The State of Email 2025 Reports

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What the report is & its scope

  • The “State of Email Reports” are annual (or frequent) research publications from Litmus (now part of Validity) that survey hundreds (sometimes thousands) of email-marketing professionals across industries globally. (Litmus)
  • The 2025 edition (titled “The State of Email 2025”) covers how email marketing programs are being built, designed, executed, measured; what tools and workflows marketers use; what the key challenges and opportunities are (e.g., personalization, AI, deliverability, data quality). (PR Newswire)
  • Some of the sub-reports (under the “State of Email” umbrella) include specialty reports: The State of Email Design, The State of Email Workflows, The State of Email Trends, The State of Email for Lifecycle Marketing, etc. (Litmus)
  • The reports include both quantitative survey data (benchmarks, metrics) and qualitative commentary (expert insights, predictions). For example, the 2025 report notes that nearly 1 in 5 respondents struggle with measuring ROI. (PR Newswire)
  • While the core research is global, it is often used by marketers in particular regions (US, UK, Europe) for benchmarking and strategic planning.

Key findings from the 2025 report

Here are major insights highlighted in the 2025 report (and publicly shared summaries).

  1. Measurement & ROI remain challenging
    • According to the report: “22% of respondents report struggling with measuring or proving ROI.” (PR Newswire)
    • Yet, email marketing remains high-return: brands that allocate more budget/staff to email report better results. For instance: companies dedicating 25-50% of their marketing team to email operations achieved ROI ranges between 36:1 and 50:1. (PR Newswire)
    • There’s a correlation: those investing >15% of their marketing budget in email are twice as likely to have open-rates of 40%+ compared to the average. (PR Newswire)
  2. Personalisation and data quality are front-of-mind
    • Top challenges include: creating personalized content efficiently (17% cited this), collecting/analyzing data for personalization (16%), measuring the impact of personalization (15%). (PR Newswire)
    • Data quality issues are a barrier: e.g., the report notes “data is always going to be messy… but progress beats perfection.” (quote from one of the panelists in the recap) (Litmus)
  3. Increasing role of AI and emerging technologies in email
    • In the report: 29% of marketers believe that advanced AI-driven content generation and analytics will drive the most significant changes in email marketing in 2025. (PR Newswire)
    • 70% of marketers predict that up to half of their email operations will be AI-driven by 2026; 18% expect AI to handle 50-75% of email tasks. (PR Newswire)
    • Other findings: uses of interactive elements in emails are increasing (e.g., dynamic content, polls) and accessibility continues to be undervalued. (Litmus)
  4. Workflow, design and production efficiency improvements
    • One interesting stat: Only 6% of teams require more than two weeks to produce an email (versus 62% in 2024 in one benchmark). That suggests production times moving down. (PR Newswire)
    • 30% of marketers identify content-creation as the most important skill they’re hiring for in email marketing. (PR Newswire)
  5. Engagement, accessibility and content trends
    • Though specific numeric engagement benchmarks are less visible in the public summary, the report emphasises that engagement is harder: low open/click remains a challenge. (Litmus)
    • Accessibility remains under-prioritised: despite its importance, email accessibility is often deprioritised. (Litmus)

How to use the report (practical applications)

Here are ways in which marketers/reports can leverage the “State of Email 2025”.

  • Benchmarking: Compare your own email program metrics (open rate, click-through, conversion, list growth, production time) against the survey data and identify gaps.
  • Strategy planning: Use the insight on investment (budget, team size) and ROI to build a business case for increasing resources in email.
  • Prioritisation: The findings point to top focus areas (personalisation, data quality, AI) — you can align your roadmap accordingly.
  • Production & workflow optimisation: Use the insight about production time reduction to revisit your email creation process aiming for agility.
  • Technology investment: Given the AI trend and emerging interactivity, the report supports deciding where to invest (automation, AI tools, dynamic content, accessibility).
  • Skill development: According to the report, content creation and email specialist skills are important hiring areas — meaning training or hiring around these is justified.
  • Executive communication: Use the ROI and benchmark stats in discussions with leadership — for example, showing that companies with higher email team investment get significantly higher ROI.

