A third of email marketers still haven’t adopted responsive design, according to a Litmus report released Friday.

The email testing and optimization company polled 3,500 marketers in the2017 State of Email Creative  report to evaluate trends in email creative strategy. Although the majority of email marketers have now embraced some type of responsive email design, whether adaptive, hybrid, or traditional, the Litmus study suggests that a stubborn few have yet to adopt an email design that will be viewable on any device.

Unlike print or web design, email is uniquely constrained by the email client and screen size used to view it. Responsive design enables marketers to ensure their emails can always be viewed, but a lack of responsive design could result in unreadable content, such as images and GIFs being disabled.

Mobile rendering is now an essential component of email design, particularly as the majority of emails are now read on mobile devices.

Litmus also surveyed marketers on the top brands that inspire their email creative, aggregating the results to pinpoint the top 30.

30 Brands that inspire email marketers:

1. Apple

2. InVision

3. HubSpot

4. MailChimp

5. Amazon.com

6. Airbnb

7. Nike

8. Starbucks

9. Uber

10. J.Crew

11. Sephora

12. REI

13. ASOS

14. Chubbies

15. Email on Acid

16. Moo

17. Really Good Emails

18. Kate Spade

19. Campaign Monitor

20. Netflix

21. Adobe

22. Loft

23. theSkimm

24. Code School

25. Huckberry

26. Nest

27. Action Rocket

28. Evernote

29. Patagonia

30. Virgin Airlines

Google Chrome, one of the most popular web browsers in 2017, will begin allowing users to start blocking ads in February 2018. While Chrome runs on a variety of platforms, such as iOS, it's most popular on devices running Android. 

The move prompted Free Adblocker Browser (FAB), a mobile browser for Android with a built-in ad-block feature, to survey U.S. consumers as to why they block ads, what they do when they see ad block walls or requests to subscribe, and how they think publishers should make money.

About 17% of all FAB users are in the U.S. and spend on average 50 minutes browsing. The findings reveal 43.3% of survey respondents think publishers should only make content available to those who pay. Nearly 57% believe that ads should be the main source of the publisher's revenue.

Mobile advertising took 54% of total digital ad revenue in the first half of 2017, up 22% compared with the first half in 2016, reported the Interactive Advertising Bureau in its half-yearly digital ad spend report.

Advertisers spent $21.7 billion on mobile during the first six months of 2017, up 40% from $15.5 billion in the first half of 2016.

Forrester Research estimates U.S. mobile display and social ad spend will grow from $25.5 billion in 2017 to $50.5 billion by 2021.

In addition to blocking ads, protecting their phone from viruses, malware, scams and privacy issues are top reasons to download a mobile ad blocker. Some 21.3% believe an ad blocker protects them from viruses, malware, phishing, and other attacks, while 11.5% look toward ad blockers to protect their privacy.

Respondents, 9.4%, cite speed as another reason to use an ad blocker. Another 1.4% of ad blockers are concerned with the life of the battery on their device.

Nearly half of those participating in the survey cited pop-up advertisements as the most unfavorable. Non-skippable video ads, auto-play video ads, and banners also irritate mobile users.

Ad-block walls keep users away from viewing the content unless they switch off their ad blocker or whitelist the website, but the study also shows that these walls decrease the number of visitors to websites. Only 9.3% of users agree to whitelist the website if required and 24.1% whitelist websites temporarily before turning on the ad blocker after leaving the site.

Some 66.5% of U.S. users do not whitelist the website, with about 42.5% leaving the page to search for the information elsewhere.

Survey participants understand good content takes time to produce. Some 68,4% of FAB users realize to provide high-quality content publishers need to make money, either by showing ads or by making content available only to users that pay. 

They agree that paid subscriptions are a way for publishers to augment revenue, but when asked how many sites they subscribe to, nearly 60% said none. Some 10.9% noted one website, and 20.7% said between two and four websites.

The main reason why they don't subscribe to publisher sites: 44.4% said they can find the information for free on other websites, and 17.6% of respondents the subscriptions are too expensive.

About 15% do not want to share their personal information, 11% said registration takes too much time. Only 9.2% said they sign up for a website they like and visit often.  

Gannett CMO Andy Yost says 2018 is “the year of brand appraisal,” and the time to focus on growing memberships.

“Subscription’ sounds transactional, ‘membership’ sounds like a two-way relationship that gives you access to things you can’t get elsewhere,” Yost told Publishers Daily.

Gannett has a number of paid membership products. It released an ad-free mobile membership in October, in which readers can pay $2.99 a month to access USA Today without ads on its mobile app. 

“It is part of our digital-subscription growth strategy,” Yost said. “One of the things we will continue to do in 2018 is other digital subscription product opportunities that might make sense to offer.”

Yost noted there is “an appetite” for consumers to pay for experiences that meet their needs. Some readers may want an ad-free experience, and others may want “every sports story possible and a premium product around that.”

