Email client market share refers to the distribution of email clients that users use to access and interact with their emails. It is the percentage breakdown of different email clients (such as Gmail, Apple Mail, Outlook, etc.) that people use to read and manage their emails. This information is important for email marketers as it helps them understand which email clients are popular among their audience. This knowledge enables marketers to optimize their email designs, coding, and overall email strategies to ensure their emails render correctly and are effective across various email clients.
Litmus, a company that provides email testing and analytics tools, reports on email client market share to help email marketers track trends and make informed decisions about their email campaigns. Litmus gathers data on email opens from various sources to determine the percentage of emails opened on different email clients.
The significance of email client market share lies in the fact that different email clients can have varying rendering capabilities and features. Therefore, email marketers need to tailor their email campaigns to ensure they look and function as intended across the most popular email clients. For example, an email that looks great on Gmail might not display the same way on Apple Mail if not properly optimized.
Apple’s Mail Privacy Protection (MPP), which came into effect in September 2021, has had a significant impact on email client market share analysis. MPP affects open tracking and data collection, making it more challenging for marketers to gather accurate information about open rates, open times, geolocation, and device usage for users who opt into MPP. This has led to a division of market share information into post-MPP and pre-MPP launch sections.
Knowing the email client market share helps marketers allocate resources effectively, prioritize email client compatibility, and create a seamless experience for their subscribers across various email platforms.