Therefore, with readers checking their email from different devices and means, email needs to be formatted to have the same experience across all, in all situations. Subscribers need to feel like they're getting an organic experience and that it's been formatted for them, be it on a computer, phone, or even handheld tablet. When email formats genuinely render as native, they are more readable, more clickable, and successful email marketing campaigns achieve more success. This how-to write about is no different, as it will provide the means to make your email formatting responsive and truly feel native.

What does it mean to have a native email experience?

A native experience is one where users can access and interact with emails without aggravation, regardless of device. This is why so many subscribers will quickly unsubscribe from companies when their emails are misaligned or appear clunky in construction. A native email experience is one that can be viewed flexibly, navigated intuitively, read easily, and acted upon by a device-powered endeavor. Use an Email Warm-Up Tool to improve inbox placement and ensure these well-designed, native experiences actually reach your subscribers. Thus, with a native experience within emails rendering a positive impression for recipients, companies will have a better time with satisfied subscribers who engage at a higher level with a more positive impression of the brand overall.

What elements help create a native experience?

One of the primary elements to create an experience that feels native is responsive email design. Responsive email design is the automatically done action that changes how content appears on different types of devices, making images, layouts, and hierarchy seem as if intentional and aesthetically pleasing or organized. Responsive email design was established to guarantee marketers' success through automatically facilitated phenomena like fluid grids, flexible images, and even proportional typography which all contribute to a consistent appearance. The more an email can automatically adjust to whatever device it's being opened on, the easier the reading experience will be, thus fostering a more naturally-feeling experience overall.

Why should I consider mobile-first practices?

Because most people access email from their mobile devices before any other type of device, leveraging mobile-first design strategies ensures that the smallest screen is prioritized above all others. By focusing on what will look and work best for smaller screens, concise content, eye-catching subject lines and headers, prioritized CTA buttons simultaneously makes for intuitive usability for mobile users. Scaling those designs up to tablets and desktops will only benefit from designs/templates that align them similarly for a native-feeling experience no matter how or what size screen is being used. Ultimately, this fosters increased satisfaction and engagement.

Making Emails Touch-Friendly

Touch is a part of interaction when reading emails from mobile and tablets; therefore, touch-friendly design is necessary. Buttons should be large enough to touch, spacing between items that can be clicked should be ample, and pathways should be made obvious as visual cues. When a subscriber can easily touch and manipulate CTAs and interactive elements, they won't become annoyed with the effort, and everything will be easier, just as the capabilities of touch are required. Prioritizing this necessity to create an ease of experience for subscribers will only foster increased email engagement and a true native experience for mobile and tablet devices.

Using Web-Safe Fonts/Compatible with Devices

Fonts can be impactful and contribute to the readability of your email. Employ web-safe fonts or fonts associated with Google that are commonly found. If fonts are too stylized or specialized, they may not show up at all or show up differently depending on the device. Using fonts that are guaranteed to be rendered correctly across all devices enhances credibility, readability, and helps transform email into a native experience even if it's on other platforms.

Resizing Images for Loading Purposes

Images can enhance or detract from loading times and experiences. Resize images so they are not overly large, which detracts from proper loading for mobile or tablets. Ensure appropriate image formats that will be recognized across platforms and email domains, like JPG and PNG. This attention to detail ensures that the most visual of emails can load quickly and accommodate images that people will find well-placed and appreciated.

Implement Device-Specific Renderings When Appropriate

Implementing device-specific renderings dark mode, fluid rendering, responsive rendering helps create more of a native experience for an email. Features rendered for devices or apps show subscribers your email is for them and they’re valued with consideration for ease of use. Implementing device-specific renderings in the right place and at the right time enhances subscriber experiences and engagement as they gain features dedicated to them and feel like they belong.

Use Interesting Renderings that Also Keep It Basic

Emails feel most native when they’re not rendered to be overcomplicated. Make sure layouts are clear and not too busy, large blocks of text are not rendered so unreadable, and busy renderings will hinder usability. The more clear and basic the rendering appropriate content hierarchy, good white space, etc. the more natural it will feel, ready for smaller screens. Interesting renderings will help, but if basic simplicity and usage functionality are better for conversion, this will make the email feel more native and appreciated by subscribers.

Assess How Emails Render Across Email Clients and Devices

Assessing how emails render across email clients and devices is critical to at least making all your emails feel similar and potentially native across the board. Make sure to frequently assess how your emails look either through assessment programs or actual devices so rendering concerns can be addressed. For example, if the emails render the same way and compellingly on likely sources Gmail, Outlook, iOS Mail, Android frustration will be avoided. Assessing allows marketers to troubleshoot and amend any rendering concerns pre-launch to encourage flawless experiences for subscribers.

Maintaining Content Hierarchy Across Devices Allows for a Natural Flow of Reading and Action

Devices should never disrupt your ability to read and engage with emails, and maintaining content hierarchy across the board makes it easier. This is accomplished through maintaining a proper hierarchy of communication and paying attention to headers, paragraphs, and pacing. Essentially, you're guiding the reader's eyes to ensure that they go where you want them to go next naturally until they get to the ultimate call to action (CTA). Thus, devices no longer complicate content hierarchy for they will feel natural and commonly understood as people will appreciate what's being said the first time without second guesses based on device-dependent needs. They'll feel as if they are experiencing your email naturally from their location.

