Consumers’ adoption of mobile devices has consistently outpaced brands’ ability to deliver mobile-friendly experiences, but major progress has been made over the past year. Joint research by Litmus and the Salesforce Marketing Cloud found that mobile-friendly websites have become almost universal and that the adoption of mobile-friendly email design techniques accelerated over the past 12 months.

That’s the good news. The bad news is that all of this progress has recalibrated consumer expectations, making them hostile and punitive when they encounter non-optimized emails and landing pages, according to joint research between Litmus and Fluent.

Our research, which is summarized in the infographic below and the transcript that follows, details the progress that’s been made and highlights the growing risks for brands that have yet to embrace the Age of Mobile.
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-INFOGRAPHIC TRANSCRIPT-

Mobile-friendly websites have become almost universal and the adoption of mobile-friendly email design techniques have accelerated over the past year, but disconnects in subscribers’ mobile experiences remain.

Most emails are opened on mobile devices

According to more than 1 billion email opens each month tracked by Litmus’ Email Analytics

• Mobile opens have increased to 54% in June 2016 from 49% in June 2015 and 43% in June 2014
• Webmail opens have decreased to 27% in June 2016 from 29% in June 2015 and 32% in June 2014
• Desktop opens have decreased to 19% in June 2016 from 22% in June 2015 and 25% in June 2014

Nearly all websites are mobile-friendly

Percentage of B2C brands with mobile-friendly website landing pages for their promotional emails

• June 2016: 93%
• June 2015: 85%
• June 2014: 74%

Emails have become much more mobile-friendly

Percentage of B2C brands using mobile-unfriendly desktop-centric design vs. mobile-friendly mobile-aware or responsive design for their promotional emails

• Desktop-centric email design usage has decreased to 23% in June 2016 from 43% in June 2015 and 60% in June 2014
• Mobile-aware email design usage has increased to 27% in June 2016 from 15% in June 2015 and 15% in June 2014
• Responsive email design usage has increased to 50% in June 2016 from 41% in June 2015 and 26% in June 2014

The gap between email and website mobile-friendliness has shrunk from 29 to just 16 percentage points over the past year, making disjointed subscriber experiences rarer.

• The percentage of B2C brands with mobile-friendly emails and websites has increased to 72% in June 2016 from 48% in June 2015
• The percentage of B2C brands with mobile-friendly websites but not emails has decreased to 21% in June 2016 from 37% in June 2015
• The percentage of B2C brands with mobile-friendly emails but not websites has decreased to 5% in June 2016 from 8% in June 2015
• The percentage of B2C brands with neither mobile-friendly emails nor websites has decreased to 2% in June 2016 from 5% in June 2015

However, the risks are high, as consumers react harshly to experiences that aren’t mobile-friendly.

• 45% of consumers have unsubscribed from a brand’s promotional emails because the brand’s emails or website didn’t display or work well on their smartphone
• 35% of consumers have unsubscribed from a brand’s promotional emails because the brand’s mobile app didn’t work well
• 34% of consumers have marked a brand’s promotional emails as spam because they didn’t display or work well on their smartphone

Fix the Disconnect!

1. Determine what percentage of your email subscribers are reading your emails on mobile devices and which email clients they’re using.
2. Determine whether adopting mobile-aware or responsive email design makes more sense for your brand.
3. If your emails are already mobile-friendly, work with your web team on a plan to create a mobile-friendly website.

Where Are Your Emails Opened? Do you have a large percentage of mobile subscribers? Discover which email clients and devices your subscribers are using to read your emails with Litmus Email Analytics. Sign up free! Discover your audience →

Source: “Email Opens by Environment” data is from Litmus’ Email Analytics. Email and website mobile-friendly data is from observational research performed by Salesforce Marketing Cloud and Litmus involving more than 130 B2C brands using anonymous email accounts. Consumer reaction data is from a joint Litmus-Fluent survey of 1,361 American adults (aged 18+) nationwide on July 5, 2016. Respondents were randomly selected, and the findings are at a 95% confidence level with a margin of error of +/- 2.7%. Fluent’s proprietary ad serving technology includes a real-time survey module that was used to facilitate the data collection for this study.