Email marketing stands as a powerful tool in a marketer's arsenal, and statistics continue to prove its worth. The reach of email marketing will extend to 4.5 billion users worldwide in 2025, with projected growth to over 4.8 billion by 2027.
New digital marketing channels emerge constantly, but email marketing continues to deliver strong results. Businesses see an average return of $36 for every $1 spent on email marketing – a remarkable 3600% ROI.
Our analysis reveals that 88% of users check their inbox multiple times daily, and 39% check 3-5 times each day. This high level of user activity helps explain why marketing emails influence purchase decisions for 59% of consumers.
The latest email marketing measurements show what works best today. Automated emails bring in 320% more revenue than non-automated campaigns. Segmented emails result in 30% more opens and 50% more clickthroughs compared to unsegmented ones. This detailed piece explores current email marketing trends and proven strategies that deliver results in 2025.
The State of Email Marketing Effectiveness in 2025
Email marketing stands unmatched in 2025. It delivers exceptional results for businesses of all types. The numbers tell the story – email marketing beats other digital channels by a lot, making it the life-blood of successful marketing strategies.
Why email still delivers strong ROI
Email marketing's return on investment is remarkable. Recent data shows businesses earn $36-$42 for every dollar spent on email marketing. This means a 3600% ROI, making it far more economical than other marketing channels.
The results get even better for industry leaders. Research shows 35% of companies earn $10-$36 per dollar spent, while another 30% see returns of $36-$50. The numbers soar higher for 5% of marketing leaders who generate over $50 for each invested dollar.
Different industries see varying returns:
- Retail, ecommerce, and consumer goods: 45:1
- Marketing, PR, and advertising agencies: 42:1
- Software and technology: 36:1
- Media, publishing, events, sports, and entertainment: 32:1
Email marketing outperforms other channels. It beats banner ads and SMS marketing by 108%, social media posts by 13%, and social media ads by 11%. Companies that make use of advanced email analytics tools see 43% higher ROI than those that don't.
How marketers define success in email campaigns
Email marketing success goes beyond basic metrics in 2025. Marketers look at several factors to assess campaign performance.
Customer engagement leads the way. About 59% of marketers look at opens, click-through rates, and bounce rates to measure success. Conversion metrics come next, with 44% tracking marketing qualified leads (MQLs) and conversion rates from marketing emails.
Revenue tracking has grown in importance. Now 41% of marketers link revenue directly to their email efforts. Another 39% look at how emails affect customer retention and loyalty – they know emails help build lasting relationships.
More advanced marketers (36%) use multi-channel attribution models to see email's overall marketing impact. Brand awareness metrics matter to 30% of marketers when gaging email success.
Measurement practices have improved. Only 21% of marketing leaders fail to measure ROI in 2025 – down from 36% in 2023.
Top metrics used to measure effectiveness
Marketing professionals rely on these key metrics to gage email performance:
- Open rates: Median open rate across industries hits 42.35%, varying between 22.57% to 59.70% by industry
- Click-through rates (CTR): Marketing emails averaged 2.62% CTR in 2024, with 2.5-4% seen as good performance
- Click-to-open rates (CTOR): This shows engagement from opened emails, averaging 5.63% across campaigns (2.93% to 10.71% by industry)
- Conversion rates: Industries average 2.9%, while top retail and fashion campaigns reach 2.9-3.3%
- Bounce rates: Industry average sits at 2.33%, with rates under 1% considered healthy
- List growth rate: Monthly growth of 1-3% is typical
- Unsubscribe rates: Good performance stays below 0.2%
Marketers who track these metrics and understand how they work together can fine-tune their email strategies. As measurement tools get better, email marketing's already impressive ROI looks set to climb through 2025.
Email Marketing Usage and Global Reach
Email's global footprint keeps expanding at an incredible rate in 2025. Billions of users exchange hundreds of billions of messages each day. The latest email marketing statistics show unprecedented levels of user engagement, making this channel incredibly valuable to marketers worldwide.
