When the Blackberry first came out, it was quickly dubbed the “crackberry” because mobile email access was so addictive.  Now with ubiquitous smart phones, we’re all email addicts to some extent.

So it’s no surprise that now over 40% of email opens are on mobile devices, and mobile is on track overtake the PC this year.  It’s pretty amazing when you consider the smartphone, as we know it, was launched less than 6 years ago.

Mobile and Web are blurring together, slowly ceasing to be distinct “things” (I’ve written before about a mobile strategy for Web sites).  This trend suggests some best practices for emails:

• Format emails for mobile.  This is basic stuff that a lot of designers seem to mess up.  Make sure emails open and render well on mobile devices.

• Mobile-optimize email click-through landing pages and flows.  If users are reading emails on mobile devices, they’re also clicking through links on mobile devices.  Check your Web usage stats:  you might find that a significant percentage of your site usage by mobile users is coming from email click through paths.  Nothing kills the user experience like a landing page that hasn’t been mobile formatted.