{"id":3442,"date":"2021-08-11T12:16:58","date_gmt":"2021-08-11T16:16:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.litmus.com\/blog\/why-testing-the-rendering-of-every-email-you-send-increases-your-roi\/"},"modified":"2024-08-20T15:08:42","modified_gmt":"2024-08-20T19:08:42","slug":"why-testing-the-rendering-of-every-email-you-send-increases-your-roi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.litmus.com\/blog\/why-testing-the-rendering-of-every-email-you-send-increases-your-roi","title":{"rendered":"Why Testing the Rendering of Every Email You Send Increases Your ROI"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\t
\n
\n \t
\n \t\t
\n \t\t\t
\n \t\t\t\t

Email design is a moving target. Whether marketers like it or not, it\u2019s impossible to create a single email design because the rendering of any individual email changes depending on the email client and screen size used to view it, on top of\u00a0 many other factors.<\/p>\n

Recent research shows up to 300,000 different potential renderings<\/a> for each email you send. The challenge is to manage and control that variability through savvy coding and design. And you can\u2019t do that if you\u2019re not testing the rendering and functionality of every email you create.<\/p>\n

While doing this takes extra time and costs, the effort is well rewarded. Email programs that test every email they send report generating an average return on investment (ROI) of 40:1, whereas programs that never test report an average ROI of 34:1, according to our CMO\u2019s Guide to Email ROI<\/a>.<\/p>\n\"Chart\n

Even beyond ROI, email preview testing correlates strongly with success. For example, marketers who describe their email marketing programs as very important to company success are 95% more likely than those with programs not important to success to test every email they send (41% vs. 21%), according to our 2020 State of Email research.<\/p>\n

\n\n\n\n
\"The<\/td>\n\n

Email issues that make you shudder<\/strong><\/p>\n

Take a deep dive into the most common issues that will break your emails, find out the impact on your email marketing program, and get practical tips & tricks to create on-brand, error-free emails. Every time.<\/p>\n

Download the ebook \u2192<\/a><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

3 reasons for vigilance<\/h2>\n

Marketers should be constantly on the lookout for changes in email rendering because there\u2019s variability in all three links in the chain between you and your subscriber.<\/p>\n

1. Inbox providers, devices, operating systems, and browsers change routinely<\/h3>\n

New operating systems (OSs) and devices are announced, so we generally have a good heads up about those changes and can be on alert to possible impacts on our email designs.<\/p>\n

That said, the market share of new OSs and devices are not always so evident. The adoption of new Apple OSs tends to be fairly rapid, but the adoption of Microsoft Windows and Google Android OSs is much slower. So marketers need to know not only the effect of a new OS or device but also the market share<\/a> of it among their email subscriber audience. To find yours, use a tool like Litmus Email Analytics<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Industry-level market share is helpful as a general barometer of adoption, but knowing usage rates of all of the various email clients among your unique audience is key if you\u2019re going to make sound email design and coding decisions.<\/p>\n

While OS, browser, and device changes are quite public, the changes made by inbox providers often go unannounced. Our research shows there\u2019s an email app update every 1.2 days<\/a> on average.<\/p>\n\"How-often-do-email-apps-change-calendar\"\n

Generally, marketers stumble across changes in code support at inbox providers and start talking and asking questions about them on Twitter and various forums before they\u2019re being written about on industry blogs.<\/p>\n

2. Your email service provider can make changes that affect the code of your emails<\/h3>\n

Your email service provider (ESP) will strip out code it doesn\u2019t support, as well as code that it or inbox providers consider vessels for malicious payloads, such as <embed> tags and JavaScript.<\/p>\n

This sometimes surprises marketers\u2014and caught Litmus off guard one time quite spectacularly, breaking our first live Twitter feed email<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n

@litmusapp<\/a> something went wrong… #TEDC15<\/a> pic.twitter.com\/IFU3t4L4y2<\/a><\/p>\n

— Elliott Rounsavall (@elleeott) May 21, 2015<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n