News

Despite the rise in smartphones, internet users in the UK still use the web to check their emails. comScore found web-based email marketing and other messages reached 82.7 per cent of the UK's online population in June.

Across Europe, access to web-based email has increased 3.7 per cent over the last year, with seven in ten internet users visiting email sites. The most popular by far is Microsoft's Hotmail, which has recently been renamed Outlook.com and boasted 108.2 million European users in June, compared to Gmail with 74.7 million.

However, Gmail is growing at a much faster rate; Hotmail grew one per cent in the last year, compared to Google's 18 per cent.

The most engaging email portal was found to be Yahoo! Mail – in third place overall in terms of usage numbers – as users spend 2.1 hours a month on it compared to 1.9 hours on Hotmail and 59.5 minutes on Gmail.

Test and optimise email marketing

With so many different options of email clients, it can be hard to optimise email marketing for particular platforms. This is why testing before sending is of crucial importance.

Amanda Kouwenhoven, ContentPlus's head of social media and email marketing expert, said: "Make sure your email displays well in all major web-based, mobile and desktop email clients and also, for web-based, across various browsers."

Her top three tips for testing emails are:
-  Disable images and view your template to see how it display
-  Ensure calls to action are accessible even with images not displaying
-  Test your links – both to see they work and that they take people to where you want them to go

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