Number of global users and growth trends
The global email user base has reached 4.83 billion people in 2025. This represents a huge audience for marketers and shows a 4.1% jump from 2024. Email continues to thrive despite competition from newer communication platforms.
The future looks even brighter. Experts project the user base will hit 5.61 billion by 2030, with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 3.4%. Three main factors accelerate this expansion:
- Emerging markets (India and Nigeria account for 28% of new users)
- More seniors embrace digital communication (65+ age group grows at 6.1% CAGR)
- Education and remote work requirements from post-pandemic times
Here's how the numbers grow year by year:
|
Year |
Email Users (Billions) |
Growth Rate |
|
2025 |
4.83 |
4.1% |
|
2026 |
5.02 |
3.9% |
|
2027 |
5.21 |
3.8% |
|
2028 |
5.39 |
3.5% |
|
2029 |
5.50 |
2.0% |
|
2030 |
5.61 |
2.0% |
Daily email volume tells an equally impressive story. People send 392 billion emails worldwide each day in 2025, up from 361.6 billion in 2024. This number should exceed 400 billion daily emails by 2027.
Countries with highest email activity
Asia and Africa lead the pack with the fastest growth rates in email usage. The United States tops the global email volume chart with 9.7 billion emails sent daily.
European countries show impressive numbers too:
- Germany and Ireland each send about 8.5 billion emails daily
- The United Kingdom, Netherlands, and France all hit 8.3 billion daily emails
- Austria, Japan, and India each contribute 8.2 billion daily emails
- Australia follows with 8.1 billion emails sent per day
These numbers show email's truly global reach, with strong adoption in both developed and developing nations.
Email as a preferred communication channel
Users love their email. A stunning 99% of email users check their inbox daily, and many do so multiple times. The breakdown looks like this:
- 42% check emails 3-5 times daily
- 28% check 10-20 times daily
- 19% check more than 20 times per day
- Only 3% don't check email daily
Email dominates business communication. About 60% of workers choose email over phone calls, messaging apps, or social media. Even more impressive, 86% of business users say email is their go-to channel for work communication.
Consumers also prefer email for brand interactions. A June 2024 survey reveals 69% of consumers worldwide want brands to contact them through email. SMS/MMS comes in second at 53%. This preference matters because consumers spend 32% more and are 40% more likely to make repeat purchases from brands that use their preferred communication channels.
Email's position remains unmatched in 2025. With nearly 4.83 billion users regularly checking their inboxes and actively preferring email for brand communications, marketers have access to an incredibly powerful channel.
Timing, Frequency, and View Time Insights
The right timing can make or break your email campaigns, and this holds true in 2025's email marketing stats. Your messages need to hit inboxes at the perfect moment to get better open rates and more people to take action. This ends up helping your bottom line. Let's get into what the latest data tells us about email timing, reading patterns, and how often you should reach out.
Best days and times to send emails
The middle of the week still works best for email marketing in 2025. Tuesday through Thursday gets better results than other days, and Tuesday stands out with the highest response rates in many industries. People's inboxes are too full on Mondays, and Friday emails often get ignored as people start thinking about their weekend plans.
The best times to send during the day have become clear:
- Morning hours (8-11 AM) when people are starting their workday
- Early afternoon (2-4 PM) during natural breaks
- Early morning (6-7 AM) to be the first thing people see
Here's a clever trick: sending emails at odd minutes (7, 21, or 36 minutes past the hour) can help them get through better. This works because fewer marketers send at these times, so there's less traffic jam with ISPs.
Morning emails work really well – about 20% of U.S. readers check their email between 9:00 AM and noon. Different countries show different patterns though. Spanish readers get active again between 4:00-5:00 PM, while folks in Australia and New Zealand start as early as 5:00 AM.
Sunday evenings have turned out to be a hidden gem, with better click-through and conversion rates than similar campaigns sent mid-week. This works because there's less competition in people's inboxes, and they have more time to read and act on messages.
