Email Marketing Creative for Mobile — How to Design Email Ads for Mobile Optimization and Response

Nearly 70 percent of email campaigns are opened on a mobile device, according to a recent study. To make the most of a high open rate, it is important to have a mobile-friendly design to enhance reader experience and response.

If done well, email ads are messages that your customers and prospects will want to read. A good email marketing practice is only sending permission-based emails, i.e. readers have opted in to receive.

Here are some tips to improve your email ads giving you better open rates and response.

Optimize Subject Lines

Subject lines are the first things recipients see in an email ad. Remember that and:

• DO NOT Exceed the subject lines by more than 35 characters
• DO Implement the “2–2–2 principle,” .i.e. you have two seconds to attract customer attention, two seconds to keep their interest via your subject line, and two seconds to create a sense of urgency to keep reading
• DO Place seasonal slogans
• DO Use merge tags for personalizing the subject lines

Use Pre-Header Text To Stop The Scroll

Pre-header text is the first line of copy in your email. It is often overlooked, but it can serve a great purpose for mobile-friendly emails. Most email clients include the pre-header in the preview pane.It acts as a support to your subject line, offering more context to tempt the reader into opening your email.

Pre-header length varies by both the device and email client. Therefore, use multiple lengths to see what works better on which platforms — desktop, tablet, and mobile.

Images — Help Stop the Scroll & Pull Them In

By default, many phones don’t display images. So, it is a good idea to make sure that your email makes sense when images are not displayed. Blocked images are always a challenge in image-heavy emails. Let the descriptive copy do the job. Images support the surrounding text but don’t have to be seen for your ad to work.

Check the Message Quality Score

Nearly 99.99 percent of email accounts rely on spam filters. That’s why you must use a tool that lets you analyze whether your email will end up in the junk folder of recipients. You may assume that the recipient has received it if it doesn’t bounce back, but that assumption can lead to a “false-positive.”

Email marketers should ensure that their email messages don’t contain any phrases or words that trigger spam filters. It is recommended to go through the message quality score and enhance the spam score before it is sent to a mobile audience. Tools such as Sender Score and Postmark can be quite helpful.

Use Mobile-Optimized Templates

Popular email marketing tools provide mobile-optimized templates. Customize them for your newsletter.

• Build professional emails that increase engagement
• Incorporate a new look to your emails. Innovation possibilities are limitless with mobile-optimized templates
• You have many different template options that are related to your niche — keep testing!

Keep CTA Buttons to Around 44-by-44 Pixels

The CTA (Call to Action) buttons are one of the most critical parts of your email campaigns.

• The size of your CTA button should be around an average human finger — about 44-by-44 pixels
• Make it “pop!”! An effective CTA in the main content should be easy to see
• The main email copy has to appear visually striking
• Buttons attract conversion and clicks.Use logical placement and powerful text to get conversions

Keep Your Copy Concise

Keeping your copy short and concise can work wonders. Create short and scannable chunks of content, i.e., short paragraphs and bulleted lists. This will make it easy for readers to scan your copy and clearly understand how to receive the offer.

Test Your Emails Across Multiple Devices

Before scheduling or sending an email, test across multiple devices and email clients to make sure that it appears exactly as you planned.

Use Single-Column Layout

Although multi-column newsletters are common, mobile-friendly emails in a single-column layout provide a better reader experience. A single-column layout works on small screens. And steer clear of detailed navigation bars. Navigation bars break on mobile devices and are often irrelevant to the email content and hard to use.

Final Thoughts

After you are certain that you have optimized your emails for mobile devices, you can test their performance to find whether you can do anything to enhance your approach. Keep testing!