Email & Mobile Theatre; 2012 Strategies: Using Customer intelligence to make communications that count

KITBAG.COM

Case study: iPhone optimisation

Lyris Ltd – Confidential 1

2 Lyris Ltd – Confidential

Kitbag.com

• Kitbag.com is Europe's leading online sports retailer

• Lyris customer for 9 years – Currently using Lyris HQ

• Exclusive rights to operate the official online stores of Manchester United, Chelsea, Real Madrid, Barcelona, Everton and Celtic

• Online and offline direct mailings / catalogues, call centre operations, and pick pack parcel distribution and warehousing

Why are mobile devices important to email marketers?

3 Lyris Ltd – Confidential –

• Morgan Stanley predicted that the population of mobile users will exceed desktop internet users within five years.

• Mobile e-commerce is ramping up faster than online e-commerce, now making up 4% of total retail sales

• Research by Nielsen shows that Email accounts for 42 percent of mobile internet time (compared to just 10.5 percent using social media, for example).

What are the main issues?


What does your email look like on a small screen?

Is it hard to click on links?

Do your subscribers have to zoom in to read the content?

If you have optimised the email for a mobile device, what does it look like on a large screen?


Testing method

• Litmus email analytics tags added to Kitbag emails from December 2011 – February 2012

• Top email clients analysed – Apple iPhone was used by 22.49% of recipients making it the most popular email client among Kitbag subscribers

• Apple iPhone subscribers flagged within Lyris HQ

• Lyris and Kitbag develop iPhone optimised email templates which are 400 pixels wide rather than 750 pixels wide

• 50% of flagged iPhone users are sent a regular sized version of the Kitbag newsletter and 50% are sent the iPhone optimised version

KEY STATS


Popularity of reading environments among Kitbag.com subscribers

35% of opens from Kitbag.com subscribers come from a mobile device


Top email clients used by Kitbag.com subscribers


Top mobile email clients used byKitbag.com subscribers

66% of Kitbag’s mobile opens come from the Apple iPhone

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Top email clients used by iPhone users

98% of iPhone users view their emails with the built-in mail client


Engagement across email clients

Desktop Mobile Webmail

OPTIONS FOR OPTIMISING

Option 1 – Removing fixed width tables


One of the most widely used solutions to this issue is having a table that is equal to 100%. This means the email will automatically fill 100% of the screen it is being viewed on.

Pros Cons• Easy to do• Usually looks good on mobile

devices

• Not appropriate for image only emails

• Can look very bad on larger screens

• Doesn’t always look good on a mobile device, especially if there are images


Example of an email with 100% table fully open in Outlook

Option 1 – Removing fixed width tables

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Option 2 – Add a view on mobile link to your email

Add a link to the top of an email which points to a mobile friendly version of the email.

Pros Cons• Easy to do• Looks good on mobile devices

• Requires subscriber to click on a link to view

• Takes longer to code the email• Often gets overlooked because

the link is usually quite small on a mobile device


Option 3 – Intelligent CSS

Use CSS media queries to remove unnecessary elements of your email when viewed on a small screen.

Pros Cons• Allows you to change the look of

the email depending on screen size

• Looks good on large and small screens

• Gives you the ability to remove unnecessary parts of your email

• Requires a coder to implement• Not effective for image only

emails• Can take longer to code• Adds weight to email due to

extra code• Doesn’t work in Gmail’s Android

app

Option 3 – Intelligent CSS

Outlook iPhonewith CSS


iPhonewithout CSS

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Option 4 – Design your email for mobile users

Reduce the width of your current email to between 300 – 500 pixels and use a single column layout. Ensure the email text is large enough to read on a mobile and the call to action is easy to click.

Pros Cons• Not hard to do• Easy to read on a mobile without

having to zoom in• Links are easy to tap

• Could look slightly strange when viewed on a large screen

HOW DID WE OPTIMISE KITBAG’S EMAILS


Regular email design – Within iPhone

• 750 pixels wide• Very small pre-header text• Small navigation buttons• Multi-column layout• Unreadable text• Small calls to action – can be

hard to click through on desired link


iPhone optimised email design

• 400 pixels wide• No pre-header text• No navigation buttons• Single column layout• Larger text• Large calls to action that are

easy to tap• Unnecessary content has been

removed• Main message is clearly visible

at the top of the email

TEST RESULTS

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Non-iPhone users

Key Metrics Results

Average unique open rate 12.3%

Average unique click rate 2.3%

Average click to open rate 19.11%

Full size emails sent to all non-iPhone users

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iPhone users sent full size email

Key Metrics Results




Full size emails sent to 50% of iPhone users

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iPhone users sent optimised email

Key Metrics Results




Optimised email sent to 50% of iPhone users

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Average unique open rates


Higher open rates for mobile optimised emails?

Why would the mobile optimised emails consistently have a higher open rate?


Size matters!

Average Email weight Average open rate

Full size version of email 17.42 KB 39.84%

iPhone optimised version of email 9.35 KB 43.38%

Light weight emails = Higher open rates on mobile devices

Internet download speeds can vary greatly on mobile devices so it makes sense that the faster downloading email would have a higher open rate on a mobile.


How about conversions?

Although we received great open rates from our iPhone segment we did not see an increase in conversion rates. There could be several reasons for this:

• Kitbag.com does not have a mobile optimised version of their website• Subscribers are most probably not in a position to purchase when viewing your

emails on their mobile

Kitbag.com on an iPhone

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Why bother?

Why bother optimising for mobile devices if conversion rates are not higher?

We believe that it’s still important to optimise for mobile devices because:

• Open rates from mobiles are much higher than other email clients• Having a clear mobile optimised email design will encourage these subscribers to

return directly to your website or shop at a later date – via their desktop or tablet

THANK YOU

Technology

Email & Mobile Theatre; 2012 Strategies: Using Customer intelligence to make communications that count