Email marketing remains one of the most effective channels a business can use to generate consistent revenue. Email marketing campaigns have an average ROI of 36 times, meaning that businesses earn $36 for every dollar they spend. No other owned channel comes close to that ratio. But that return is not automatic. It depends on doing email marketing correctly, from building a quality list to writing subject lines that earn opens, setting up automation, and measuring what actually matters.
This guide walks through every core component of how to do email marketing, whether you are starting from scratch or trying to improve an underperforming program.
Key Takeaways
For every $1 spent on email marketing, businesses see a return of $36, an ROI of 3,600%.
Email campaigns targeted to specific audience segments deliver dramatically higher revenue than undifferentiated mass sends, with properly segmented lists generating up to 760% more revenue.
Despite representing only 2% of email volume, automated messages generated 37% of all email-attributed sales in 2024.
Gmail and Yahoo now enforce a maximum spam rate of 0.3%, with Gmail recommending brands stay below 0.10%.
The top 8% of email programs, those hitting 45:1+ ROI, most commonly send newsletters and onboarding emails, not promotions.
What Email Marketing Actually Is (and Why It Works)
Email marketing is the practice of sending targeted messages to a list of opted-in subscribers to build relationships, nurture leads, and drive sales. It works because you own the channel. No algorithm decides who sees your message. No platform can cut off your reach overnight.
Global email users are forecasted to increase from 4.48 billion in 2024 to 4.97 billion by 2028, reaching over 60% of the global population. That scale, combined with direct access to a subscriber's inbox, is what gives email its staying power across every industry and business model.
52% of consumers made a purchase directly from an email they received, making email the most effective channel for driving sales. It beats social media posts by 13% and social media ads by 11%.
Step 1: Choose the Right Email Marketing Platform
Before you can do email marketing, you need the infrastructure to run it. Your choice of shapes everything from automation capabilities to deliverability.
Email marketing remains one of the most effective channels a business can use to generate consistent revenue. Email marketing campaigns have an average ROI of 36 times, meaning that businesses earn $36 for every dollar they spend. No other owned channel comes close to that ratio. But that return is not automatic. It depends on doing email marketing correctly, from building a quality list to writing subject lines that earn opens, setting up automation, and measuring what actually matters.
This guide walks through every core component of how to do email marketing, whether you are starting from scratch or trying to improve an underperforming program.
Key Takeaways
For every $1 spent on email marketing, businesses see a return of $36, an ROI of 3,600%.
Email campaigns targeted to specific audience segments deliver dramatically higher revenue than undifferentiated mass sends, with properly segmented lists generating up to 760% more revenue.
Despite representing only 2% of email volume, automated messages generated 37% of all email-attributed sales in 2024.
Gmail and Yahoo now enforce a maximum spam rate of 0.3%, with Gmail recommending brands stay below 0.10%.
The top 8% of email programs, those hitting 45:1+ ROI, most commonly send newsletters and onboarding emails, not promotions.
What Email Marketing Actually Is (and Why It Works)
Email marketing is the practice of sending targeted messages to a list of opted-in subscribers to build relationships, nurture leads, and drive sales. It works because you own the channel. No algorithm decides who sees your message. No platform can cut off your reach overnight.
Global email users are forecasted to increase from 4.48 billion in 2024 to 4.97 billion by 2028, reaching over 60% of the global population. That scale, combined with direct access to a subscriber's inbox, is what gives email its staying power across every industry and business model.
52% of consumers made a purchase directly from an email they received, making email the most effective channel for driving sales. It beats social media posts by 13% and social media ads by 11%.
Step 1: Choose the Right Email Marketing Platform
Before you can do email marketing, you need the infrastructure to run it. Your choice of shapes everything from automation capabilities to deliverability.
Analytics with revenue attribution, not just open rates
Compliance tools for GDPR and CAN-SPAM
Deliverability track record and authentication support (SPF, DKIM, DMARC)
Popular platforms include Klaviyo, Mailchimp, Brevo, ActiveCampaign, and Drip. Each serves different business sizes and use cases. If you want a detailed platform comparison, our guide to email marketing strategy templates for 2025 covers how to match tools to goals.
