Email Marketing in 2025: You Think It Doesn't Work Anymore?

Let me guess. Your inbox right now has at least 47 unread emails. Maybe more. Probably way more if we're being honest.

There's the daily newsletter you swore you'd read but never do. Three different clothing brands having "exclusive 24-hour sales" that somehow run every single day. A LinkedIn notification about someone you've never met endorsing you for "synergy." And somewhere buried in there, an actual important email from a client that you almost missed because of all the noise.

So when someone suggests email marketing for your business in 2025, I get why your first reaction might be: "Really? Email? Isn't that... dead?"

I hear this all the time. Business owners look at their own chaotic inboxes and think, "If I hate getting marketing emails, why would I send them to my customers?"

Fair question. Let's talk about it.

Why Everyone Thinks Email Marketing Is Dead (Spoiler: It's Not)

The average person receives somewhere between 100 and 120 emails per day. That's overwhelming. It's exhausting. And yes, most of those emails go straight to trash or sit unread forever.

So from a consumer's perspective, email marketing feels broken. You're constantly deleting, unsubscribing, marking things as spam. The sheer volume makes it feel like email has become useless background noise.

But here's where it gets interesting. While you're deleting those emails, you're also checking your inbox roughly 20 times a day (some studies say even more). And when an email from a brand you actually care about lands in there, you open it. You read it. Sometimes you even buy from it.

The problem isn't email marketing. The problem is bad email marketing.

Why Marketers Think Very Differently About Email

While most people are drowning in promotional garbage, marketers are looking at data. And the data tells a completely different story.

Email marketing has an average ROI of R621 for every R17 spent, according to recent studies. That's a 3,600% return. Compare that to social media ads, which average around R48 per R17 spent, or even Google Ads at roughly R35 per R17 spent.

Email absolutely destroys other channels when it comes to return on investment. It's not even close.

Open rates for well-crafted email campaigns typically hover between 15% and 25%, depending on your industry. Click-through rates range from 2% to 5%. Those might sound small, but when you compare them to organic social media reach (which has plummeted to around 5% of your followers actually seeing your posts), email suddenly looks pretty good.

And here's the kicker: people who buy products marketed through email spend 138% more than those who don't receive email offers. Email subscribers are more engaged, more loyal, and more valuable over time than audiences on any other platform.

So yeah, as a marketer, I'm looking at those numbers and thinking email is very much alive.

But Why Does It Work When Everyone Hates It?

Because not all emails are created equal. And this is the part most businesses get completely wrong.

Think about the last email you actually opened and enjoyed. Maybe it was from a brand you love announcing a product you'd been waiting for. Or a weekly newsletter that always makes you laugh. Or a helpful tip from someone whose expertise you trust.

You didn't delete those. You opened them. Maybe even looked forward to them.

Now think about the emails you instantly trash. The generic "SALE SALE SALE" subject lines. The desperate "Did you forget something in your cart?" five minutes after you left a website. The weekly newsletter from a company you bought from once three years ago and have zero relationship with.

The difference isn't that email works for some businesses and not others. The difference is that some businesses understand how to use email, and others are just adding to the noise.

Where Email Actually Shines

Email isn't good at everything. It's terrible at interruption-based marketing. It's annoying when it's desperate or overly frequent. It fails when it's impersonal and clearly mass-blasted.

But email is absolutely unmatched in specific situations:

Nurturing relationships over time. Social media posts disappear into the void within hours. An email sits in someone's inbox until they're ready to engage with it. You can guide someone through a decision-making process, provide value consistently, and stay top-of-mind without being pushy.

Reaching people who've already shown interest. Someone gave you their email address. That's permission. That's way more valuable than hoping the algorithm shows your post to strangers who might not care.

Delivering detailed, valuable content. Try explaining something complex or valuable in a tweet or Instagram caption. Now try it in an email where you have space to actually help someone. Email wins every time.

Personalization and segmentation. You can send completely different messages to different groups based on their behavior, preferences, or stage in the customer journey. Your new subscribers get welcomed differently than your loyal repeat customers. That level of targeting is hard to match elsewhere.

Direct response and conversion. When someone is ready to buy, book, or take action, email drives conversions better than almost any other channel. The path from "I'm interested" to "I'm ready to act" is shorter and clearer in email.

Where Email Falls Flat

Cold outreach to people who never asked to hear from you. Buying email lists and spamming strangers? That's not marketing. That's annoying people and damaging your reputation.

When you have nothing valuable to say. Emailing just because "it's been a week" or "we should stay top of mind" without actually providing value or relevance is a fast track to unsubscribes.

For building initial awareness with cold audiences. If nobody knows who you are yet, email isn't your tool. You need social media, content marketing, ads, or other channels to get on people's radar first.

"Sales without awareness is like expecting a cat to do your taxes… hilarious, confusing, and impossible."

When it's all pitch and no relationship. If every single email is "BUY NOW," people tune out fast. Email works best when it's a mix of value, education, entertainment, and yes, occasionally, offers.

The Magic Happens When You Combine Channels

Here's where email gets really powerful: when you stop thinking about it as a standalone channel and start integrating it with everything else.

Someone discovers you on Instagram. They're interested but not ready to buy. You offer a helpful free guide in exchange for their email. Now you're in their inbox, building trust with valuable content over the next few weeks. When they're finally ready to buy, guess who they think of?

Or this: Someone visits your website, browses a bit, but leaves. You retarget them with a Facebook ad. They click through again, this time signing up for your email list. You send them a personalized welcome sequence that addresses their specific interests based on what pages they visited. Three emails later, they book a call or make a purchase.

Email doesn't replace social media, SEO, or paid ads. It amplifies all of them by giving you a direct line to people after they've shown interest through other channels.

"The businesses winning with email in 2025 aren't the ones sending the most emails," I tell clients all the time. "They're the ones sending the right emails to the right people at the right time. Quality and relevance beat frequency every single time."

The Bottom Line

Does email marketing work in 2025? Absolutely. The data is overwhelming.

Is everyone doing it well? Definitely not. Most businesses are contributing to the problem: generic, irrelevant, too-frequent emails that train people to ignore or delete everything.

But if you're willing to put in the work to make your emails genuinely useful, relevant, and respectful of people's attention, email remains one of the highest-ROI channels available.

Your inbox might be a disaster. But that doesn't mean email doesn't work. It means there's a massive opportunity for businesses who actually do it right to stand out.