How long users spend reading emails
People are spending more time reading emails now – 13.4 seconds in 2020 compared to 11.1 seconds in 2016. That's a 21% jump. Readers have become pickier but pay more attention when something catches their eye.
The numbers tell an interesting story: 61% of opened emails get a "full read" (eight seconds or more), 23% get skimmed, and 15% just get a quick glance. This means 84% of people who open an email at least skim through it. Getting someone to open your email often leads to them actually reading it.
Newsletters need their own strategy. Readers often save them to read later when they have more time.
Frequency preferences by audience type
Getting the sending frequency right is tricky. Too many emails drive people away, while too few make them forget about you.
Most companies do best with 1-2 emails each week. B2C brands can get away with 2-3 weekly emails, but B2B companies should stick to 1-4 monthly.
The money shows that sending 5-8 emails monthly brings in about $48 for every $1 spent. Still, 54% of brands play it safe with 2-4 emails monthly, and 32% send just one. Monthly senders see the highest open rate at 28%.
Different industries need different approaches. B2B emails should stay under twice monthly – any more than weekly and people start unsubscribing fast. B2C can handle more, around 10-19 emails monthly.
The best solution? Let subscribers choose. Setting up preference centers where people pick how often they hear from you keeps them happy and subscribed. For those who don't choose, it's better to take the middle road rather than bombarding them with daily emails.
Automation and AI in Email Campaigns
AI and automation have revolutionized email marketing. These technologies deliver amazing returns that leave traditional campaign approaches in the dust. Email marketing stats show how these tools boost revenue and campaign success.
Revenue effect of automated emails
The numbers tell a powerful story. Automated emails bring in 320% more revenue than regular campaigns. A deeper look at the metrics shows automated emails get 52% higher open rates, 332% higher click rates, and an amazing 2,361% better conversion rates than scheduled campaigns.
Here's what's really interesting – automated emails make up just 2% of all emails sent, yet they generate 37% of all email sales. This success comes from better conversion power. One in three people who click an automated message buy something, while only one in eighteen do so for regular campaign messages.
Some automated emails work better than others. The three most successful types are:
- Abandoned cart emails
- Welcome emails
- Browse abandonment emails
These three types create 87% of all automated orders. Order and shipping confirmation emails also shine – they convert 22 times better than regular campaign emails.
Top AI use cases: subject lines, send times, CTAs
AI helps marketers in many ways, especially with subject lines. About 34% of marketers now use generative AI to write email copy. The results speak for themselves – AI-crafted subject lines boost open rates by 5-10%.
Smart timing is another way AI helps, with 66% of marketers using it to pick the best send times. This strategy typically gets 20-30% more opens than fixed schedules by studying when each person tends to read emails.
AI does more than just timing and subject lines – it studies customer behavior to create better personalized content. Smart algorithms spot patterns in how customers interact with emails. To name just one example, see how AI picks product recommendations based on what people bought and browsed before. This creates dynamic email content that gets more people to engage.
AI tests and tweaks many things at once, something humans can't match. From subject lines and images to colors and CTAs, AI keeps fine-tuning these parts to get better results.
Adoption rates and marketer satisfaction
More marketers now embrace AI for emails, with 7 out of 10 US marketers using generative AI tools. Yes, it is working – 51% of email marketers say AI-powered strategies work better than old-school methods.
ChatGPT leads the pack with 51% of AI-using marketers, while Copy.ai (21%), Scalenut (19%), and Jasper (14%) follow behind. This mix of tools shows how marketers are getting smarter about using AI for different parts of their campaigns.
Marketers love the results. Half of US and EU marketers (50.7%) say AI works better than traditional email marketing approaches. Companies using automation platforms also save money by uniting their tools and cutting technical costs.
The future looks bright for AI in email marketing – 48% of email marketers plan to spend more on automation. As these tools get better, combining machine learning for better performance with AI-generated content will make the gap between automated and manual email marketing even wider.
