Some 18% of email-driven orders were completed on a mobile device during Q4 2013, up a couple of points from the preceding quarter, according to Yesmail Interactive’s latest quarterly Email Marketing Compass [download page]. The report shows the continuing growth of the iPad as the primary device, accounting for 59% of email-driven mobile orders and more than 1 in 10 email-driven orders overall.
The Yesmail report both affirms recent trends and reveals some new ones. The following is a list of intriguing results from the study:
- Compared to Q3, the average order value for email-driven purchases declined by 8.6% on desktops and by 3.6% on mobiles, which Yesmail attributes to an increase in repeat purchaser rate (of 17.4% and 2.3%, respectively).
- Mobile accounted for 55% of email opens and 37% of clicks in Q4, up from 52% and 35%, respectively, in Q3.
- Fewer than 1 in 10 subscribers in Q4 viewed emails on both mobile and desktop devices interchangeably, a huge decrease from 30% doing so in Q2. By contrast, the percentage of subscribers viewing emails on mobiles only grew from 30% to 50% during that time frame.
- Mobile-only email viewers were most common in the retail/wholesale (55%), hospitality/travel (54%) and B2B (52%) industries.
- Click-to-open rates on desktops continued to far exceed comparable rates on mobiles in each industry tracked.
- Apple devices accounted for more than 8 in 10 mobile opens and clicks, as they did in Q3.
- Marketers increased their email messaging frequency by almost 10% during Q4. That didn’t appear to have a negative effect on subscriber activity, as the number of active subscribers increased by almost 4%. Average opens per opener also increased (by 6.5%), although the number of clicks per clicker dipped very slightly.
- As found in prior reports, Yesmail indicates that marketers emailing between 4-6 times a week have the highest proportion of active subscribers, and that that proportion tends to increase alongside the number of weekly messages sent. More than 1 email per day might be overkill, though, per the data.
- The number of new subscribers in marketers’ databases actually dropped by 11% in Q4, but engagement for new database subscribers increased by 20%. On average, just 14% of all subscribers have either opened or clicked on an email during the past year.
- The 4 major ISPs – AOL, Yahoo!, Gmail, and Hotmail – account for about 60% of marketers’ databases. Of those 4, Gmail has the most engaged user base.
