With the growth of mobile email, marketers should focus on the content in emails over appearance, according to a new study.

The report, ?Email on the Move: The Future of Mobile Messaging,? from Return Path looks at where, when and how email is most often read across webmail, desktop and mobile platforms. It found that mobile email viewership grew 81 percent between October 2010 and March 2001, with the growth coming at the expense of Webmail access.

?Undoubtedly, the rapid growth and adoption of smartphones and tablets is the biggest contributor of mobile email readership,? said Bryan Dreller, product manager at Return Path. ?As this adoption continues, we should expect mobile readership to increase.

?If the growth trend over the last six months is any indicator, we probably aren?t yet near a mobile saturation point,? he said.

Desktop's share of email readership remained steady.

The study also shows that iPad email viewership grew 15 percent. Return Path expects to continue to see this percentage grow in the coming months.

It is important that marketers adapt to the way consumers are viewing content, per Mr. Dreller. The tablet, for example, provides a larger viewing area and superb rendering capabilities, thereby making life easier for email designers.

Marketers must adapt
?With the rise of the tablet, Return Path expects to see less emphasis on making sure the email looks good and a return to the marketing adage of sending the right message at the right time,? he said.

?The ability to act on subscriber-level data is critical to developing a true 1:1 engagement experience.?

While mobile email access is growing, it is still a small piece of the overall pie.

The leading platform for viewing email is Webmail, which includes such email Web sites as Yahoo! Mail and Windows Live Hotmail, with 48 percent of the total. Desktop comes in at 36 percent of total viewership while mobile access is around 16 percent.

Microsoft Outlook, across all versions of the platform, has 63 percent of email views via desktop.

Return Path is an email certification and reputation monitoring company with its headquarters in New York.

The study also found that mobile email activity occurs more when people are on the move, with increased activity seen heading into the weekend. Mobile email use shows a relatively steady pattern throughout the week, with a rise in use beginning on Thursdays, increasing on Friday and Saturday, and tapering off on Sunday.

In comparison, desktop email use is high through the week and drops off dramatically on the weekends while Webmail use, like mobile email use, showing a big uptick over the weekend.

?A typical weekday engagement pattern might be to use desktop during the work hours, Web mail on a break, and mobile everywhere in between,? Mr. Dreller said.

?Mobile email empowers consumers to engage with emails in real-time and on the go; to read what they want, when they want,? he said.

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