Making email campaigns mobile

friendly

Linda McBain

Digital Marketing Manager

@lindamcb

Session structure

• Introduction - Growth of mobile and how Save the

Children have responded

• Breakout Exercise - Think responsive

• Discussion

• Conclusions and tips for making your campaigns

mobile friendly

Where are we now?

• Who has a mobile optimised/responsive website?

• Who has mobile optimised/responsive email

templates?

• What is the % of your email audience opening on

mobile?

Introduction - growth of mobile devices

Information from Commscore: Mobile Future in Focus 2013

92% of UK

population has

a mobile

Changing devices

Response - responsive design templates

Response - mobile optimised site

Mobile evolution at Save the Children

Jul ‘11

• Launched mini mobile site

• PayPal mobile donation app

May ‘12

• Mobile Virtual clinic launch

• Responsive email design

Jul ‘12

• Mobile responsive donation forms launch

• Paid search for Mobile & Tablet launched

Mobile evolution at Save the Children

Oct ‘12

• WishList shop app launches

• Mobile site re-launch

Apr ‘13

• Mobile responsive landing pages rolled out

• RG via SMS sign-up added as payment option to mobile site

May’13

• Testing mobile display ads

• Added click to call to mobile ads

Results

Results –growth of regular giving via mobile

Launch of our mobile optimised donation forms

Exercise

• Get into groups of 3

• Save the Children's welcome email wasn't optimised

for all devices - only desktop.

• How would you structure the email considering

tablet and mobile sizes?

• What was challenging?

• If you would like to use your own email rather than

the example one please do.

Exercise

Exercise • Link early on in email – the fold is not the

same on mobile.

• Images all clickable.

• Order in the priority of asks for this email

(welcoming new subscribers) –

1. Become part of the Save the Children

community

2. Consider making a donation

3. Campaign with us

Things still to fix and test

• Are social logos and links to small and

close together for mobile?

• Would one CTA rather than 5 or 6 be

better? (All our other emails currently

focus on one CTA per email)

• Big buttons better than text links? (we have

seen a variety of results recently depending

on the email types and segments)

Tips

• Order the email in priority – should there even be

more than one CTA?

• Think about font size- it needs to be legible on the

smallest screen your email will appear on.

• One column layout for mobile is key.

• Big buttons for clumsy fingers!

• Don’t put links too close together.

• Test your templates across devices (there is lots of

software available for this)

Tips: Most important – analysis and testing

The email marketing

questions are still the

same, but the answers

may now be different.

The only way to know

for sure is to test.

Your audience may be

different – don’t rely

on other people’s

Results.

Information from Commscore: Mobile Future in Focus 2013

Mobile - A constant challenge

• Ever changing devices

• Still much more challenging to get people to convert

on mobile than on desktop

• Much higher bounce rates from mobile devices

• Multiple devices – can make it difficult to attribute

individuals actions to your email marketing, if they

don’t convert directly.

Thank you – Any Questions?