Market Size & Growth
- Global Email Users: In 2025, approximately 4.6 billion people worldwide use email, marking a significant increase from 4.37 billion in 2023. This number is projected to reach over 4.8 billion by 2027 (OptinMonster).
- Email Marketing Revenue: The global email marketing industry is experiencing robust growth. By 2025, the market is estimated to be valued at $14.8 billion, with projections indicating it could expand to $36.3 billion by 2033, reflecting a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 11.7% (Hostinger).
User Engagement & Behavior
- Daily Email Volume: Over 376 billion emails are sent daily in 2025, with expectations to reach 408 billion by 2027 (OptinMonster).
- Inbox Checking Frequency: An overwhelming 99% of email users check their inbox daily, with many doing so multiple times throughout the day (DemandSage).
- Email Open Rates: The average email open rate across various industries stands at 35.63%, indicating a healthy level of user engagement (Hostinger).
Emerging Trends in Email Marketing
1. Segmentation & Personalization
- Segmentation Impact: Segmented email campaigns see a 30% increase in open rates and a 50% rise in click-through rates, underscoring the importance of targeted messaging (ViB Tech).
- Personalization Practices: Over 54% of marketers are incorporating personalized content into their email campaigns to enhance relevance and engagement (Hostinger).
2. Mobile Optimization
- Responsive Design: Emails optimized for mobile devices experience a 15% increase in unique click rates, highlighting the necessity of mobile-friendly designs (Hostinger).
3. Automation & Lifecycle Marketing
- Automation Adoption: Lifecycle email automation is becoming a cornerstone of effective marketing strategies, enabling businesses to deliver timely and relevant content to users based on their interactions and behaviors (Litmus).
4. Accessibility Compliance
- European Accessibility Act (EAA): The EAA mandates that digital communications, including emails, be accessible to all users, particularly those with disabilities. This regulation requires businesses to adhere to the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), ensuring emails are perceivable, operable, understandable, and robust (TechRadar).
Strategic Takeaways
- Invest in Segmentation: Tailoring email content to specific audience segments can significantly boost engagement metrics.
- Prioritize Mobile Optimization: Ensuring emails are mobile-friendly is crucial, given the high volume of users accessing emails via mobile devices.
- Leverage Automation: Implementing automated email workflows can enhance user experience and operational efficiency.
- Ensure Accessibility: Complying with accessibility standards not only meets legal requirements but also broadens your potential audience.
1. Bloom & Wild: Empowering Customers with Messaging Preferences
Bloom & Wild, an online florist, recognized the need to respect customer sensitivities during special occasions like Mother’s and Father’s Day. To address this, they introduced a dashboard allowing customers to manage their preferences for receiving marketing messages. This proactive approach led to a significant increase in opt-outs, indicating a stronger customer relationship and enhanced brand reputation. (Mordor Intelligence)
2. Sephora: Leveraging Exclusive Rewards for Opt-In Growth
Sephora’s Beauty Insider program offers exclusive perks such as birthday gifts, free beauty classes, and early access to new products to customers who sign up for their email lists. This strategy has proven effective in increasing opt-in rates, as customers perceive the value of these rewards as compelling incentives to subscribe. (OptinMonster)
3. Deloitte: Personalizing Email Engagement in Healthcare
Deloitte assisted a large pharmaceutical company in analyzing five years of data across 700,000 healthcare providers using cognitive tools. This enabled the company to create personalized one-to-one engagement plans, reducing opt-out rates by 50% and significantly increasing customer reach and satisfaction. (The Easiest Email Marketing Platform)
4. EmailOpShop: Optimizing Opt-In Form Placement
EmailOpShop conducted a case study where moving the email opt-in call-to-action (CTA) to the header resulted in a 46% increase in conversion rates. This demonstrates the impact of strategic placement in capturing user attention and encouraging subscriptions. (The Easiest Email Marketing Platform)
5. ActiveCampaign: Effective Opt-In Form Design