Step 2: Build an Email List the Right Way
Your list quality determines your results more than any other factor. There are plenty of ways to build your email list, but buying it is not one of them. While it seems like a quick and easy solution, it is not practical. Most people on paid email lists are not interested in whatever product or advice is being sent their way. Paid email lists end up in people's spam folders, or they unsubscribe and feel angry about it.
Build your list organically using these proven methods:
Lead magnets: Offer a checklist, template, ebook, or mini-course in exchange for an email address. Keep the sign-up form simple: name and email only.
Exit-intent pop-ups: Trigger an email signup form to pop up just before visitors exit your website. Pop-up windows are often effective for building lists and increasing conversion rates.
Embedded forms: Place opt-in forms in high-traffic areas: blog post conclusions, the homepage hero section, and your site footer.
Dedicated landing pages: Dedicated landing pages can play a big role in growing your email list. The purpose of a landing page is to send people to "land" on it. Use these when promoting list sign-ups through ads, podcasts, or social content.
Mailchimp research shows that users have seen their list growth rate increase by an average of 50.8% after adding a pop-up form to their site.
The moment someone joins your list is your highest-leverage moment. Their interest is at its peak and they are actively expecting to hear from you.
74% of people expect to receive a welcome email immediately after they subscribe. Miss that window and you have already lost momentum before the relationship begins.
Best practice is to send the first email within 5 minutes of signup. Welcome emails sent within the first hour generate 10x more engagement than those sent later.
A well-structured welcome sequence typically spans 3 to 5 emails over 7 to 10 days. Here is a framework:
Email 1 (Day 0): Deliver your lead magnet or promised offer. Set expectations for what they will receive and how often.
Email 2 (Day 2): Share your brand story or core mission. Make it subscriber-focused, not a self-promotional monologue.
Email 3 (Day 5): Deliver educational value. A quick win or useful tip tied to their interest.
Email 4 (Day 7): Include social proof. Customer results, testimonials, or case studies.
Email 5 (Day 10): Soft call to action. Invite them to explore a product, book a call, or take the next logical step.
According to Klaviyo's 2025 email benchmarks, welcome series emails boast an average open rate of 51%, while top-performing welcome emails earn click rates of 15% and placed order rates of nearly 10%.
For more detail on building this sequence, our welcome email sequence best practices guide covers 7 proven strategies you can apply immediately.
Step 4: Segment Your List Before You Send
Segmentation is the single highest-impact lever in email marketing. It is also the one most businesses skip.
Email campaigns targeted to specific audience segments deliver dramatically higher revenue than undifferentiated mass sends, with properly segmented lists generating up to 760% more revenue. This extraordinary multiplier effect results from improved relevance. Recipients receive offers, content, and messaging aligned with their specific interests, purchase history, and engagement level. The finding demonstrates that segmentation strategy matters more than send volume or creative execution.
Your subject line is the single most important element of any campaign. It determines whether the email gets opened at all.
Personalized emails see a 29% higher rate of opens compared to non-personalized emails. The most effective subject lines are specific, curiosity-driven, and relevant to the segment receiving them.
Avoid:
Vague lines like "Our latest newsletter"
All-caps or excessive punctuation (spam triggers)
Overpromising what the email delivers
For data-backed guidance on this, our article on email subject line best practices that boost open rates by 27% covers tested formats with real examples.
Email Body Copy
Keep paragraphs short. Use plain language. Lead with the value and end with a single, clear call to action.
Personalized calls to action result in 42% higher conversion rates than regular CTAs. That means your CTA should reflect what the reader has already shown interest in, not a generic "Shop Now."
Mobile Optimization
64% of emails are now opened on mobile devices globally. 90% of mobile opens occur on Apple devices. Mobile-responsive emails generate 24% higher click-through rates, making mobile optimization essential for email marketing success.
Always preview your emails on mobile before sending. Use a single-column layout, large tap-friendly buttons, and a font size of at least 14px for body copy.
Step 6: Build Email Automation Into Your Core Strategy
Manual broadcast campaigns have their place, but automation is where consistent revenue comes from.
Email automations deliver 30 times more revenue per recipient than one-off promotional campaigns. The average return per recipient for campaigns sits at $0.11, while automated flows earn $1.94 per recipient.
The core automated flows every business should have:
Welcome series (covered above)
Abandoned cart recovery: Abandoned cart emails achieve 40-45% open rates and 3.33% conversion rates, making them the highest-performing automated email flow.
