The Top Email Marketing Trends In 2025

Quick Overview of Email Marketing

At its core, email marketing refers to the process of using emails to communicate with potential and existing customers about products, services, updates, or promotions. It is a highly targeted form of direct marketing where businesses bypass intermediaries and communicate directly with the consumer.

The purpose of email marketing varies, ranging from nurturing relationships with leads and converting prospects to keeping existing customers engaged and loyal. Whether it’s sending welcome emails, newsletters, promotions, or transaction confirmations, emails are an integral part of any modern marketing strategy.

A Growing Challenge: Email Deliverability

According to the latest research from Business2Community, email marketing is not just widely used but also continues to deliver strong results. Yet, email deliverability, which refers to the successful arrival of emails in subscribers’ inboxes, remains one of the most under-monitored and under-optimised metrics.

Surprisingly, only 35% of marketers monitor their email delivery rates, despite deliverability being a direct factor in email performance. This is a stark contrast to the focus on open rates and click-through rates, which dominate the conversation around email marketing success.

In fact, email deliverability challenges have risen sharply in recent years. The 2024 report shows that email deliverability ranked third among the challenges faced by email marketers, with 37% of marketers identifying it as a major obstacle. This was up from 25% in 2018, signalling a trend that cannot be ignored.

Why Email Deliverability Should Be Your Primary Focus

Email deliverability is the bedrock on which all other metrics stand. If your emails don’t reach your subscribers’ inboxes, you’ll never see high open rates or click-through rates, regardless of how well-crafted your content is. Unfortunately, many marketers focus too much on open rates and CTR, while neglecting deliverability, which could make or break the performance of their campaigns.

Factors such as sender reputation, spam filters, and engagement levels all play a role in whether an email lands in the inbox or gets sent to spam. Emails sent to spam folders have an average open rate of 1-2%, compared to emails that land in the inbox, which can see open rates as high as 20-30% or more, depending on the industry and list quality.

Email Marketing Challenges in 2025

The landscape of email marketing is constantly evolving, and while competition for attention (45%) remains the number one challenge for email marketers, other obstacles are also gaining traction:

Staffing/Resource Constraints: 40%
Email Deliverability: 37%
Lack of Tools to Personalize or Optimize Emails – 31%
Poor Email Performance: 24%

The growing complexity of email marketing calls for a more comprehensive and strategic approach, where deliverability is treated with the same level of attention as engagement metrics.

Tactics You Need to Employ in 2025

To ensure your email campaigns are performing at their best in 2025, it’s essential to implement the following strategies:

1. Email Segmentation

Segmenting your email list allows you to send personalized and relevant messages to specific audience groups. According to McKinsey, personalized emails have an open rate 26% higher than non-personalised ones. You should segment based on factors like engagement history, geographic location, customer behaviour, and purchase patterns. This ensures your emails are tailored and impactful, increasing your chances of successful delivery.

2. Automated Email Journeys

Marketing automation plays a pivotal role in ensuring your messages are delivered at the right time to the right people. Automated workflows can help send the right message based on user behaviour, lifecycle stage, and previous interactions, which boosts both engagement and deliverability.

For example, a customer who abandoned their shopping cart will receive a reminder email, with a tailored offer, ensuring it lands in their inbox at a time when they are most likely to engage.

3. Optimization for Mobile

A staggering 81% of emails are opened on mobile devices, and 45% of users will unsubscribe if emails are not mobile-friendly. Optimizing for mobile ensures a seamless user experience and higher chances of engagement, which in turn impacts your sender reputation, improving deliverability.

4. Regular List Cleaning

One of the top contributors to poor deliverability is a dirty email list. Invalid email addresses and inactive subscribers can hurt your sender reputation and lead to high bounce rates. By regularly cleaning your email list, you ensure better engagement and improve deliverability rates. Forbes suggests cleaning your email list every three to six months.

5. Focus on Engagement Metrics

A good sender reputation hinges on user engagement. If recipients consistently open, click, and interact with your emails, it signals to email service providers (ESPs) that you are a legitimate sender, improving deliverability. Ensure your emails contain valuable content and clear CTAs to maximise engagement.

Stats You Need to Know

Here are a few important statistics to help guide your email marketing strategy in 2025:

Emails that land in the inbox have an average open rate of 20-30%, compared to 1-2% for those that land in the spam folder.
Personalized emails see 26% higher open rates than generic ones (McKinsey).
45% of email marketers cite competition for attention as their number one challenge.
37% of marketers report that email deliverability is a growing challenge, up from 25% in 2018.
81% of consumers open emails on mobile devices.
40% of marketers report staffing/resource constraints as a significant barrier to email marketing success.

Conclusion

Email marketing is an incredibly powerful tool for B2B and B2C businesses, but focusing on the right metrics is essential. While open rates and click-through rates are often the primary indicators of success, email deliverability is the unsung hero that ensures your emails even reach your audience.

Marketers who prioritize deliverability, along with segmentation, automation, and mobile optimisation, will likely see higher engagement rates and better overall campaign performance. With the growing competition in the inbox, treating email deliverability as a key component of your email strategy is no longer optional—it’s essential.

Now that we are in 2025, it’s time to rethink your email marketing strategy. A more integrated and thoughtful approach, with deliverability at its core, will help you cut through the noise, build stronger relationships, and drive higher conversions for your business.