MBAddressing Non-Responsive Design for Different Email Apps
Hi, folks. I'm actually a client/business owner with some concerns about responsive design. Please forgive me for using layman's terms when referring to different aspects of email design.
I'm working w/ a new email marketing firm and discovered that their templates are not responsive in iOS Gmail app and Android default mail app.
39% of my email list are Gmail users. 34% are Yahoo users.
Right now, I need to dig deeper into my analytics and figure out what mobile email apps my customers are using to view marketing emails. From there, I can figure out what email apps to address in terms of implementing special code for responsive desgign.
Within Google Analytics, is it at all possible to track which mobile email apps AND operating systems my audience is using to open my emails? I had a look around GA but could not find any default tracking for this very thing. I'm wondering if I have to set up a special tracking code? Or is it just a matter of combining different parts of analytics to come up w/ the answer?
I figured I'd ask the experts before hiring a freelancer to attempt to implement code into GA to track something that CANNOT actually be tracked.
Thanks, guys!
Hi Millicent, unfortunately there aren't really any templates that are responsive in the gmail or android mail app anymore as there is no longer support for it on the android mail app and there's never been support for responsive design on the iOS Gmail app.
With regards to tracking I would recommend adding in a litmus tracking code - this has really in-depth tracking of email clients so you can get a clear idea of exactly who's viewing your emails, on which devices, how this affects conversions/clicks, etc.
Edward, this was helpful. Thank you! I wasn't aware that Litmus offered this kind of tracking but I will look into it.
Just to clear up some confusion, The Analytics you'll see won't report on how many people are using the Gmail app, due to Gmail's image caching it's impossible to tell, but it's always worth considering non-responsive in your email designs.
Best practice these days is to use the fluid-hybrid method that uses a scalable template will will look good in the Gmail app, while also adding in responsive elements for those that can see them.
Sam, thanks so much!
I was considering a non-responsive email design. But I kicked the idea to the curb b/c I thought it might be email marketing suicide... I will definitely give this some more thought, though. I was actually thinking about testing 2-column vs. 3-column non-responsive email design. Perhaps, after enough testing, I could pit the winner of that test against a responsive design.
I wonder how many email marketers opt for a non-responsive design. I suppose that depends on many factors... You guys have got my gears turning. I appreciate it.
"Best practice these days is to use the fluid-hybrid method that uses a scalable template" --- Would you care to elaborate, Sam? Or anyone else? I'm not sure what kind of template this would be.
Hybrid templates allow sections to stack in gmail giving it a "faux" responsive like quality. You can go from 2 or 3 columns down to one in Gmail however if you wanted to use a media query to swap out an image you would not be able to.
Here are a couple articles to give you a better idea of how it works:
http://webdesign.tutsplus.com/tutorials/creating-a-future-proof-responsive-email-without-media-queries--cms-23919
https://www.campaignmonitor.com/blog/email-marketing/2014/07/creating-a-centred-responsive-design-without-media-queries/
Chris, THANK you!