We looked at more than 137 million email opens recorded on Contactology servers in the first quarter of 2013. The data shows the continuation — and possibly the acceleration — of a trend we saw at the end of 2012: Opens on mobile devices are gaining on opens with desktop and laptop computers.

In October of 2012, mobile opens accounted for 33 percent of the total. In March 2013, mobile devices were used to open 43 percent of all emails sent through Contactology servers.

"Mobile" continues to increase its market share of email opens.

Among Desktop email clients, Outlook and Apple Mail are the most commonly used, accounting for more than half of all Desktop opens. Among web-based clients, Gmail is the most commonly used.

Apple's iPhone and iPad continue to dominate recorded email opens with Android devices in third place.

Email opens are recorded when recipients load the images in a message or when a recipient clicks on a link. Because email clients handle images differently by default, some clients are likely under-represented in the opens data.

The official new Simple Contactology Signup email plugin for WordPress makes it even easier to embed your signup form on your blog or website.

The free WordPress email plugin makes it a snap to embed signup forms for any of your Contactology lists on your site. You don't need any coding expertise or programming skills to link your Contactology account to WordPress. And embedding forms is as simple, either with a short code or by embedding a widget.

Use the signup form to capture a new subscriber and then increase engagement or reward your new fan with a triggered autoresponder message that sends when subscribers join a list. Just create a Triggered Campaign to send when a subscriber is added to the list.

Embedding a signup form with the plugin is just the start. You can completely customize the dimensions and appearance of your signup form. Add some color and effects to make that subscription even more inviting.

Website signup forms are one of the easiest — and most effective — ways to grow your email marketing opt-in list. (Get More Tips for Growing your List). The WordPress email plugin for Contactology makes it even easier to find new subscribers.

WHO: The Parents’ Campaign is a nonprofit advocacy organization that is dedicated to improving student achievement in Mississippi. The group formed in 2006 when a group of parents decided to directly share their wishes for public schools with legislators.

Today, The Parents’ Campaign is a statewide network of 60,000 members. The organization advocates its own legislative agenda and rallies support for policies that will help student achievement by urging members to contact their legislators.

WHAT: The organization uses email to keep parents informed. Typical email content includes important updates about particular bills and summaries of key issues.

"Our job is to provide information to folks," said Cindy White, director of communications and member services. "What we want to do is move people to become involved in the process."

Campaigns often urge subscribers to call their legislators. To help lower hurdles for busy parents, email messages include for each subscriber the correct legislative contact information, making email content personal and relevant to recipients.

"Our goal is to try to make it as easy as possible," White said.

HOW: At signup, The Parents’ Campaign collects subscriber addresses as well as other information such as school district. The name and contact information for the correct representatives and senators can then be stored as Custom Fields for individual subscribers.

"Mail merge" tokens can then be included in a campaign so that the correct legislator’s name and number will appear in the message. For subscribers who don't have the data, The Parents’ Campaign sends a more generic message that includes a link to look up the correct information.

Personalized Email Content Helps Improve Results

Every message comes from the organization's executive director. Replies from members go right to her inbox.

"That really is a good way of gauging where people are. When people get fired up, they let us know," White said.

Other special segmented campaigns are sent just to educators or government officials.

It’s tricky to accurately track how often subscribers pick up the phone and call their legislator. But evidence suggests The Parents’ Campaign is making a difference for children. Legislators frequently mention that they've heard from Parents’ Campaign members. The organization has celebrated several important legislative victories in recent sessions.

The Parents’ Campaign is really just getting started using email content and other communications tools to engage subscribers and help improve Mississippi student achievement. Future plans include new ways to segment and track engagement.

"I see a lot of possibilities there and ways we can explore new options," White said.

We recently came across a campaign in which one of our favorite clients sent identical content to two different lists.

Why bother segmenting in your email marketing, you might ask, if the content is going to be the same? Good question. Turns out, this campaign was part of a long-term, methodical approach to improving email marketing ROI with marketing personas.

We say this all the time, but it bears repeating: The power of email marketing is in your ability to have a conversation with your subscribers. You don't have to just push your message out to them. You can use the data you have about them to deliver a relevant message that they want to hear.

There's another way to say this: Your subscribers are not all alike, and email marketing offers the tools to figure out what will motivate individuals within the larger group.

That's why we were excited to see the results of this recent campaign.

Optimizing with Marketing Personas

A little background: In this case, we are talking about an online retailer that has created three customer personas, or segments, based on buying frequency. (We're keeping things a little vague here because the client doesn't want to reveal effective email marketing tactics to competitors).

The customer marketing personas are based on how often customers buy.

At the high end of the range is Group A, brand loyalists who buy all the time.

The middle tier, Group B, are frequent customers, but may need a push with a special offer to convert.

The third tier, Group C, includes occasional purchasers as well as subscribers who have never bought anything.

So for a recent product release, the client sent one campaign to each of the marketing personas. The brand enthusiasts were offered a collectible item featuring the brand's logo. The other two groups were both offered free shipping.