Post-purchase sequence: Thank the customer, offer guidance, request a review, and recommend complementary products.
Re-engagement campaign: Target subscribers who have not opened or clicked in 60 to 90 days. Offer value or ask if they still want to hear from you.
Win-back flow: For customers who have not purchased in several months, use personalized offers tied to their purchase history.
Brands that regularly A/B test their emails achieve 83% higher ROI than those that never test. Build testing into your automation setup from day one.
Step 7: Protect Your Deliverability
The best email copy in the world is worthless if it lands in the spam folder. Deliverability is the foundation everything else rests on.
With Gmail and Yahoo's 2024 changes now fully in effect, the pressure to improve email deliverability is higher than ever. New rules around authentication, spam complaints, and unsubscribe handling have forced brands to reassess consent, list hygiene, and reputation.
What to do:
Authenticate your domain: Set up SPF, DKIM, and DMARC records. This is now a baseline requirement, not optional.
Keep complaint rates low: Gmail and Yahoo now enforce a maximum spam rate of 0.3%, with Gmail recommending brands stay below 0.10%.
Maintain list hygiene: Remove or suppress subscribers who have not engaged in 6 months. Regularly removing unengaged contacts and verifying addresses with an email verification tool helps maintain a healthy contact list, improving deliverability and driving business growth.
Implement one-click unsubscribe: One-click unsubscribe is required using the list-unsubscribe header and RFC 8058, with opt-out requests processed within two days.
Honor consent laws: Regulations such as the CAN-SPAM Act in the US or GDPR in the European Union dictate rules for obtaining consent, providing opt-out options, and safeguarding user data. Failure to comply can result in severe penalties, damage brand reputation, and lead to email deliverability issues as internet service providers actively filter out non-compliant emails.
Step 8: Track Metrics That Connect to Revenue
Open rates are not a reliable performance metric anymore. Apple's Mail Privacy Protection began registering automatic opens regardless of whether a person viewed the message. That means open rates now show inbox delivery and technical detection more than true engagement. They are still useful for spotting anomalies like a deliverability issue, but less reliable as a success metric.
Focus on these instead:
Metric
What It Tells You
Benchmark
Click-through rate (CTR)
Whether your content and offer resonate
2.09% average across industries (2025)
Click-to-open rate (CTOR)
Content quality given those who opened
6.81% average (2025)
Revenue per email (RPE)
Direct link to campaign profitability
Varies by industry
Unsubscribe rate
List relevance and frequency fit
0.22% average (2025)
Bounce rate
List hygiene health
Keep below 2%
Multi-channel attribution and MQLs jumped 22% year-over-year as email campaign reporting moves away from engagement proxies toward revenue accountability. High-performing teams now track revenue per email, list churn, and lifetime value above all else.
Start by choosing an email service provider that fits your business size and goals. Then build your list organically using lead magnets, opt-in forms, and landing pages. Set up a welcome sequence to engage new subscribers immediately. Do not buy a list. Purchased lists damage deliverability and rarely convert.
How often should I send marketing emails?
Brands sending 9 to 16 emails monthly achieve average ROI of 4,600%, the highest of any frequency bracket. The right cadence depends on your audience and content quality. Start with one or two emails per week and adjust based on unsubscribe rates and engagement data.
What is a good email open rate?
Open rates vary by industry and are now inflated by Apple's Mail Privacy Protection. Rather than chasing open rate benchmarks, focus on click-through rate and revenue per email as primary indicators of campaign performance. Email marketers now prioritize click-through rates, click-to-open rates, and conversion metrics over open rates when evaluating campaign performance.
What types of emails should I send?
A healthy email program includes automated flows (welcome series, cart abandonment, post-purchase, re-engagement) and regular broadcast campaigns (newsletters, promotions, product announcements). The top-performing email programs most commonly send newsletters and onboarding emails, not promotions. These teams reflect a deliberate shift from broadcasting to relationship-building, with newsletters up 12% from 2025. Balance promotional sends with genuinely useful content.
Analytics with revenue attribution, not just open rates
Compliance tools for GDPR and CAN-SPAM
Deliverability track record and authentication support (SPF, DKIM, DMARC)
Popular platforms include Klaviyo, Mailchimp, Brevo, ActiveCampaign, and Drip. Each serves different business sizes and use cases. If you want a detailed platform comparison, our guide to email marketing strategy templates for 2025 covers how to match tools to goals.
