Building Emails For Android

Contrary to popular belief, Google’s Android is the most popular mobile operating system in the world, followed by Apple’s golden child iOS.

One might think that because of the systems popularity, email marketers would be the masters of Android communication. But this is another falsity, because the Android market lacks uniformity for all subscribers.

So what makes these devices so different than their competitors? A recent Litmus article breaks down the three key factors that impact how your email renders on Android.

The most important (and challenging) factor is the Android operating system. When a different version of the operating system is released, Android devices see low adoption rates because some devices are not eligible to upgrade to newer releases. As a result, most Android devices are running older platforms, rather than a shiny new system that remains consistent across millions of devices.

What does this mean for you? Email marketers have to design emails for the most recent Android release, the oldest system, and everything in between.

Secondly, email marketers must navigate various email clients. The first four operating systems came pre-installed with Google’s stock email app, leavings vendors with no choice but to provide the Android native email client, as well. When the fifth operating system was released, Google made it possible for vendors to use Android without being forced to integrate the default apps.

Today, Google’s apps developed for Android are still available to vendors and the public if they choose to forgo alternatives. According to Litmus, vendors like Samsung and Sony are free to use Google’s version of the email app and apply additional changes to said application. This ultimately means more fragmentation for email marketers.

Finally, Android screen size and resolution can give marketers serious headaches. Unlike the Apple iPhone family of 13 models that has only seven different screen sizes and six different resolutions, Android has upwards of 4,000 devices... so you can imagine the plethora of variables.

As it relates to email marketing, Litmus says, “screen size will give you an indication of which media queries to use if you want to optimize for a certain set of devices.”It’s simple math: the more screen sizes you’re optimizing for, the more complex your media query algorithms will become.

So what can you do to tackle the learning curve of Android and start implementing successful campaigns to those users? Utilize email analytics to determine how many of your subscribers are on Android, keep your code clean and concise to ensure your emails don’t look broken, and test your email before you send!

ResponseGenius software gives you full insight into what devices your customers are using to view your emails and lets you preview your emails across most clients/devices –including popular Androids.

Happy sending!