So why, if Groups B and C were offered the same thing, would you still bother to keep the campaigns separate?

The answer can be found in the results of that campaign.

Group B, our occasional purchasers, responded favorably to the free shipping offer. Group C responded with a resounding "meh." There's more work to do to find that right incentive or offer to motivate these casual subscribers. It may be that a 4 percent click through rate is as good as it gets, but the only way to find out is to try a different type of offer on the next campaign. Either way, there's now a benchmark established for Group C with the free shipping offer.

And what about Group A? When you round those percentages, Group A and Group B had an identical response rate. Those strikingly similar results on totally different offers suggests that this retailer has perfectly dialed in what motivates its brand fans and its semi-regular customers with previous campaigns.

The important and vital lesson here is that understanding what motivates your customers requires seeing them not as one big group of people. Creating personas is a first step toward having an effective conversation with your subscribers. You'll be able to run better tests and repeat your successes over time. Your subscribers will reward your work with more opens, clicks and even purchases.

WHO: Air Filters Delivered is an online retailer specializing in home air filters including hard-to-find and custom sizes.

WHAT: Air Filters are a disposable product and the challenge for Air Filters Delivered was to get customers to reorder when their supply runs out — months or even years after the original purchase.

"We're in a business where we want customers to re-order, and we have a disposable product," said Ben Kreinbrink, director of information technology. "We felt like we needed a solution to do that."

The solution was a marketing automation strategy built with autoresponders. Messages remind customers at the appropriate time to change their filters. And when customers are just about to run out of filters, a new message urges them to reorder.

HOW: Creating a marketing automation strategy for Air Filters Delivered was deceptively simple, Kreinbrink said.

During checkout, customers are asked how often they plan to change their filters. That key piece of information allows Air Filters Delivered to communicate with their customers on a more individualized basis.

A simple autoresponder campaign reminds customers that it's time to change their filter on the schedule they prefer. Those campaigns aren't asking for anything and are meant to be a free service for customers.

"I’ve heard some positive results about that," said Inside Sales Manager Krissy Davis. "Customers have said, ’I'm glad you guys sent those out because I would forget to change my air filter.‘"

Since Air Filters Delivered knows how many filters a customer ordered and how often they intend to change them, estimating when a customer is about to run out of filters is a simple process.

A perfectly timed reminder prompts customers to re-order. The results have been a phenomenal success, Davis said. A recent single day of triggered campaigns led to $1,383 in sales, she said.

"It’s an inexpensive and effective way to continue draw previous customers back to our site, and it eliminates the need to reconvert through paid search," she said.

Our Own Will Elliott Leads a Roundtable Discussion

For email marketing nerds like us, a week at Marketing Sherpa’s Email Summit was like celebrating all the major holidays and a few birthdays all at the same time with lots of great insight on email optimization techniques thrown in.

Here are 10 of our favorite insights from the summit:

• There are no expert marketers; Only experienced marketers and expert testers. (Flint McLaughlin, MECLABS)
• If you are only sending discounts, you're like a telemarketer using email to make your phone calls. (Panel Session — Email Art & Copy)
• Look at your emails and ask, "Is there any communication with the customer, or am I just interrupting their day?" (McLaughlin)
• The ABCs of your copy: Audience (Who am I writing for?) Benefit (Why should they care?) Call to Action (What do I want them to do here?) (Donna Krizik, Crestwood Associates)
• 58 percent of adults in the US check email first thing on the morning. (Jay Baer, Convince and Convert)
• Use email engagement to adjust spending on other marketing channels — Lower interest in a particular product or service could indicate a need to increase spending in other areas. (Will Elliott, Contactology)
• The goal of a subject line is similar to the goal of the opening scene of a movie — to arrest the visitors attention and to convert this attention into interest. (McLaughlin)
• Focus on metrics that matter: open rate, click through rate, landing page conversion rate and close rate. (Ellie Mirman, Hubspot)
• The goal of a test is not simply to get a lift (in opens, clicks), but rather to learn something about your campaigns / subscribers. (Austin McCraw, Meclabs)
• Don't be afraid to use a personal, conversational tone… even in B2B. "Companies are People." (Matt Bailey, SiteLogic)

Were you at Email Summit? Add your favorite insights to the comments.

We examined the devices, desktop and webmail clients used in more than 125 million opens from October through December of 2012.

The iPhone accounted for more than 19 percent of all opens. Various versions of Outlook and Apple Mail were tied for the second most popular email client, each with 11 percent of overall opens.

"Desktop" email clients including dedicated email software applications and webmail providers are still used more frequently (56 percent) than mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets (44 percent). But mobile appears to be gaining — mobile opens increased in both November and December.

Contactology records information about the client that’s used to open an email marketing message. Statistics for individual email campaigns are always available to Contactology users in the Email Client Report.

The data used to calculate the most popular email clients represents all opens and clicks across Contactology direct and white label clients.

Opens are recorded when the images in an HTML message load or when a recipient clicks a link in the message. It's not always possible to record which client is used to open the message. Certain email clients, such as Gmail, do not load images by default, which could skew the results.