Step 2: Build an Email List the Right Way
Your list quality determines your results more than any other factor. There are plenty of ways to build your email list, but buying it is not one of them. While it seems like a quick and easy solution, it is not practical. Most people on paid email lists are not interested in whatever product or advice is being sent their way. Paid email lists end up in people's spam folders, or they unsubscribe and feel angry about it.
Build your list organically using these proven methods:
Lead magnets: Offer a checklist, template, ebook, or mini-course in exchange for an email address. Keep the sign-up form simple: name and email only.
Exit-intent pop-ups: Trigger an email signup form to pop up just before visitors exit your website. Pop-up windows are often effective for building lists and increasing conversion rates.
Embedded forms: Place opt-in forms in high-traffic areas: blog post conclusions, the homepage hero section, and your site footer.
Dedicated landing pages: Dedicated landing pages can play a big role in growing your email list. The purpose of a landing page is to send people to "land" on it. Use these when promoting list sign-ups through ads, podcasts, or social content.
Mailchimp research shows that users have seen their list growth rate increase by an average of 50.8% after adding a pop-up form to their site.
The moment someone joins your list is your highest-leverage moment. Their interest is at its peak and they are actively expecting to hear from you.
74% of people expect to receive a welcome email immediately after they subscribe. Miss that window and you have already lost momentum before the relationship begins.
Best practice is to send the first email within 5 minutes of signup. Welcome emails sent within the first hour generate 10x more engagement than those sent later.
A well-structured welcome sequence typically spans 3 to 5 emails over 7 to 10 days. Here is a framework:
Email 1 (Day 0): Deliver your lead magnet or promised offer. Set expectations for what they will receive and how often.
Email 2 (Day 2): Share your brand story or core mission. Make it subscriber-focused, not a self-promotional monologue.
Email 3 (Day 5): Deliver educational value. A quick win or useful tip tied to their interest.
Email 4 (Day 7): Include social proof. Customer results, testimonials, or case studies.
Email 5 (Day 10): Soft call to action. Invite them to explore a product, book a call, or take the next logical step.
According to Klaviyo's 2025 email benchmarks, welcome series emails boast an average open rate of 51%, while top-performing welcome emails earn click rates of 15% and placed order rates of nearly 10%.
For more detail on building this sequence, our welcome email sequence best practices guide covers 7 proven strategies you can apply immediately.
Step 4: Segment Your List Before You Send
Segmentation is the single highest-impact lever in email marketing. It is also the one most businesses skip.
Email campaigns targeted to specific audience segments deliver dramatically higher revenue than undifferentiated mass sends, with properly segmented lists generating up to 760% more revenue. This extraordinary multiplier effect results from improved relevance. Recipients receive offers, content, and messaging aligned with their specific interests, purchase history, and engagement level. The finding demonstrates that segmentation strategy matters more than send volume or creative execution.
Your subject line is the single most important element of any campaign. It determines whether the email gets opened at all.
Personalized emails see a 29% higher rate of opens compared to non-personalized emails. The most effective subject lines are specific, curiosity-driven, and relevant to the segment receiving them.
Avoid:
Vague lines like "Our latest newsletter"
All-caps or excessive punctuation (spam triggers)
Overpromising what the email delivers
For data-backed guidance on this, our article on email subject line best practices that boost open rates by 27% covers tested formats with real examples.
Email Body Copy
Keep paragraphs short. Use plain language. Lead with the value and end with a single, clear call to action.
Personalized calls to action result in 42% higher conversion rates than regular CTAs. That means your CTA should reflect what the reader has already shown interest in, not a generic "Shop Now."
Mobile Optimization
64% of emails are now opened on mobile devices globally. 90% of mobile opens occur on Apple devices. Mobile-responsive emails generate 24% higher click-through rates, making mobile optimization essential for email marketing success.
Always preview your emails on mobile before sending. Use a single-column layout, large tap-friendly buttons, and a font size of at least 14px for body copy.
Step 6: Build Email Automation Into Your Core Strategy
Manual broadcast campaigns have their place, but automation is where consistent revenue comes from.
