Did you know that sometimes your users will open email on a mobile device? I know, it was a shock to me too. But here we are in 2015, and after at least 5 “the year(s) of mobile email”, we’ve mostly got past the idea that we have to at least do something to consider this.

There’s plenty of stats and reasons why mobile is important – we won’t focus on those here (though, for the record, it’s around 55% opening on mobile for the average audience). However I have seen a bit of misinformation and confusion around mobile email design lately, so I thought it’d be useful to look at the three main approaches to improve the experience for mobile users.

Spoiler alert: the best approach is to adopt all three.

We need to talk about how we measure success when it comes to mobile email. The email experience today is miles apart from the one ten years ago – there are mobile phones, tablets (is that a mobile device or not?), watches, laptops – yet on the most part we are still using the same success metrics.

This isn’t going to be an article about design tips or how to add “the responsive code”.

Quick: What’s one thing everyone reading this article has in common (other than this article?) We all have a smartphone. Furthermore, I’m fairly certain we’ve all used a smartphone today, either to check email or go on the Internet or both. You might even be reading this on a smartphone. Smartphones and mobile devices have become so prevalent that you can’t walk down the street or into a restaurant without seeing one in use.

We know this as consumers. We live it every day at work and at home, with our colleagues and our families. But are we acting on this knowledge as marketers?