Outlook and Apple Mail accounted for more than half of all desktop opens. Among non-mobile devices, Gmail (18 percent) and Yahoo! Mail (15 percent) were the most popular web mail clients.

Among mobile devices, Apple's iPhone and iPad rule the landscape — together they accounted for 81 percent of all opens. Android devices accounted for 17 percent of mobile devices and 7 percent of all opens.

An Autoresponder Message from SmartFile

You can also use an autoresponder to send messages timed to a specific date, such as a birthday or significant event such as a subscription expiration or renewal.

Welcome messages sent with an autoresponder help establish your brand and the general look and feel of your email campaigns. They reward your new subscriber's interest and help your messages stand out in a crowded inbox.

They work. Marketing Sherpa found in its 2012 Email Marketing Benchmark Report found that 43 percent of marketers found triggered messages to be "very effective." Welcome campaigns accounted for the majority of messages sent with autoresponders.

Let's take a look at two very different — and very effective — triggered messages that both build subscriber engagement.

Autoresponders Support Sales

SmartFile uses a series of triggered messages, known as a Drip Campaign, to help explain the benefits and values of its software, a business-class file sharing and FTP solution.

Throughout the series, SmartFile trial account users receive messages highlighting product features, how-tos, company and brand information, demos and special offers.

The series was designed around the data SmartFile has about its customer buying cycle, said Kevin O'Keefe, Internet Marketing Manager for SmartFile.

"We’re constantly refining our data," he said. "Everything we do we try to have a metric around it."

Each message includes a small calendar reminding the recipient that the trial period is drawing to a close.

"They see it as a countdown. It gives them a sense of urgency about making a decision."

SmartFile’s drip series is set up to automatically stop sending if a customer upgrades their account. The company plans even deeper integrations for the future that will allow even more specific, targeted Autoresponder messages that will use SmartFile account data to deliver highly personal messages.

A Personal Touch

An Autoresponder Message from Red Tricycle

Red Tricycle uses its autoresponder message to start a conversation.

The free newsletter is dedicated to helping parents have more fun with their kids.

Subscribers receive a simple, text-only message from Founder and CEO Jacqui Boland. The message offers a little history about the company and its values. It urges readers to provide feedback, and since word of mouth is an effective channel for list growth, a call to spread the word about Red Tricycle.

"If you want to see more (or less) of something, let us know. Also, if you like what we're doing, please tell your friends."

The Autoresponder message includes no links. Replies go straight to Boland's inbox.

Boland told us recently the simple, personal response makes an impression.

"I get so many people who just generally appreciate that," Boland said.

WHO: Mitzvah Market is the leading resource for moms who are planning a Bar or Bat Mitzvah.

Founder Sheri Lapidus discovered a lack of helpful resources when she was planning her daughter’s Bat Mitzvah in 2008. For practical party planning advice, she turned to other moms who had been through the process. She launched Mitzvah Market to deliver that same Mom-to-Mom advice to others.

"There are a lot of different ways you can celebrate your child's milestone event," Lapidus said. "We’re giving you all these ideas for you to tailor and make your own."

WHAT: Mitzvah Market built its reputation and loyal fan base through great email content.

Mitzvah Market delivers email newsletters twice a week. Email content includes theme ideas, vendor spotlights, from-the-party recaps, venue reviews, Mitzvah project resources and more.

Planning and executing a successful Bar or Bat Mitzvah starts a long time before the actual event and not all content will be relevant to all readers. For example, parents who are still choosing a date for the event won't yet be ready to look at DJs or caterers.

"All of our readers are at a different stage. We like to fill the newsletter with a variety of information," she said.

Newsletters include editorial content as well as advertising messages. The design choices, from colors to photos to graphics, keep things lively and fun — it's all about the party after all.

Readers reward the diversity and quality of all that email content with consistently high open rates. Advertisers love the subscriber engagement and click-thru rates.

HOW: Lapidus believes in giving her readers what they want. Mitzvah Market has refined it’s winning content mixture by remaining committed to listening to the feedback from readers through her email campaign reporting.

"I think we've done a good job of knowing our reader and providing valuable content," Lapidus said. "Through Contactology we can see what is most popular. When we see an area that readers really like, we do more of that."

Mitzvah Market is primarily about all the work leading up to the Bar or Bat Mitzvah. But subscribers don't unsubscribe just because the party is over. Again, Lapidus attributes that success to quality email content.

"Sometimes they just stick around us because a lot of our ideas work for other types of events."

Contactology team members swapped "@" symbols for paint brushes and rollers for a few hours to celebrate Martin Luther King Day.

The project — painting a computer lab at the Salvation Army Boys & Girls Club in Durham — was the right way to commemorate Dr. King's legacy, said Drew Adams, Contactology CEO and co-founder.

"MLK Day offers an opportunity to do something for someone else," Adams said. "We also had a lot of fun working together outside of the office."

Contactology would like to thank the Salvation Army and the United Way of the Greater Triangle for the opportunity to serve.

We’ve posted a few more pics on Facebook. Check out the gallery.