Is Email Marketing Dead? Let’s Set the Record Straight

Hey it’s Max from The Inbox Newsletter.

Every few months someone declares email marketing dead.

Usually after they check their inbox, see 47 promotional emails from brands they don’t remember signing up for, and think, “This doesn’t work anymore.”

But let’s be real... is email actually dying? Or are lazy strategies just dying off?

📊 Email Usage & Marketing Stats: The State of the Inbox

• Nearly everyone uses email daily: In the U.S., about 89–96% of adults across age groups (15‑64+) use email daily… many up to 20 times a day; 58% start their morning with email

• Volume overload: Globally, some 376–380 billion emails are sent daily in 2025—about 9.7 billion per day in the U.S. alone demandsage.co

• Mobile dominance: Between 59–67% of Millennials and Gen Z check email primarily on smartphones

• Influence on purchases: 59–60% of consumers report being influenced by marketing emails to make a purchase .

These numbers tell one clear story: email is still deeply embedded in daily life.

And highly effective for brands.

📉 The Case for Email Marketing Dying

Let’s play devil’s advocate.

1. Consumer Fatigue
People are overwhelmed. Between newsletters, flash sale blasts, and “we miss you” emails, inboxes are a mess. Many consumers are tuning out, unsubscribing, or ghosting brands altogether.

2. Rising Privacy & Deliverability Challenges
Apple Mail Privacy Protection, Gmail’s ever-evolving spam filters, and engagement-based sorting mean just hitting “send” doesn’t guarantee visibility anymore. If your emails aren’t personalized, valuable, and optimized, they’re not landing or not being opened.

3. SMS and Newer Channels
SMS open rates are sitting around 98%. With channels like SMS, push notifications, and even DMs offering direct, high-engagement access, it’s easy to assume email is the past.

4. Saturation & Declining ROI for Some
For brands that batch-and-blast outdated templates to cold lists? Yeah, email is dead for them. They’re seeing diminishing returns because they haven’t adapted.

💡 The Case for Email Marketing Being More Alive Than Ever

1. 40%+ of Store Revenue Can Come From Email
Our agency has scaled brands to 40–50% of total revenue from email alone. Not with outdated strategies but with flows, segmentation, and on-brand campaigns that nurture and convert.

2. Owned Media = Power & Profit
Email isn’t controlled by Meta, TikTok, or some other algorithm. It’s your list. Your audience. Your data. And with rising CAC, owning your traffic is more valuable than ever.

3. Deliverability Is a Skill, Not a Gamble
Spam filters are tougher, but brands that follow warm-up protocols, segment, and send high-quality content are thriving. Bad practices are dying. Email isn’t.

4. Email Powers Cross-Channel Success
Want your SMS to pop off? Email primes the list. Want retargeting to convert better? Email warms them up. It’s not either/or… it’s both.

5. The Numbers Don’t Lie
We’ve scaled fresh Klaviyo accounts to $31k/mo in 47 days. We’ve helped brands double list growth and revenue with optimized pop-up forms. These results don’t come from a dead channel.

🔚 Final Thoughts

Email marketing isn’t dying.

What’s dying is lazy execution: batch‑and‑blast. Ignoring list health. No testing.

But when you build a strong strategy of flows, segmentation, testing, and personalization… email becomes your most predictable, profitable, and powerful channel.

These stats show it's still stellar in usage, reach, ROI, and influence. Don’t fall for the hype.

Email isn’t dead. But your old approach? That might be.

Email Inspiration Of The Day

Brand:
Three Spirit

Email Design:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1_o_m7nWegHemx2pLU7l4ocAYeBvTu726/view?usp=sharing 

Notes:
Love the angle of finding a national holiday and tying it do the brand.

I love how simple, quick, and punchy this email is. No extra full just straight to the point.

Template of The Day

If you want access to a bank of 134 mix and match templates like this equating to over 5,000+ possible email designs, click here » 

Helpful Links Of The Day

• This could be the smartest marketing campaign of all time

• Alo vs Vuori email marketing

• Email design hacks for more conversions

Reply to this email if you have any questions or further content you want covered.

Cheers,

Max

PS - If you run a 7-9 figure ecommerce brand and you want to have a free email strategy consultation, book a call here »

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