In comparison to other channels of digital marketing, email marketing is one of the best and most profitable with an average return of $36 on every $1 spent, delivering a 3600% ROI, as per stats.
Image: Get Respona
Well! There’s another reason why email marketing still works.
Because the people on your list chose to hear from you. They subscribed because they’re genuinely interested and want more insight, more value, and more connection.
With email marketing revenue expected to reach $18.9 billion by 2028, it’s evident that businesses will continue investing in it as a key growth channel, one that has evolved from basic newsletters to dynamic, AI-powered campaigns enhanced by personalization and automation.
AI and automation allows you to not only segment or personalize your campaigns at a faster pace, but also predict customer behavior, optimize send times, and create smarter, more relevant emails faster than ever before.
This is an ultimate guide on email marketing, divided into a series of 5 blogs that will cover everything from fundamentals to email deliverability, compliance & future-proofing your email strategy.
And, this is part one of our email marketing series where we will cover the core fundamentals of email marketing you can’t ignore in 2025.
So, let’s start from the beginning!
Email marketing involves sending targeted emails to a list of subscribers as a part of building relationships with them. In technical terms, it’s a strategic tool used to guide your audience through the different stages of customer journey – from awareness to conversion and post-purchase engagement.
Email marketing allows businesses to have a direct line of communication with end customers, making it one of the most effective channels of marketing, even in 2025. It’s measurable and it can be personalized to engage with the audience.
The main purpose of email marketing is to drive engagement, nurture trust, and enhance conversions by delivering relevant, valuable, and timely content.
Here’s why email marketing still generates the most ROI.
Email is the first thing 58% people check in the morning, as per OptinMonster. And with email marketing, you are able to land straight in your audience’s inbox, giving you a direct communication channel with your potential and existing customers.
Another reason why email marketing still works is the percentage of consumers who prefer to be contacted by email, and that’s a huge 60%, making it not just effective, but the most preferred channel for communication.
For every $1 spent on email marketing, the average return is $36 – $40. That’s a whopping 3600% – 4000% ROI. You knew that, right?
But, did you know, when compared with paid advertising, SEO, and even podcasts, email marketing still wins the ROI race.
Paid advertising delivers an average ROI of $2 per $1 spent (Google Economic Impact Report), SEO brings in about $7.48 but varies by industry and its results can be seen for long (Saga Pixel), and podcast marketing sits around $4.9. Email marketing consistently tops the chart, offering the best balance of cost, scale, and returns.
2025 is all about personalization. As per OptinMonster, 71% of consumers expect personalized interactions from brands.
Email campaigns can be personalized with the use of data and automation. And, to make it even more promising, expect higher open rates if you personalize your campaigns because as per Salesforce, personalized emails deliver 29% higher open rates.
You can use tools like Mailchimp that allow for advanced segmentation and automation. And yes, these email marketing tools also let you measure the performance of your email campaigns so you can optimize them for improved ROI.
Not all emails are created equal. Here are the primary types every marketer should be using:
Transactional emails are sent to initiate a transaction or provide updates related to it. These include order confirmations, shipping notifications, refund updates, and more.
Since they contain information users are actively waiting for, these emails often have the highest click-through rates among all types.
Below is an example of a transactional email.
As the name suggests, promotional emails help promote products, services, or events to potential and existing customers with the only purpose of driving conversions or website traffic.
Here is what a promotional email looks like.
Image: Adobe
They are sent based on where the user is in their customer journey (like welcome series, cart abandoners, or re-engagement, etc). The purpose of these emails is to nurture leads and build lasting relationships.
Here is an example of a welcome email.
The ones brands send on a monthly, bimonthly, weekly, or biweekly basis are email newsletters. They are meant to share updates, helpful content, success stories, or promotions.
Here is an email newsletter example.
Whether you’re sending a product update, a promotional offer, or a helpful blog post, aligning your message with the right stage in a customer’s journey makes all the difference. A well-timed email can turn awareness into action and interest into loyalty.
