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Mobile Email Design: Best Practices For Creating Engaging Emails
Increase Email Engagement with These Mobile-Friendly Design Tips
Elna Cain
December 14th, 2024
Table of Contents
Today's buyers are Gen Z and millennials, who made 64% of purchases last year. If you want your business to succeed, then having a mobile email design is a MUST-HAVE to drive conversions.
With 67% of these groups' emails opened on mobile devices, creating mobile-friendly emails is no longer optional; it's essential.
Poor design—such as hard-to-read text, images that won’t load, or hidden calls-to-action—can quickly lose your audience.
Responsive design adjusts emails to any screen size, keeping them mobile-friendly and easy to read.
Without mobile optimization, you risk frustrating users with a poor user experience, leading to clicks away or unsubscribes. And you don't want that.
Clean, simple email templates keep your audience engaged without overwhelming them.
Understanding the Importance of Mobile Email Design
Gen Z and millennials use their devices for everything—from TikTok to online shopping to studying for exams and emails.
That’s why focusing on mobile emails is key to keeping them engaged with your business.
Don’t be like Nut Butter’s TikTok channel—confusing your audience with unclear design and messaging.
A clean, mobile-friendly email makes it easy for your readers to connect with your content and take action.
Why Mobile Email Design Matters
Mobile-first user elements in your email marketing strategy will keep your audience hooked.
This not only means faster load times but also a clearer, improved user experience and content that’s easy to read on any screen or device.
Brands that optimize for mobile see a 15% increase in click-through rates, leading to better engagement overall.
The Rise of Mobile Email Usage
70% of consumers delete emails that don’t display correctly on mobile, and 43% have marked emails as spam due to poor mobile optimization. Ouch!
With such high negative statistics, it’s clear if your emails aren’t mobile-friendly, you’re losing your audience before they even read your message.
Key Elements of Effective Mobile Email Design
How can businesses turn this around, then? By focusing on a mobile-first approach to email design.
This means working on your layout, font, and buttons for call-to-actions (CTAs).
Mobile-First Approach to Design
With this type of approach, you guarantee emails will load quickly, look clean, and be functional for most of your clients who check emails on their smartphones.
Simplifying Layout and Content
With mobile-first email design, less is more. A minimalistic email format with focused content keeps your email clean, readable, and engaging.
You do this by:
Keeping Sentences and Paragraphs Short: Make content easy to scan using brief sentences and sections.
Minimizing Images: Only include essential images to avoid slow load times and clutter.
Reducing Clutter: Focus on one clear message per email, cutting unnecessary elements.
Using White Space: Add space between sections to keep content clean and focused.
Testing Responsive Design: Make sure your layout adjusts to different screen sizes.
The Teachable newsletter is always short, and to the point with minimal design elements and images. The email provides helpful links and 2-3 articles to read and is usually less than 500 words.
Optimizing Font Sizes and Styles
When designing emails for mobile, font size and style play a huge role in readability. Picking the right combination makes your content easy to consume without making users zoom in or struggle to read.
Here are a few guidelines to follow:
Use Simple Fonts: Stick to basic, easy-to-read, accessible web fonts like Tahoma, Helvetica, or Verdana, which are clear on smaller screens.
Avoid Script Fonts: Decorative or script fonts may look pretty, but they can be hard to read on mobile devices.
Limit Font Styles: To keep things clean and consistent, use no more than two different fonts in your email.
Have Text Contrast: The font color should contrast well with the background for better visibility, especially on smaller screens.
Keep Line Spacing Generous: Provide enough space between lines of text to avoid a cramped look and make scanning easier.
Designing Clickable CTAs and Buttons
One of the most important parts of your mobile email template is the CTAs and buttons. As a business owner, focusing on those types of conversions is vital when working on high-return tasks.
Here’s how to optimize your CTAs and buttons for mobile – and better conversions:
Make Buttons Large and Tappable: Make buttons big enough for users to easily tap without zooming.
Use High Contrast: Choose colors that make your CTAs stand out from the background.
Limit Text on Buttons: Keep the CTA short and action-focused, like "Buy Now" or "Get Started."
Place CTAs Strategically: Position buttons in easily accessible spots near the top or after key content.
beehiiv has made it simple to customize and optimize your CTA buttons for email.
