead and get started right away by using Rare.io for FREE.
And if you’re one of the thousands of merchants who are already using Rare’s Smart Email Marketing software and want to see how our Customer Success Team can work with your brand to grow your revenue – feel free to book a call at your convenience here.
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