ActiveCampaign highlighted several successful opt-in email examples, emphasizing the importance of clear and concise messaging. For instance, Wrike’s sign-up form for a beginner’s guide to online marketing effectively uses curiosity and simplicity to encourage subscriptions. (InboxAlly)
🔍 Case Studies
| Brand / Organization | What They Did | Results / Metrics | What This Teaches Us |
|---|---|---|---|
| Network Digital Marketing + Validity (Validity) | Focused on improving email deliverability via sender certification (getting recognized as a trusted sender by mailbox providers), and using dedicated IPs. (Validity) | • Achieved 99% inbox placement rate across four dedicated IPs. (Validity) • This was about a 14% lift compared to non-certified senders. (Validity) • Big gains during peak send seasons (e.g. Black Friday) alongside increasing send volume. (Validity) | Deliverability & trust are key. Even with large send volumes, maintaining sender reputation and certification pays off. For businesses, investing in deliverability infrastructure (dedicated IPs, whitelist, sender scoring) can yield big returns. |
| Cosabella + Emarsys (AI-powered personalization & automation) (goodtoseo.com) | Used customer data & AI tools (via Emarsys) to generate personalized & targeted email content at scale — recommendation engines, automation of campaign creation etc. (goodtoseo.com) | • Revenue from email increased 60% year over year. (goodtoseo.com) • Email database size doubled. (goodtoseo.com) • CTR (click-through rate) increased ~ 100%. (goodtoseo.com) • The team cut down time to build campaigns by more than half. (goodtoseo.com) | Personalization + automation = efficiency + performance. Using AI recommendation engines or behavioral segmentation not only improves metrics but lets marketing teams scale without proportional increases in effort. |
| BMW + Other Brands via SuperAGI (SuperAGI) | Applied AI chatbots / targeted advertising + email automation to deliver highly relevant content, automate workflows, improve response times. (SuperAGI) | • BMW saw ~ 15% increase in engagement. (SuperAGI) • Some clients achieved 300%+ improvement in conversion rates and 25%+ increases in revenue via speed-to-lead automation. (SuperAGI) • Qualified leads in one case up by ~ 451%. (SuperAGI) | Leveraging automation + AI for speed and relevance is powerful. Speed-to-lead (responding quickly to leads/subscribers) can multiply effectiveness. Also, continuous testing + real-time data allow fine-tuning. |
| Belkins / Titan Growth (Belkins) | Focused on deliverability improvements: analysing large volumes of outgoing email (800K+ emails) and optimizing so that emails reliably reach the inbox. (Belkins) | • Achieved 99% deliverability rate. (Belkins) • Open rate of 84% in that campaign. (Belkins) | High deliverability unlocks results. If your emails don’t reach the inbox at all, other optimizations (content, design) don’t matter much. Regular monitoring, domain/IP hygiene, and best practices matter. |
| Fridja (e-commerce presold campaign) (ninzaemail.com) | Before launch, they presold ~25% of initial stock via email: doing early preorder, using multiple newsletters, discount offers, building anticipation. (ninzaemail.com) | • Presold ~25% of stock before launch day. (ninzaemail.com) • High engagement & strong momentum in sales. (ninzaemail.com) | Using email to build anticipation and trust can produce strong results. Prelaunch campaigns, good messaging, and exclusive offers work well. Also, consistency and communication matter. |
📌 Key Takeaways for Email Marketing in 2025 (from the Case Studies)
- Deliverability & sender reputation are essential. Even the best content won’t help if your deliverability is poor. Certification, dedicated IPs, sender scores all help.
- AI + automation = scale + performance. Brands using AI for personalization, recommendations, content creation, and optimizing send times tend to get much better open / click / conversion rates.
- Speed and relevance matter (speed-to-lead, responsiveness). Getting emails out quickly, especially after user action (sign-ups, inquiries etc.), improves performance dramatically.
- Prelaunch / anticipation tactics can drive early sales and momentum, especially in e-commerce. Building trust and expectation through email pays.
- List health & hygiene is still (or again) very important. Keeping list clean, engaged, and well segmented leads to better deliverability, less spam filtration, and higher engagement metrics.