Getting more readers to sign up for memberships requires showing them why a brand and its offerings are worth the outlay. Yost said a big part of that is giving readers content tailored to their preferences.

Most readers come to publisher’s sites from social platforms. The challenge is to convert those audiences to paying members. If a reader comes to a Gannett site for sports news, target the reader with a digital subscription that includes sports content.

“We need to really lead with why our brand has what you need from a benefits perspective, and that’s a way to help us more effectively convert our audience to a paid subscriber,” Yost said.

The CMO, who has been with Gannett for about three years, says his focus is “showing the value [our local brands] are delivering beyond the journalism we are known for.” Gannett’s Insider Loyalty Program is another membership program, which give deals and premium content to subscribers, as well as offers from retail partners or special edit-led event series that subscribers get preferential access to.

Gannett owns 109 local outlets, as well as USA Today. That means Gannett is looking for ways to tap into local communities, such as through hosting high-school sports awards and food and wine events. 

Yost said these experiences “create access and connections for our consumers in new and different ways.” Next year, there may be opportunities to expand into healthy living or business networking events.

Gannett has added more features to its digital subscriptions as well this year, updating its sites and apps. The publisher underwent a massive redesign of its 110 brands, rolling out a new design, layout and brand logos, across all platforms, to unify its portfolio.

Gannett also experimented with more 360 degree and VR video programming. “Our digital properties are bringing [readers] experiences that they might not get through just our print platform itself,” Yost said.

Digital subscribers means new subscribers, and the goal is to engage visitors to Gannett’s sites to make them more likely to sign up for paid programs. “The digital-only subscription is about reaching new audiences.” 

Yost also believes 2018 is the year to focus on customer experience.

“Traditionally in our industry, we have thought of customer experience as the delivery of your print newspaper and how we manage you in our call centers. But every interaction is a customer experience,” he said. “That's everything from an app working to advertising not being viewed as intrusive.”

Such programs are important to Gannett, and to other publishers hoping to make more revenue from digital efforts. In the third quarter, total operation revenue for the USA Today parent company fell 3.6%, from $772.3 million in the same quarter last year to $744.3 million this year.

While print advertising and circulation revenue declined, Gannett’s digital advertising revenue rose 4.1% to $102.9 million.

In two just-released studies from the Native Advertising Institute (NAI), roughly one in ten news and magazine publishers admitted their publications hadn’t labeled online native advertising.

The Native Advertising Trends in News Media 2017 report, which was a collaboration with the International News Media Association (INMA), found that more news media publishers (11%) said they weren’t labeling their native ads compared to last year (7%).

In another report from NAI and INMA that focused on the magazine industry, the number of publishers not labeling native ads was 10% — a bit lower than last year’s 11%.

“It’s great news that native advertising is becoming a more integrated and accepted part of the publishers’ offerings. However, it’s bad news if it becomes so integrated into the the product that the audience cannot tell it from editorial content,” noted Jesper Laursen, founder and CEO of the NAI.

Laursen said publishers' most cited reason for not disclosing native advertising was “to meet budget demands.”

"They are so behind on budgets that they feel the need to bend the rules," he said.

“This is a serious problem — not only because it is illegal and can completely ruin the credibility of news media, but because the audience will eventually figure it out and then turn its back on native ads, just as it has on traditional online advertising,” Laursen added.

According to 25% of the publishers surveyed, poor labeling is one of the biggest threats to native advertising.

Disclosing native advertising is advocated by the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB), but “because there is wide variation in native advertising use cases, it is not possible to recommend a single, one-size fits all disclosure mechanism for disclosure and this is acknowledged by the Federal Trade Commission [FTC] in the U.S.,” stated Susan Borst, VP of mobile at IAB.

“It is possible, however, to demand adherence to the core principle that regardless of context, a reasonable consumer should be able to distinguish between what is paid advertising vs. what is publisher editorial content. Clarity and prominence of the disclosure is paramount and marketers, agencies and publishers need to be familiar with FTC guidance on this topic. In the end, clear disclosure is better for the consumer, the brand and the publisher,” Borst added.

Native advertising is growing more popular for news publishers, and it is making more money.

Native advertising is generating 18% of overall ad revenues for news publishers, up from 11% last year. News publishers expect that number to grow to 32% by 2020, according to the report, while magazine publishers expect native will account for 40% of overall ad revenue by the start of the new decade.    

Fifty-one percent of news media companies are offering native advertising, up from 48% last year.

Ninety-one percent of magazine publishers said that native advertising is “important” or “very important” to their business.

Last year, 26% of publishers were working with an external agency to deliver native advertising. This year, that number was halved, to  13%.

Twenty-seven percent of news media companies surveyed have a dedicated native advertising team, up from last year’s 20%.

The data for the news media study was collected from an online survey emailed to a sample of news media executives who are INMA members. Two hundred and thirty-one executives from 51 different countries completed the survey.

Two hundred and seven magazine executives from 53 countries participated in the other survey. Both were conducted this summer.