Email marketing is effective only when your internal processes, or the email marketing workflow, run in parallel with your customer journey.
Each stage of that journey, from discovering your brand to becoming a loyal advocate, should be supported by a thoughtful, well-timed email action.
Here’s how each step in the customer journey aligns with your email marketing workflow:
This is the point where potential customers first discover your brand, often through ads, blog posts, or social media.
But, before sending any email, you need to define your goals. Is it more traffic? Brand visibility? More subscribers?
Use the SMART goals framework to bring structure and accountability to your email strategy:
> ‘We want better email results’ is too vague, not a specific goal. But,
> ‘We aim to improve our email conversion rate by 20% in the next quarter by A/B testing CTAs, streamlining design, and offering exclusive limited-time offers’ is a specific goal.
No emails are sent at this stage as it lays the strategic foundation for everything that follows.
As curiosity grows, it’s time to capture it.
Now’s the time to offer lead magnets like eBooks, webinars, whitepapers, or free tools through opt-in forms.
This is the stage where the customer signs up – giving you their email in exchange for value, also called ‘email list building.’
Immediately after sign-up, trigger a welcome email that sets expectations, introduces your brand, and encourages further engagement.
Now that they know you, it’s time to deepen the connection.
Here’s when you send educational emails, product guides, testimonials, and case studies. Highlight your value proposition and address objections.
These emails should inform and inspire trust, ultimately nudging the customer closer to a buying decision.
The customer is showing signs of readiness like clicking pricing pages, adding items to a cart, or starting a free trial.
Here, automated emails such as abandoned cart reminders, personalized recommendations, and urgency-driven nudges (‘only 3 left!’) can help close the deal.
The sale is made, but your job isn’t over.
Now is when you send order confirmation and thank-you emails, and use your ESP’s analytics to monitor performance: open rates, CTRs, conversions, and unsubscribes.
These insights refine future campaigns.
You need to continue delivering value after the purchase has been made.
Send product usage tips, review requests, and exclusive loyalty rewards.
Meanwhile, ensure your emails consistently land in the inbox by cleaning your list, authenticating your domain, and complying with regulations like GDPR and CAN-SPAM.
Keep relationships strong through re-engagement campaigns, restock reminders, and birthday/anniversary emails.
Use AI to optimize send times, personalize content, and stay ahead of trends. Loyal customers can become brand advocates bringing new subscribers through referrals and word of mouth.
And, that is how by aligning your workflow to the customer journey, you create a seamless experience that benefits both your brand and your audience.
We will discuss this in detail in our next series of blogs on how to perfectly map the email marketing workflow with the customer journey.
Every marketing strategy relies on certain key performance indicators (KPIs) to evaluate the return on investment.
Email marketing metrics are KPIs that help you measure how well your email campaigns are performing. These metrics give you insight into what’s working, what isn’t, and how you can improve future campaigns for a better ROI.
Here are some key KPIs that you need to monitor if you want your email campaigns to be a success.
Delivery rate is the percentage of emails that are successfully delivered to a recipient’s inbox.
A high delivery rate indicates a clean, active email list.
Anything above 95% is great. If it dips, it may point to outdated or fake emails, or technical sending issues. Keeping this number healthy supports overall email deliverability.
Here’s how to calculate delivery rate –
Delivery rate = (Total number of sent emails / Number of emails delivered to recipients) x 100
Open rate tells how many people opened your email. It explains if your subject line and timing are effective.
An open rate of 20% – 40% is considered good. To be precise, average open rate should be around 35.63% as per Mailchimp.
Here’s how to calculate open rate –
Open rate = (Number of emails opened / Number of recipients) x 100%
But, Apple’s Mail Privacy Protection (MPP), introduced in 2021, preloads email content on Apple’s servers to protect user privacy. This causes emails to be falsely registered as ‘opened’ even if they weren’t, making open rates less reliable for Apple users.
To adapt, marketers should focus more on click-through and conversion metrics rather than open rates.