Personalization and Trust in Email Marketing
Email marketing has evolved from generic broadcasts into meaningful one-on-one conversations through personalization. Recent statistics show that tailored content doesn't just boost engagement—it changes how people interact with messages and leads to better results across all metrics.
How personalization affects engagement
Emails with personal touches get much better results than generic messages. These messages see 29% higher open rates and click-through rates jump by 41%. Subject lines with personalization boost open rates by 26%, making this simple change a great starting point.
The numbers tell an even better story when it comes to revenue. Personalized emails bring in six times more transactions than standard ones. This success shows up in the bottom line, with these targeted messages delivering a median ROI of 122%.
The most telling statistic? About 63% of consumers ignore non-personalized emails completely. Personalization isn't just nice to have anymore—people expect it. In fact, 52% of consumers will switch to different brands if they receive generic emails.
Segmentation strategies that work
Good email personalization needs solid segmentation as its foundation. Nearly 90% of email marketing professionals say subscriber segmentation makes their marketing emails work better. The proof is in the numbers—segmented and personalized emails now generate 58% of all revenue.
These segmentation approaches work well:
- Demographic segmentation (sorting by age, income, gender)
- Behavioral segmentation (based on purchase history and website interactions)
- Psychographic segmentation (focusing on interests, values, attitudes)
- Customer lifecycle segmentation (recognizing where subscribers are in their experience)
Segmented emails get twice the opens and triple the revenue per recipient compared to mass emails. But creating these personalized messages isn't easy. About 18% of marketers say it's their biggest challenge, while 20% find it hard to gather enough data to segment properly.
Building trust to reduce unsubscribes and spam flags
Trust is the foundation of successful email marketing relationships. The "trust triangle" concept combines authenticity, empathy, and logic to help reduce unsubscribes and boost engagement.
Your "from" name and subject line should match what's inside the email. This matters because high unsubscribe rates can trigger spam filters and hurt your delivery rates.
Let subscribers choose their content types and frequency through preference centers. This flexibility helps keep subscribers who might leave—they can reduce their email volume instead of unsubscribing completely.
Clear communication about why subscribers receive specific messages makes a difference. People are more likely to engage when they understand the reason behind each email.
Trust grows when you respect your subscribers' time and choices. Quick unsubscribe processing, easy preference management, and regular list cleaning help build lasting relationships that keep engagement high and unsubscribes low.
Email Marketing Benchmarks by Industry
Email marketing effectiveness varies significantly between different sectors according to industry measurements. These differences help marketers create realistic targets and spot ways they can improve their specific niche.
Open and click rates across sectors
Religious organizations stand at the top with an impressive 59.70% open rate. Hobby-related emails come next at 53.33%, while non-profit messages reach 53.21%. The construction sector shows remarkable results with the highest click-through rate at 14.50%. Architecture follows closely with 14.30%. The travel and transportation sector doesn't deal very well with engagement, showing the lowest open rate (22.57%) and click-through rate (0.77%). Retail faces similar challenges with just 17.1% open rate and 0.7% click-through rate.
The industry-wide average for email click-through rates sits at 8.29%. This number doesn't tell the whole story of sector differences. Education (4.4%), Real Estate (3.6%), and Agriculture (3.4%) show consistently better engagement metrics than most other sectors.
Bounce and unsubscribe rate comparisons
Each sector shows distinct patterns in bounce rates. Construction and architecture sectors see the highest bounce rates around 1.32%. Publishing companies shine with the lowest at just 0.2%. Marketing experts call bounce rates below 2% healthy. Rates between 2-5% should raise warning flags.
The unsubscribe patterns tell an interesting story. Authors see the highest rate at 0.21%, and photo and video sectors follow at 0.20%. Nine industries stand out with 0.00% unsubscribe rates. These include non-profit, sports, and religious organizations, which suggests their content hits the mark perfectly.
What high-performing industries are doing right
The best performing sectors put content relevance first. Religious groups achieve amazing open rates through community-focused content and reliable timing. Educational institutions make use of necessity-based communications, which explains their 28.5% open rates.
