3 Tips to Improve Your Tablet Email Design

You know how important it is to design emails for mobile devices. But "mobile" doesn't just mean optimizing email design for smartphones; tablet email design is just as important. It's likely that a sizable portion of your subscriber list reads email on their tablets, so it's time to brush up on how to design emails better for tablet view.

Tablet vs. Smartphone: What's the difference?

While tablets are mobile devices, they aren't the same as smartphones. Two important distinctions stand out: tablets are not actually used in a very "mobile" capacity, they're typically used at home, where people are more task-oriented; and tablet screens are more like desktops, with content consumed on a wider, larger landscape screen. In other words, tablets act as smaller, slimmer laptops, used on the couch, at the dining room table, or in the kitchen.

Conversion rates on tablets are higher than on smartphones

Conversion rates are still the highest offline, with 82% of customers choosing to purchase in-store, 45% on home desktop or tablet, and 17% on mobile phone. In other words, readers using tablets may be more likely to make a purchase via email than those using a smartphone. Other research found that 28% of mobile purchases are made via tablet, vs. 16% via smartphone.

Users engage in more reading and watching on tablets

Tablet users are more likely to be found reading or watching content on their devices. The data suggests that tablet owners may view their devices more as entertainment hubs, while smartphone owners are more likely to use them as information sources.

An important note: the value of segmentation

It's important to note that UK readers are much more likely to read email on tablets than their US counterparts — a massive 25% of emails are opened on tablets in the UK, compared to 15% in the US. If you know a high portion of your readers are UK-based, you can design a tablet-optimized email version for that group and test the results.

So what does all this mean for tablet email design?

Tip #1: Make purchases easy (with live shopping carts and/or great CTA buttons)

We know that tablet users may be more likely to make a purchase on their device compared to smartphone users. As email designers, we can make sure an email's add-to-cart or purchase process is seamless. Image carousels and product tours in emails allow readers to tap on images and buttons to get more information instead of waiting for a landing page to load, and this kind of in-email browsing may have the potential to go a lot further on tablets than on smart devices. Even though tablet screens are bigger than smartphone screens, buttons must still be designed to be tapped with a finger, so make sure your CTA buttons are bulletproof, pass the squint test, and have action-oriented text.

Tip #2: Get interactive with your content

Because tablet users seem more likely to spend time with your content than smartphone readers, you have an opportunity to get interactive. This may mean making email browsing easier with a hamburger menu, or offering different types of content like an in-email video. For brands with blogs or newsletters, you could also consider providing more content directly in email, improving navigability by including anchor links and following newsletter design best practices.

Tip #3: Apply mobile-optimization best practices

While readers may treat tablets more like laptops than smartphones, emails still perform best on tablets when they're mobile-optimized:

• Single column layout
• Large-sized, easy-to-read content
• Minimalistic design (no complex headers, no clutter)
• Tap-friendly navigation and bulletproof buttons (with appropriate padding)
• Smaller image file sizes (allowing for quicker load times)
• High-contrast design for mobile screens set to low brightness
• A mix of text and images (avoid using only images in emails, and make sure to use great ALT text description)