Limitations & things to watch

  • Public summaries of the report provide key headlines but may not include full metric tables for every industry or region — to get full depth you’ll often need the full report (which may require form fill / subscription).
  • Benchmarks are aggregated across industries and geographies. Your niche/region may perform differently. Always contextualise the data.
  • The data is self-reported via surveys; there may be response bias (e.g., more sophisticated email teams may respond).
  • Rapid change: Because email-marketing environment (deliverability, inbox behaviour, AI tools) is evolving quickly, benchmarks and best practices from even a year ago may shift. Use the report as guidance, not gospel.
  • Correlation vs causation caution: For example, higher budget → better results is a correlation; it doesn’t prove exactly how much budget alone drives performance.
  • AI-predictions and emerging-tech items are forward-looking: they are partly speculative and need to be tested in your own context.

Comments & Implications

Here are some further reflections and implications based on the report findings and wider context:

  • The fact that 22% of respondents struggle to measure ROI, despite email being known as a high-ROI channel, is telling: even in 2025 many organisations still lack clear measurement frameworks. Marketers should prioritise linking email metrics to business outcomes (not just opens/clicks).
  • The increasing role of AI emphasises that email marketing is moving beyond basic automation to more complex personalization, content generation, predictive modelling. Teams need upskilling in data/AI and select tools accordingly.
  • Production times falling (only 6% taking more than two weeks) suggest that agile email creation is becoming more common — for brands this means you can be more responsive to market events/trends if your processes allow it.
  • But the under-prioritisation of accessibility is a risk: good email design and inclusive practices are not just ethics/compliance issues; they also impact deliverability, engagement, and brand reputation. It may become a differentiator.
  • Investment in email (budget, people) correlates with higher performance. However, many marketers may still view email as “cheap” or “secondary” compared to paid channels; the report suggests email merits strategic priority.
  • The challenge of data quality for personalization remains real. Even though personalization is widely desired, if underlying data is poor then personalization efforts may fail or cost too much. A focus on improving data/segmentation is justified.
  • The trend toward interactive content (dynamic elements, polls, gamification) is pointed out in the report. Marketers should evaluate whether their email platform and audiences are ready for more interactive experiences.
  • Lastly, the broader marketing ecosystem (privacy changes, inbox behaviour, AI‐generated inbox summaries) means that email strategy needs to evolve — the report is a reminder to revisit your email program with fresh thinking in 2025 rather than relying on old habits.
  • Great — while the The State of Email 2025 report by Litmus/Validity doesn’t publish many full-blown named brand case studies (at least in its publicly available summaries), we can draw out illustrative examples and comments from the insights within it and from related commentary. Below are two “case-style” examples derived from the report’s findings, followed by key comments and lessons.

    Case-style Examples from the 2025 Report

    Example A: Company with High Email Investment and High ROI

    Situation & action: According to the report, companies that allocate 25-50% of their marketing team’s time to email operations tend to achieve large ROI—specifically ROI in the range of 36:1 to 50:1 for email marketing. (PR Newswire) Also, firms that allocate more than 15% of their marketing budget to email are about 2 × more likely to get open-rates of 40% or more. (The Wise Marketer)
    Interpretation: This suggests that an organisation that treats email as a major channel (both in budget and staffing) sees markedly better results than one that treats it as an after-thought.
    Outcome: While the report doesn’t name the company, this “case” shows how investment correlates with performance—email becomes a business driver rather than just a communications tool.
    Why it matters: The takeaway is that email marketing requires proper resourcing—teams, budget, time—to deliver. Under-resourced email programmes are unlikely to hit high benchmarks.

    Example B: Organisation Adopting AI & Interactive Content

    Situation & action: The report finds that:

    • 29% of marketers believe advanced AI-driven content generation and analytics will drive the most significant changes in email marketing in 2025. (MarTech)
    • 70% predict that up to half of their email operations will be AI-driven by 2026; 18% expect 50-75% AI handling of tasks. (PR Newswire)
    • Regarding interactivity: 97% of marketers incorporate at least one interactive element in emails; buttons/CTAs (35%) are most used. (MarTech)
      Interpretation: A company leveraging AI for content creation (subject lines, body copy), segmentation, timing, plus embedding interactive elements (polls, buttons, dynamic content) is shifting from traditional email blasts to richer, automation-enabled owned-media experiences.
      Outcome: Such a company would benefit via faster production cycles (only 6% of teams now require more than two weeks to produce an email vs 62% in 2024) and likely higher engagement. (Marketing Tech Insights)
      Why it matters: The move from manual to AI-augmented workflows and from static to interactive content is a key differentiator in 2025-email programmes.