Brand Elements Create Credibility and Comfort Across Devices

Branding relies on colors, typography, logos, and imagery. These are all elements that should remain consistent across devices to encourage familiarity and brand recognition. The more that people see the same branding showcased in the same fashion across sections, the better they'll acknowledge the email as theirs and be more inclined to trust it. Your email gets legitimacy this way and feels like it's professionally put together for a natural experience. Thus, maintaining similar visual language across devices and options will allow subscribers to have familiar happenings that feel native elsewhere.

Educated Marketing Teams Will Understand Cross-Device Email Creation and What Feels Native

Perhaps the best way to ensure cross-device email creations remain successful and feel native is by educating your marketing team. Through regular workshops based on responsive design, mobile-first needs, device-heavy plausible elements, and readability issues, your team will know exactly what to do. Educated marketers mean wise creators who implement talented designs that feel authentic regardless of platform. This increases subscriber engagement as awareness is raised through emails that know exactly what they're doing and how to present themselves properly.

Using Subscriber Behavior to Make Design Improvements Ongoing

By studying subscriber response and behavior, marketers have the opportunity to make email design improvements on all devices on an ongoing basis. Review open rates, see what devices are trending for your audience, and explore where people hover and click naturally. Subscriber data empowers marketers to fulfill needs based on patterns, and designs can be adjusted for optimal efficacy the next time someone receives that email. When marketers have a strong focus on the details of what subscribers want, adjustments will ensure emails remain continuously successful, with satisfied recipients and effective marketing campaigns from Day 1 to Day Done.

Accessibility Ensures Everyone Feels Emails are Native

When creating a design that makes it feel native for everyone regardless of ability, accessibility is critical. Send emails with appropriate color schemes, user abilities, legible fonts, alt-text on images, and HTML that screen readers can appropriately navigate through. When emails are designed for accessibility, everyone will feel them as native whether they use different abilities or have different skills. Therefore, the more an experience can be inclusive, the better the response. Accessible designs cast a wider net to those with different abilities, and people trust brands that let everyone work with their message to find success.

Load Time Makes the Experience Feel More or Less Native

When emails take too long to load, people get so frustrated they'll never want to see that message again. Whether it overloads photos, unnecessary graphics, or excessive coding, be sure to think of anything that might delay the loading process especially when viewed in worse connections or via mobile. Content should be mindful of size, and overly complex structures simplified so that anyone can have a good experience in almost no time. The faster an email loads, the easier it is to work with and avoid frustration, which makes people feel better about the experience no matter what device they use.

Adapting Interactive Elements for Multiple Devices

These types of elements, sliders, carousels, things like expandable sections make a project interactive but only when they function across every medium and with every interaction. Be thoughtful and intentional about the interactivity you design, the transition from desktop to mobile view, and creating the simplest version for every touchscreen interaction. Also, avoid any interactivity that won't translate across top email clients. When you compensate for interactivity in a subtle way, you establish consistency which contributes to a seamless, enjoyable, and natural email experience and therefore, better engagement.

Conclusion

Ensuring devices' native emails across the board is crucial for the effectiveness of email marketing; with more devices and platforms used simultaneously than ever before, subscribers are working across screens and channels. If someone receives an email that's beautiful on their iPhone but not on their iPad, for example, it'll frustrate them, impeding any conversion efforts. Yet with responsive design tactics, everything can be devices native, rendering images, colors, text, and layouts effective across the board based on a subscriber's needs color saturation on smaller screens or a header that automatically adjusts based on how wide the tablet is proportionately. Seamless engagement occurs when devices and platforms render effectively without issue as they collaborate across the spectrum.

In addition, mobile-first approaches enhance effectiveness as well. Using an email content render where mobile is first and subsequently enhances for tablet and desktop gives room to incorporate touch-friendly buttons, little clutter in the email body with larger graphics and headlines that pop and condensed messaging. Not only will people appreciate this while using mobile, but the same enhancements translate nicely into desktop abilities with better readability and ability to engage. Thus, as consumers work between mobile, tablet, and desktop, providing mobile-first creations enables consistency and ease.

Readability is an important factor to make emails feel native across devices as well. Web-safe fonts, appropriate contrast between foreground and background, spacing, and hierarchy all help consumers scan and digest with relative ease from one device to another. When they've got what they need because it was rendered with effective readability options, it allows for action people can find the call-to-action instead of succumbing to cognitive overload and deletion much easier and they feel much more at home with the interaction.

Finally, consistent improvement from design elements comes via testing. Email effectiveness is measured on open rates and CTRs; subscriber input assesses what people deem from their engagement with the emails. By maintaining some ongoing dialogue with performance metrics and opportunities for opens (and render or usability challenges thereafter), email practitioners understand what they can do for the future to render things even better. Consistent testing and improvements are key since devices evolve over time as does hidden subscriber feedback.

Ultimately, effective design elements that encourage deeper engagement not only boost conversion rates but deepen subscriber relationships while improving effectiveness across the board for multi-platform marketing. When subscribers feel secure within their devices and know they can expect beautiful, integrated opportunities at all turns with one brand's emails, they'll convert, remain loyal, and engage again and again.