CTR measures how many people clicked on a link inside your email. CTR is one of the most important metrics marketers need to track to analyze the success of email marketing campaigns.
Here’s how to calculate CTR –
Click-through rate = (Number of people who clicked on a link in the email / Number of emails delivered) x 100
As per Mailchimp, the average CTR falls around 2.62%.
To boost your CTR, focus on strong subject lines, compelling copy, and clear, action-driven CTAs like ‘Buy Now or ‘Explore More.’ Make sure your CTAs stand out visually and offer value, like limited-time offers or exclusive discounts.
Bounce rate is the percentage of emails that didn’t get delivered. High bounce rates indicates a low quality email list.
Bounce rate includes soft bounces (temporary issues like a full inbox) and hard bounces (invalid or non-existent addresses).
A bounce rate of 2% or below is generally considered unharmful.
Here’s how to calculate bounce rate –
Bounce rate = (Number of bounced emails / Number of emails sent) x 100
You can try removing hard-bounced email addresses to improve accuracy and enhance open rates and CTR.
Unsubscribe rate is the number of people that opted out of your list after you sent them the first email.
Here’s how to calculate unsubscribe rate –
Unsubscribe rate = (Number of people who unsubscribed / Number of emails delivered) x 100
The basic unsubscription rate stands at 0.22%.
To keep it low, ensure your content is relevant, well-segmented, and valuable. Sending mismatched content to the wrong audience often leads to unsubscribes.
Conversion rate is the percentage of recipients who completed a desired action like buying a product or signing up for a webinar. It’s your ultimate success metric.
As per Omnisend, automated emails have 2,361% better conversion rates compared to regular scheduled campaigns, with back-in-stock and welcome emails often performing best.
To improve your conversion rate, use mobile-friendly design, clear CTAs, and test offers like discounts or urgency-driven copy.
Here’s how you can calculate conversion rate –
Conversion rate = (Number of people who took the action / Number of emails delivered) x 100
Strategy isn’t the only thing you need to execute high-performing email campaigns. You need to have the right setup in place, too. Here’s what you’ll need.
Starter-friendly – Mailchimp, Brevo (Sendinblue), Moosend
Growth-stage – Klaviyo, ConvertKit, ActiveCampaign
Canva for graphics
Litmus or Email on Acid for email previews
Jasper for copy
Phrasee for subject lines
Seventh Sense for send-time optimization
Sync your ESP with Google Analytics
CRM platforms (like HubSpot or Pipedrive),
Ecommerce platforms (like Shopify)
Form builder (like Typeform)
Landing page tools (like Unbounce) for a fully connected experience.
CRM integration helps you centralize customer data, enabling better segmentation, personalization, and automation in your email campaigns based on real-time customer behavior and history.
Let’s align the tools you’ll need with each stage of your email marketing workflow:
Tools used – No email marketing tools are used at this stage. This is all about setting SMART goals.
Tools used –
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Before we move forward, here are some other email marketing terms you should be aware of.
Dividing your email list into smaller groups based on data like behavior, demographics, or interests.
Sending two versions of an email to a subset of your audience to see which performs better.
The practice of regularly cleaning your list by removing fake, inactive, or unengaged subscribers.
Placeholder tags in your email content that auto-fill subscriber info like name, location, or purchase history (e.g., “Hi {{first_name}}”).
A two-step process where a subscriber must confirm their email address after signing up, ensuring higher quality leads and compliance.
Email marketing, when done right, becomes more than just a marketing channel.
It turns into a system of connection, conversion, and continuous engagement.
From what email marketing is and why it’s still thriving in 2025, to the essential types of emails, performance metrics, and the power of aligning your email workflow with your customer journey, we talked about the fundamentals in this ultimate guide 2025.
To build on this momentum, we will discuss in detail in the next part of our email marketing series – on setting goals that actually move the needle.
We’ll explore how to set SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-bound) goals that directly tie your email efforts to business outcomes, whether it’s driving conversions, increasing retention, or growing your list.
Stay Tuned!
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