With several types of button copy like subscribe, read online, or unsubscribe, and sizes, you can test several iterations to increase conversions with your emails.
Best Practices for Mobile Email Design
Despite the growing necessity of mobile email optimization, 27% of businesses fail to prioritize mobile responsiveness in their email marketing strategy.
Since 73% of emails are responsive, this lack of optimization means these businesses are missing key opportunities for engagement and conversion.
Prioritizing Content for Mobile Users
With smaller screens and shorter attention spans these days, you must make every word count in your marketing email. This means arranging mobile content, leading to better conversions and overall engagement.
You do this by:
Putting Key Information at the Top: Start with the most important content—users should see your main message or CTA without scrolling.
Using Clear Headers: Break up sections with bold, simple headlines that guide the reader’s attention and make content easier to scan.
Sticking to One Goal Per Email: To avoid overwhelming the reader, keep the focus on one main objective, like a sale or webinar signup.
Using Visual Hierarchy: Highlight important text by increasing its size or bolding key points, such as your headline or product features, so they stand out more than supporting details.
Using Scalable Images and Media
With 62% of users less likely to purchase from a brand if their mobile experience is slow, having scalable images and media can make or crush your business.
Here’s how to make sure your images and media are responsive for mobile:
Use Responsive Images: Pick an email service provider that uses images that resize automatically for different screen sizes.
Compress Images: Reduce file size without losing quality to speed up load times. A tool like TinyPNG can do this.
Choose Web-Optimized Formats: Stick to formats like JPEG or PNG for better performance.
Test on Multiple Devices: Ensure images load properly across various devices and screen sizes.
Lazy Load Images: Load images only as the user scrolls to them, which improves initial load times.
Implementing Responsive Design Techniques
If you know a thing or two about using CSS, you can focus on responsive designs to create emails that look great on any device.
For example, media queries allow specific styles based on screen size, so your layout adjusts for mobile, tablet, or desktop.
When writing media queries, focus on common device widths used by your audience to ensure the best display.
For instance, applying CSS media queries can help you customize layouts, such as switching from multi-column designs on desktop to single-column designs on mobile for a seamless user experience.
Testing Across Multiple Devices and Platforms
You wouldn’t want to send an email that looks great on your desktop but ends up broken or unreadable on a smartphone, right?
Without testing, that’s exactly what could happen. So, before you send out your next promo email, make sure to check:
Formatting Issues: See if emails are consistent across various devices (smartphones, tablets, desktops).
Email Clients: Test with different email clients like Gmail, Outlook, and Apple Mail, since each renders emails differently.
Responsiveness: Verify that responsive design works as intended across screen sizes.
User Experience: Links, images, and CTAs should perform smoothly for all users, regardless of their device or platform.
Common Challenges in Mobile Email Design
After testing your emails, you may notice mistakes or challenges like smaller screens, unreadable text, or unformatted layouts.
Don’t let these common issues trip you up—small fixes can make all the difference in delivering a seamless experience to your audience.
Addressing Different Screen Sizes and Resolutions
When I started freelance writing in 2014, I had to write about email responsiveness. I had to check my emails on different screen sizes for some of those pieces to see how they looked.
This was my time to look at issues like:
The text becoming too small
Images breaking
Layouts not adjusting properly
If my email on my iPhone looked wonky, I had to address and fix it.
Fortunately, in current times, many email service providers (ESPs) —like beehiiv— have built-in customizations that automatically handle scalable fonts and responsive design.
Ensuring Consistency Across Email Clients
Not only did I check different screen sizes, but I also checked different email clients like Outlook or Gmail.
I learned that what looks perfect in Gmail might not look the same in Outlook. So, when I started my email list, I didn't use my email service provider's templates and went with a basic HTML version.
I didn’t want to risk my emails ending up broken or unreadable on platforms like Outlook or Yahoo if I used their templates.
Balancing Visual Appeal with Functionality
I was fine with my basic emails, but if your brand is vibrant and colorful, how can you balance your brand's identity with functionality?
For example, makeup and skincare brand Glossier is known for its authenticity, community-driven marketing, and memorable visual identity. You can see this perfectly on its Instagram page.
Glossier's mobile responsive emails highlight their signature soft pink in images and the footer email template so as not to overload or overwhelm their email subscribers with product images.
They also used a contrasting CTA button color to make them stand out.