Success stories often come from excellent list quality. The construction sector's high engagement stems in part from well-managed professional contact databases. Sectors with clear, action-driven content get better results. Real estate's 17.2% click-to-open rate shows how specific messaging beats general marketing approaches.
The most successful industries know exactly what their audience wants in terms of content and timing. Their campaigns focus on specific, valuable information rather than broad marketing messages.
Conclusion
Email marketing remains without doubt one of the most powerful tools marketers can use in 2025. Our analysis shows this channel delivers exceptional results despite newer digital marketing platforms emerging. The numbers tell an impressive story – email marketing generates $36 for every $1 spent, translating to a 3600% ROI.
Personalization stands as the life-blood of successful email marketing strategies. The results speak volumes – personalized emails drive six times higher transaction rates and 41% better click-through rates than generic messages. It also helps that segmentation doubles these benefits. Segmented campaigns achieve twice the open rates and triple the revenue per recipient compared to batch-and-blast approaches.
Automation and AI have reshaped the scene completely. Automated emails now generate 320% more revenue than non-automated ones. These automated messages make up just 2% of total volume but drive 37% of all email-generated sales. Marketers who haven't adopted these technologies miss substantial revenue opportunities.
The right timing makes a substantial difference. Marketing emails perform best Tuesday through Thursday, while morning hours (8-11 AM) show peak engagement rates. The sweet spot for most businesses lies in sending 1-2 emails weekly. This balance helps maximize engagement while keeping unsubscribes low.
Email marketing success varies across industries. Religious organizations lead with nearly 60% open rates. The construction sector shows the highest click-through rates at 14.5%. Marketers should measure their performance against industry-specific standards instead of overall averages.
Email's global reach keeps expanding, with 4.83 billion users in 2025 and expected growth to 5.61 billion by 2030. People check their inboxes often – 99% check daily, many multiple times. This consistent behavior explains why email remains the preferred communication channel for businesses and consumers alike.
Trust serves as the foundation for effective email marketing. Success comes from respecting subscriber priorities, delivering valuable content, and maintaining clean lists. Marketers who build trust while making use of personalization, segmentation, and automation continue seeing exceptional returns from this channel.
Email marketing shows strong momentum as we progress through 2025. While tactics and technologies evolve, basic principles stay constant – deliver relevant content to the right people at the right time. These elements, once mastered, will drive substantial results for years ahead.
FAQs
Q1. Is email marketing still effective in 2025?
Yes, email marketing remains highly effective in 2025. It delivers an impressive average return of $36 for every $1 spent, representing a 3600% ROI. With 4.83 billion global users and 99% checking their inbox daily, email continues to be a powerful marketing channel.
Q2. What are the best days and times to send marketing emails?
Tuesday through Thursday are generally the most effective days for sending marketing emails. The optimal times are typically between 8-11 AM when professionals are settling into their workday, 2-4 PM during natural work breaks, and 6-7 AM to be at the top of the inbox when recipients first check.
Q3. How does personalization impact email marketing performance?
Personalization significantly boosts email marketing performance. Personalized emails achieve 29% higher open rates, 41% higher click-through rates, and deliver six times higher transaction rates compared to non-personalized ones. Additionally, personalized subject lines alone can increase open rates by 26%.
Q4. What role do automation and AI play in email marketing?
Automation and AI have become crucial in email marketing. Automated emails generate 320% more revenue than non-automated campaigns and drive 37% of all email-generated sales despite representing only 2% of email volume. AI is widely used for optimizing subject lines, determining send times, and enhancing personalization, with 70% of US marketers now employing generative AI tools in their work.
Q5. How do email marketing benchmarks vary across industries?
Email marketing benchmarks vary significantly across industries. For example, the Religion sector leads with a 59.70% open rate, while Construction boasts the highest click-through rate at 14.50%. Conversely, Travel and Transportation struggle with the lowest open rate (22.57%) and click-through rate (0.77%). These variations highlight the importance of benchmarking performance against industry-specific standards.
