Creating mobile devices is no easy task. For that reason, responsive emails are a tempting alternative to their non-responsive counterparts. However, the decision between the two is not so cut and dry.
According to research by YesMail Interactive, an email marketing solutions provider, responsive emails are more than twice as likely to be opened compared to non-responsive emails. Yesmail's analysis also found that mobile emails employing responsive design fare far better than non-responsive emails opened on mobile devices. Of all emails opened on a mobile device, 11.9 percent of responsive emails are clicked, compared to 9.8 percent of non-responsive messages - a 21 percent increase in the click-to-open rate for responsive layouts. While a 21 percent higher CTO rate is something that marketers would go head over heels for, responsive emails do have a downside.
According to Litmus.com, responsive emails are not supported by all applications. The major applications that do support responsive emails are the iOS Mail app, the Android 4.x Email app as well as the Blackberry 7 and Z10 mail apps. The major applications that do not support responsive emails are the Windows Phone 7 and 8 mail apps as well as the Gmail and Yahoo! Mail apps which do not support responsive emails on any device.
Editor's Note: This post has been updated to reflect accurate numbers.