Trending topic: Kinetic Email
The website can do it, the email can't. Email marketing managers can sing a song about it. Or, as Justin Khoo writes on freshinbox.com:
Although HTML email has been around for almost as long as the web, email has often been regarded as the web's ugly stepchild. The inconsistent and outdated HTML support in email clients seem to reflect a mindset that as long as senders can place some images and text in an email, it's enough. Why ask for more? Apparently, email is not a medium for innovation.
But in addition to the more 'conservative' email programs, there are now email clients that fully or at least partially support advanced HTML5 and CSS3 code — this makes responsive email design possible. This is exactly where kinetic email design comes in: With the help of CSS code, kinetic email design integrates elements into marketing emails that were previously only known from websites: attractive image sliders, functioning tabs as navigation, eye-catching mouse-over effects and much more. This makes the email almost like a ready-to-send microsite. It sounds great! But how many websites does the email really need — and in which cases is it worth the effort?
Expenses and opportunities: When is kinetic email design worthwhile?
The term kinetic design has been buzzing around the blogosphere since July 2014 at the latest — thanks to a eye-catching email campaign from the British DIY company B&Q in collaboration with Oracle, which was enthusiastically received and disseminated by the email marketing community. The B&Q mailings not only impress with an attractive design, more content above the fold and completely new ways of interaction — the figures are also impressive.
But there is also a catch: Kinetic email campaigns are very complex to create and therefore significantly more expensive than “normal” mailings. In addition to a smartphone, tablet and desktop version, special cases must also be considered and fallbacks must be included for all devices and email clients that do not (completely) interpret the CSS properties used. In fact, the more conversions that the campaign achieves must be calculated against more spending to determine whether kinetic email design is really worthwhile for a company at the end of the day.
The game changer: the Gmail app on Android devices
One fact in particular is causing the profitability of kinetic email campaigns to fall further: On all recent Android devices starting with Android 5.0, the native Android Mail app is no longer pre-installed as standard, which shone with good support for interactive CSS elements, but only the Gmail app — and it does not interpret 'kinetic' code. While the B&Q mailings made a dazzling figure on smartphones with Android 4 in mid-2014, the same mailings on smartphones with Android 5 would probably only be shown in the fallback version in the Gmail app today.
Among desktop clients, Outlook for Windows in particular does not interpret kinetic CSS code and even the web clients from Gmail, Yahoo! and AOL currently only partially support kinetic code.
Kinetic design will therefore remain primarily a luxury for Apple users and (with minor restrictions) Windows Phone users in the foreseeable future. It is only worthwhile if your recipient base has appropriate usage patterns. (→ Overview of CSS support in email.)
How many websites does the email need?
2016 is therefore unlikely to be the year of kinetic email. Not only in B2B business, but also for B2C campaigns, the classic email design in combination with the good old landing page (which, by the way, can easily contain 'kinetic' elements!) simply prove to be faster in production, less expensive and therefore more profitable overall than the trendy but expensive kinetic email.
The kinetic design is likely to really come into play again if Android devices should once again have a mail app as standard that comprehensively interprets CSS3 — and when professional email marketing platforms offer kinetic templates that shorten the production time of kinetic mailings. For the B2B sector, Outlook for Windows in particular would one day have to support CSS3.
Does this mean that the email will remain “the web's ugly stepchild” in the new year? That doesn't have to be the case. Current trends in email design often do not convey completely new ideas, but primarily try to close the gap between what works in the browser — on the website, in the online shop, on social media portals — and what can be displayed in the inbox. But perhaps email doesn't become more attractive and successful as a marketing tool when it develops into the perfect microsite ready to send, but when it perfectly complements the other online channels.
Trying goes over studying!
- 3 steps to create an interactive email using CSS — freshinbox.com