Email automations deliver 30 times more revenue per recipient than one-off promotional campaigns. The average return per recipient for campaigns sits at $0.11, while automated flows earn $1.94 per recipient.
The core automated flows every business should have:
Welcome series (covered above)
Abandoned cart recovery: Abandoned cart emails achieve 40-45% open rates and 3.33% conversion rates, making them the highest-performing automated email flow.
Post-purchase sequence: Thank the customer, offer guidance, request a review, and recommend complementary products.
Re-engagement campaign: Target subscribers who have not opened or clicked in 60 to 90 days. Offer value or ask if they still want to hear from you.
Win-back flow: For customers who have not purchased in several months, use personalized offers tied to their purchase history.
Brands that regularly A/B test their emails achieve 83% higher ROI than those that never test. Build testing into your automation setup from day one.
Step 7: Protect Your Deliverability
The best email copy in the world is worthless if it lands in the spam folder. Deliverability is the foundation everything else rests on.
With Gmail and Yahoo's 2024 changes now fully in effect, the pressure to improve email deliverability is higher than ever. New rules around authentication, spam complaints, and unsubscribe handling have forced brands to reassess consent, list hygiene, and reputation.
What to do:
Authenticate your domain: Set up SPF, DKIM, and DMARC records. This is now a baseline requirement, not optional.
Keep complaint rates low: Gmail and Yahoo now enforce a maximum spam rate of 0.3%, with Gmail recommending brands stay below 0.10%.
Maintain list hygiene: Remove or suppress subscribers who have not engaged in 6 months. Regularly removing unengaged contacts and verifying addresses with an email verification tool helps maintain a healthy contact list, improving deliverability and driving business growth.
Implement one-click unsubscribe: One-click unsubscribe is required using the list-unsubscribe header and RFC 8058, with opt-out requests processed within two days.
Honor consent laws: Regulations such as the CAN-SPAM Act in the US or GDPR in the European Union dictate rules for obtaining consent, providing opt-out options, and safeguarding user data. Failure to comply can result in severe penalties, damage brand reputation, and lead to email deliverability issues as internet service providers actively filter out non-compliant emails.
Step 8: Track Metrics That Connect to Revenue
Open rates are not a reliable performance metric anymore. Apple's Mail Privacy Protection began registering automatic opens regardless of whether a person viewed the message. That means open rates now show inbox delivery and technical detection more than true engagement. They are still useful for spotting anomalies like a deliverability issue, but less reliable as a success metric.
Focus on these instead:
Metric
What It Tells You
Benchmark
Click-through rate (CTR)
Whether your content and offer resonate
2.09% average across industries (2025)
Click-to-open rate (CTOR)
Content quality given those who opened
6.81% average (2025)
Revenue per email (RPE)
Direct link to campaign profitability
Varies by industry
Unsubscribe rate
List relevance and frequency fit
0.22% average (2025)
Bounce rate
List hygiene health
Keep below 2%
Multi-channel attribution and MQLs jumped 22% year-over-year as email campaign reporting moves away from engagement proxies toward revenue accountability. High-performing teams now track revenue per email, list churn, and lifetime value above all else.
Start by choosing an email service provider that fits your business size and goals. Then build your list organically using lead magnets, opt-in forms, and landing pages. Set up a welcome sequence to engage new subscribers immediately. Do not buy a list. Purchased lists damage deliverability and rarely convert.
How often should I send marketing emails?
Brands sending 9 to 16 emails monthly achieve average ROI of 4,600%, the highest of any frequency bracket. The right cadence depends on your audience and content quality. Start with one or two emails per week and adjust based on unsubscribe rates and engagement data.
What is a good email open rate?
Open rates vary by industry and are now inflated by Apple's Mail Privacy Protection. Rather than chasing open rate benchmarks, focus on click-through rate and revenue per email as primary indicators of campaign performance. Email marketers now prioritize click-through rates, click-to-open rates, and conversion metrics over open rates when evaluating campaign performance.
What types of emails should I send?
A healthy email program includes automated flows (welcome series, cart abandonment, post-purchase, re-engagement) and regular broadcast campaigns (newsletters, promotions, product announcements). The top-performing email programs most commonly send newsletters and onboarding emails, not promotions. These teams reflect a deliberate shift from broadcasting to relationship-building, with newsletters up 12% from 2025. Balance promotional sends with genuinely useful content.