Tools and Resources for Mobile Email Design
Creating mobile-responsive emails doesn’t have to be complicated if you have the right tools.
Email Design and Editing Tools
Let's look at the latest resources to help you design your emails for mobile.
With beehiiv, you can create email templates using your logos or images and create sections. This makes building mobile-optimized emails a breeze, even if you're just starting out.
To create a beehiiv template, go to Posts > Start Writing and click on the drop-down arrow to choose a blank document or use a template.
When you choose the template option, name your template and build your newsletter. Save your template and use it for your next newsletter.
While Canva is more of an image editing tool, it can also create web pages, sales letters, and emails.
Simply choose an email template from their library, customize it with your branding colors and message and then choose the embed option.
Copy the HTML code and paste it into your email service provider. Here's what it looks like in Kit.
You can also use BeeFree, an HTML email template builder that integrates with email service providers and marketing platforms like Klaviyo and Salesforce.
Testing and Preview Tools
With your email template all ready to go, it's time to test and preview your email across different platforms and clients. Here are some tools you can use to check your emails.
Litmus is an email testing tool that checks that your emails are responsive and displayed consistently across devices and email clients. It also offers customizable email templates that you can check for responsiveness across email clients.
Another email testing tool is Email on Acid. They offer a comprehensive preview of how your email will display across over 100 different clients and devices so you can catch any issues early.
beehiiv has built-in testing features, allowing you to preview your emails across different devices and check mobile optimization and consistent layouts.
You can view your email via mobile, desktop, web, and email.
Frameworks and Libraries for Responsive Design
You can use an email framework if you don't want the hassle of creating your business newsletter. These responsive templates automatically adjust to fit any screen size—whether it’s a mobile phone, tablet, or desktop.
Popular frameworks include Foundations for Email 2, MJML, and Maizzle.
Foundation for Emails 2 makes designing responsive emails a lot easier by simplifying the process with pre-built HTML templates and a grid that adjusts perfectly on any device.
With features like automatic CSS inlining and an adaptable layout structure, you can design professional emails faster while focusing on engaging your audience with quality content.
MJML is another framework that designs responsive emails by turning code into mobile-friendly HTML that adapts to any device.
The flexible tool lets you choose between an online editor for quick designs or a local setup with plugins for more control.
Either way, it allows you to focus on crafting effective emails without worrying about compatibility across different devices and email clients.
Stripo is perfect for creating emails quickly, whether you prefer drag-and-drop or HTML coding.
With over 1,500 ready-made templates, you can design, customize, and test your emails effortlessly. It goes beyond the basics by letting you add interactive content like mini-games and quizzes, all without needing coding skills, helping you engage your audience in a fun and dynamic way.
Plus, exporting to over 80 email service providers is seamless, so you can send your designs without extra hassle.
Example of Successful Mobile Email Design
What goes into a successful mobile email design? Let's examine what these businesses are doing to increase leads and conversions.
High-Converting Mobile Emails Case Study
Eternity Modern, a home décor brand, went from generating $0 to $289K per month in email revenue within a year.
They capitalized on their growing audience by implementing personalized, responsive emails and segmented campaigns through Klaviyo.
Initially, Eternity Modern had no email marketing strategy, but after collaborating with an agency, they created 9 mobile-first email flows like cart abandonment and post-purchase upsells.
They also increased campaign frequency from two to four times a week, particularly during holidays.
Combining these tactics with personalized touches in their emails and a well-structured segmentation strategy allowed Eternity to maximize conversions without overwhelming their audience.
Analysis of Key Design Elements
When looking at Eternity's success, key elements helped them achieve $289K per month in email revenue within a year.
Their emails used a simple design with plenty of white space.
This made it easier for mobile users to scan and navigate without feeling overwhelmed. Clean designs are important on mobile, where space is limited, and this helped ensure users focused on the key content and CTAs.
Their emails also featured contrasting large, tappable buttons, making it easy for mobile users to take action without struggling with zooming in.
Conclusion
With so many people checking emails on their phones, designing emails for mobile has become a no-brainer.
Simple layouts, responsive elements, and clear, tappable CTAs make your emails more user-friendly and boost engagement.
With beehiiv, you can easily implement these mobile-first strategies which will help you get better results from your email marketing efforts. Sign up today!
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