Dark Mode is a hot email topic right now within creative and developer circles, we’ve covered it in great depth within the code field here , and for designers here. But for marketers with increasing pressure to deliver more ££ with limited budgets, why should you care?

Let’s recap, what is Dark Mode?

• Your customers can choose to adjust their devices so that screens show reverse and darker colour schemes across every element and popular apps like Twitter, Facebook Messenger and Slack have followed suit giving users control over this.

• If your consumers are taking advantage of dark mode then your emails are automatically being adjusted - you as a brand don’t have control over this, you can just control how your email looks when adjusted.

• There is a good chance your customers are using this already. Clients and apps like Apple Mail, Outlook 19, Outlook.com, Gmail app and Outlook app are offering dark mode. These clients/apps make up a large % of every brand’s audience list according to Litmus. 

“I’m sure my customers aren’t using Dark Mode”

The question is how are your lovingly designed emails looking when it is being used? Unfortunately, Dark Mode is more widespread than you think. Ask around your business and you’ll find more people than you first thought are using it as their default - it isn’t just techies and younger audiences. Given the format, dark mode is great for anyone with light sensitivity and also for night-time workers/surfers since it’s easier to read content in a low light environment. At Action Rocket we have been running some internal testing around dark mode, which have revealed a range of usage from 2-15%. This may not appear as a high percentage alone, but depending on list size even a figure of 2% could equal a high amount of subscribers.

"What should I do?"

1. Firstly view your emails with your customer’s eyes, activate dark mode on all your devices to see what the experience is. Try to do this across as many representative devices and platforms as possible to see the scale of the issue.  

2. Once you know how your dark mode experience is, the next step is to understand the portion of your base this will affect. Who’s using it right now within your audience?

With this information you will be able to determine the significance to your brand and if you need to invest now and adapt your templates to accommodate. Dark mode isn’t going away and even if the significance is small it will give you time, but you will need to consider this as part of your future roadmap. Thankfully with dark mode you can apply a sliding scale on how accommodating you want to be within your code and design, from making your email look slightly better to being fully dark mode optimised.

Struggling to understand the impact?

If points one and two above leave you flummoxed we can help, we can audit one campaign to all CRM spectrum of emails to determine the impact of dark mode to your customers. Providing you with a report and advice on how to address any challenges.

We can help you figure out how many of your subscribers are using dark mode before taking the plunge on bespoke or lengthy dark mode support - we think you should have all the facts first before spending your budget on dark mode. Throughout Darktober and into 2021 our aim is to get every brand dark mode ready. We are helping brands review how dark mode affects them from a quick review, to in depth audits. As well as supporting updating your email design systems and bespoke templates, we have you covered. Just email hello@actionrocket.co and we will be in touch.