Linda McBain, Save the Children Enhance your email marketing workshop www.charitycomms.org.uk/events

1. Making email campaigns mobile
friendly
Linda McBain
Digital Marketing Manager
@lindamcb

2. Session structure
• Introduction - Growth of mobile and how Save the
Children have responded
• Breakout Exercise - Think responsive
• Discussion
• Conclusions and tips for making your campaigns
mobile friendly

3. Where are we now?
• Who has a mobile optimised/responsive website?
• Who has mobile optimised/responsive email
templates?
• What is the % of your email audience opening on
mobile?

4. Introduction - growth of mobile devices
Information from Commscore: Mobile Future in Focus 2013
92% of UK
population has
a mobile

5. Changing devices

6. Response - responsive design templates

7. Response - mobile optimised site

8. Mobile evolution at Save the Children
Jul ‘11
• Launched mini mobile site
• PayPal mobile donation app
May ‘12
• MobileVirtual clinic launch
• Responsive email design
Jul ‘12
• Mobile responsive donation forms launch
• Paid search for Mobile & Tablet launched

9. Mobile evolution at Save the Children
Oct ‘12
• WishList shop app launches
• Mobile site re-launch
Apr ‘13
• Mobile responsive landing pages rolled out
• RG via SMS sign-up added as payment option to
mobile site
May’13
• Testing mobile display ads
• Added click to call to mobile ads

10. Results

11. Results –growth of regular giving via mobile
Launch of our mobile optimised donation forms

12. Exercise
• Get into groups of 3
• Save the Children's welcome email wasn't optimised
for all devices - only desktop.
• How would you structure the email considering
tablet and mobile sizes?
• What was challenging?
• If you would like to use your own email rather than
the example one please do.

13. Exercise

14. Exercise
• Link early on in email – the fold is not the
same on mobile.
• Images all clickable.
• Order in the priority of asks for this email
(welcoming new subscribers) –
1. Become part of the Save the Children
community
2. Consider making a donation
3. Campaign with us
Things still to fix and test
• Are social logos and links to small and
close together for mobile?
• Would one CTA rather than 5 or 6 be
better? (All our other emails currently
focus on one CTA per email)
• Big buttons better than text links? (we have
seen a variety of results recently depending
on the email types and segments)

15. Tips
• Order the email in priority – should there even be
more than one CTA?
• Think about font size- it needs to be legible on the
smallest screen your email will appear on.
• One column layout for mobile is key.
• Big buttons for clumsy fingers!
• Don’t put links too close together.
• Test your templates across devices (there is lots of
software available for this)

16. Tips: Most important – analysis and testing
The email marketing
questions are still the
same, but the answers
may now be different.
The only way to know
for sure is to test.
Your audience may be
different – don’t rely
on other people’s
Results.
Information from Commscore: Mobile Future in Focus 2013

17. Mobile - A constant challenge
• Ever changing devices
• Still much more challenging to get people to convert
on mobile than on desktop
• Much higher bounce rates from mobile devices
• Multiple devices – can make it difficult to attribute
individuals actions to your email marketing, if they
don’t convert directly.

18. Thank you – Any Questions?