    Comments & Lessons from the Report

    Here are key take-aways, implications and things to comment on based on the case-style examples and the wider findings:

    Investment correlates strongly with performance

    • The data shows that higher budget & staffing allocation to email leads to better results (open rates, ROI).
    • Comment: Many organisations undervalue email (seeing it as “cheap” or low priority) but the report suggests that when email is treated strategically (resourcing + technology) it becomes a high-performing channel.
    • Implication: Marketers should build the business case to invest in email—team growth, technology, analytics—not just rely on legacy email programmes.

    Personalisation, data quality and automation remain major challenges

    • The top challenges: creating personalised content efficiently (17%), collecting/analysing data for personalization (16%), measuring personalization impact (15%). (The AI Journal)
    • Comment: Even as tools advance, many marketers still struggle with the fundamentals—“right message to right person at right time” remains hard.
    • Implication: Organisations should prioritise cleaning/organising data, building segmentation/behaviour models, and matching investment in personalisation workflows—not just sending more emails.

    AI and interactive content are rising fast

    • The report shows rapid growth in AI usage (49% of marketers using generative AI for copy in 2025, AI-image generation up 340% year-on-year) and high adoption of interactive elements. (MarTech)
    • Comment: This signals a shift: email marketing is becoming more sophisticated, closer to owned-media hubs rather than simple blasts.
    • Implication: Brands should evaluate their email tech stack (AI content tools, dynamic content, interactive modules) and their workflows (how to integrate AI and interactivity), but also guard against losing brand voice or authenticity.

    Production speed and operational agility matter

    • Only 6% of teams now require more than two-weeks for an email, down from 62% in 2024. (PR Newswire)
    • Comment: The faster you can create, test and send email campaigns, the more responsive you can be to market changes, audience behaviour and push-events (like product launches).
    • Implication: Organisations might need to streamline processes, adopt modular templates, AI-assisted copy/design, cross-team collaboration to achieve this agility.

    Measurement, ROI and attribution remain sticky points

    • 22% of respondents say they struggle with measuring/proving ROI. (The AI Journal)
    • Comment: While email is widely regarded as high-ROI, many marketers still don’t have the measurement infrastructure (linking email to revenue, lifecycle value) to prove it.
    • Implication: Email programmes should invest in analytics (attribution models, CRM integration, customer-lifetime‐value tracking) so they can justify investment and continuously optimise.

    Privacy, deliverability and complexity of the inbox ecosystem

    • 14% cite data privacy compliance as a major operational challenge, rising to 23% among larger budget email programmes. (MarTech)
    • Comment: With inbox provider updates (e.g., Apple MPP), stricter filters, more advanced spam detection, delivering to the inbox is harder and requires more attention to infrastructure/authentication.
    • Implication: Email teams must invest in deliverability fundamentals (SPF/DKIM/DMARC, list hygiene, reputation monitoring), and compliance (consent, privacy-friendly data practices).

    Strategic viewpoint: email as an owned media asset

    • The report’s data supports the idea that email is not just a tactical channel but part of a brand’s owned media strategy: you own the list, you own the content, you can personalise, interact, measure, and invest accordingly.
    • Comment: Brands that treat email like a media asset (rather than a blast channel) will be ahead.
    • Implication: Build email programmes with that mindset: think subscriber experience, value-driven content, community, lifecycle flows—not just occasional promotions.

    Final Summary

    Although the “State of Email 2025” report does not divulge many discrete brand-specific case studies by name, it offers strong evidence-based examples and benchmarks that can be used as case-style models. The core messages: if you invest in email (people + tech), clean your data, personalise well, adopt AI/interactive content, speed up production, and measure ROI earnestly—you’ll be well positioned. Conversely, treating email as a legacy channel without strategy, measurement or resourcing will reduce your competitiveness.

     

 

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