'Net Features : litmus

IE Rules Web-Based Email; Are You Testing?

Pete Prestipino — Tue, 26 Feb 2013 16:00:00 GMT

Research released late last month from Litmus indicates that most business and consumer users are actually accessing Web-based email through an IE browser.

According to Litmus, a provider of email testing and analytics tools, Internet Explorer continues to dominate for users checking Web-based email programs like Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo and AOL. In September 2012, IE garnered 51% of email browser use, following by Firefox (21%), Chrome (14%), and Safari (13%). Internet Explorer's reign may come to an end sooner rather than later, however. Litmus reports that Chrome adoption for email has nearly quadrupled since March 2011. In comparison, IE fell from 15 percent and Firefox fell 20 percent.

Testing the many variations of how your brand's information or product emails render under different browser and resolution scenarios (a service provided by Litmus consequently) is important in the pursuit of higher email engagement (clicks, shares, conversions) rates.

Read more from Website Magazine in the Email Experience channel.

Study Reveals Email Viewing Habits

Allison Howen — Mon, 19 Sep 2011 16:30:00 GMT

A new study shows that most people are still reading their emails through Outlook.

According to the study from Litmus, a company that tests and tracks email campaigns, mobile email usage is rising, while Web and desktop email is declining.

From July 2010 to July 2011, the use of mobile devices to read emails rose from 7 to 15 percent, while reading email on desktops declined from 55 to 53 percent, and the use of Webmail declined from 38 to 32 percent.

The study also shows that Outlook is the most popular avenue that people use to read their emails at 37 percent, followed by Hotmail with 11 percent, Yahoo Mail and the iPhone at 10 percent and Apple Mail at 8 percent.

AOL is last on the list for email opens, underneath Gmail, “Others” and the iPad, at only 1 percent.

However, while Gmail adaption rises, the use of other email services is dropping. Over the last year, the use of Yahoo mail dropped from 44 to 31 percent, and Hotmail dropped from 39 to 33 percent, yet the use of Gmail rose from 15 to 30 percent.

Additional statistics show that browser preference may have something to do with which email provider Internet users choose. Thirty percent of Google Chrome users also use Gmail, while 13 percent of Chrome users choose Hotmail, and 5 percent choose Yahoo.

Check out the graph below for more email viewing statistics:

Inbox Inspection Now Free for MailChimp Subscribers

Linc Wonham — Thu, 02 Jun 2011 16:21:00 GMT

MailChimp has announced that its popular Inbox Inspection tool is now offered free of charge for all monthly subscribers.

Inbox Inspections are a critical tool for email marketing, providing an accurate representation of how an email campaign will actually look in a reader’s email inbox. Since its original launch in 2007, more than 100,000 Inbox Inspection reports have been created. Inbox Inspection reports are now powered by Litmus, a leader in email rendering.

“We’re excited to partner with Litmus to power Inbox Inspections,” says MailChimp co-founder and CEO Ben Chestnut. “We are able to reduce our costs enough that we can offer the reports free of charge to our paid, monthly subscribers. We hope that more of our customers will take advantage of this feature now that it is free.”

Individual Inbox Inspection reports can also be purchased at $3 per test for Forever Free and Pay As You Go subscribers.
Litmus excels in fast rendering times and support for mobile devices. Litmus currently offers more than 34 variants of email clients as well as 12 spam filter checks.

In addition to the standard desktop and Web-based clients in both Internet Explorer and Firefox, Litmus also supports iPhone, iPad, Android, Blackberry, Symbian and Windows Mobile 6.5 views. To date Litmus has prepared over 45 million previews.