How to Increase Email Engagement: 7 Proven Tactics
Boost email engagement with segmentation, personalization, and strategic timing. Learn what actually works to improve open rates and click-through rates.
Most email marketers know the struggle: you build a solid list, craft carefully worded campaigns, hit send, and still watch engagement metrics stagnate. The question of how do you increase engagement in email marketing doesn't have a single answer, but there are specific, evidence-backed tactics that consistently move the numbers. This guide covers seven of them.
Key Takeaways
Emails with personalized subject lines are 26% more likely to be opened than non-personalized ones.
Marketers report a 760% increase in email revenue from segmented campaigns, according to DMA.
Automated emails drove 37% of all email-generated sales in 2024, despite making up just 2% of email volume.
The average email click rate in 2025 is 2.09%, a slight increase on 2024's 2% average. Click rate, not open rate, is now the most reliable indicator of true engagement.
List quality matters as much as content: clean lists achieve 98% inbox placement rates, while dirty lists often see 30 to 40% of emails land in spam, regardless of content quality.
Why Email Engagement Is Harder to Measure Than It Used to Be
Before diving into tactics, it helps to understand what you are actually measuring. Apple Mail Privacy Protection now affects roughly 50 to 60% of recorded email opens, inflating open rate data and making open rate a less reliable engagement metric. As a result, many marketers now rely more heavily on clicks, replies, and conversions when evaluating campaign performance.
Click-to-open rate tells marketers what percentage of people who opened an email actually clicked something. It's the truest measure of content quality.
Keep this in mind as you implement the tactics below. Use click rate and conversion rate as your primary success metrics.
1. Segment Your List Before You Write a Single Word
Segmentation is the most impactful structural change you can make to your email program. Segmented email campaigns can drive 30% more opens and 50% more click-throughs than non-segmented ones.
The revenue impact is even more striking. 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. The finding demonstrates that segmentation strategy matters more than send volume or creative execution.
How to Increase Email Engagement: 7 Proven Tactics
Boost email engagement with segmentation, personalization, and strategic timing. Learn what actually works to improve open rates and click-through rates.
Most email marketers know the struggle: you build a solid list, craft carefully worded campaigns, hit send, and still watch engagement metrics stagnate. The question of how do you increase engagement in email marketing doesn't have a single answer, but there are specific, evidence-backed tactics that consistently move the numbers. This guide covers seven of them.
Key Takeaways
Emails with personalized subject lines are 26% more likely to be opened than non-personalized ones.
Marketers report a 760% increase in email revenue from segmented campaigns, according to DMA.
Automated emails drove 37% of all email-generated sales in 2024, despite making up just 2% of email volume.
The average email click rate in 2025 is 2.09%, a slight increase on 2024's 2% average. Click rate, not open rate, is now the most reliable indicator of true engagement.
List quality matters as much as content: clean lists achieve 98% inbox placement rates, while dirty lists often see 30 to 40% of emails land in spam, regardless of content quality.
Why Email Engagement Is Harder to Measure Than It Used to Be
Before diving into tactics, it helps to understand what you are actually measuring. Apple Mail Privacy Protection now affects roughly 50 to 60% of recorded email opens, inflating open rate data and making open rate a less reliable engagement metric. As a result, many marketers now rely more heavily on clicks, replies, and conversions when evaluating campaign performance.
Click-to-open rate tells marketers what percentage of people who opened an email actually clicked something. It's the truest measure of content quality.
Keep this in mind as you implement the tactics below. Use click rate and conversion rate as your primary success metrics.
1. Segment Your List Before You Write a Single Word
Segmentation is the most impactful structural change you can make to your email program. Segmented email campaigns can drive 30% more opens and 50% more click-throughs than non-segmented ones.
The revenue impact is even more striking. 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. The finding demonstrates that segmentation strategy matters more than send volume or creative execution.
Common segmentation criteria that drive results:
Purchase history (what they bought, how recently)
Behavioral data (pages visited, links clicked, content downloaded)
Lifecycle stage (new subscriber, active customer, lapsed buyer)
Demographics (location, industry, job function)
Implementation of email segmentation results in an 86% improvement in engagement rates. If you're looking for a practical framework, our guide to Email List Segmentation Strategies That Boost ROI by 760% covers the mechanics in detail.
2. Go Beyond "Hi [First Name]": Real Personalization
Personalizing a subject line with a subscriber's first name is a start, but it barely scratches the surface of what's possible. Personalized email campaigns reach 41% higher click-through rates than non-personalized ones, and 57% of email marketers manage to enhance engagement with personalized content.
Effective personalization uses behavioral data, not just demographic fields:
Reference products the subscriber has viewed or purchased
Tailor content to where they are in the customer lifecycle
Use dynamic content blocks to show different offers to different segments
Trigger emails based on specific actions (browsing a product category, abandoning a cart, completing a purchase)
Using dynamic email content isn't just a nice touch. It can boost revenue by up to 22%. From personalized product recommendations to location-based offers, dynamic elements make email marketing campaigns more relevant and more effective.
74% of marketers say targeted personalization increases customer engagement. For hands-on tactics, see our article on 7 Email Personalization Techniques That Boost Conversions 47%.
3. Write Subject Lines That Earn the Open
Subject lines are the front door to your email. 47% of recipients determine whether to open an email based exclusively on its subject line. Equally important: 68% of recipients choose whether to classify an email as spam, again relying solely on the subject line.
What the data says about subject line performance:
43% of people open emails based on the subject line. Statistics show that 61 to 70 character-long subject lines generate the highest open rate at 43.38%.
Words like "Free!!" or "Urgent" can send emails straight to promotions or junk folders. Email spam filters have become increasingly sophisticated at detecting promotional language and pressure tactics.
Practical subject line principles:
Be specific and lead with value ("3 onboarding mistakes costing you trial users" beats "Important update")
Match the subject line to the actual content inside
A/B test at least two variants per campaign
Keep mobile display in mind: the average mobile device displays only 30 characters in an email subject line.
Read more about the research and best practices behind high-performing subject lines in our post on Email Subject Line Best Practices That Boost Open Rates by 27%.
4. Use Automation to Send the Right Email at the Right Moment
Triggered and automated emails consistently outperform broadcast campaigns because they arrive when a subscriber's intent is highest. When customer behaviour triggers email automation, these emails generate nearly 10 times more revenue than other emails.
Newsletters have an average open rate of 40.08%, while triggered emails have an average open rate of 45.38%, according to GetResponse data. The click-through rate gap is even wider: the average click-through rate for newsletters is 3.84%, while triggered emails have a CTR of 5.02%.
High-impact automation sequences to build:
Welcome sequence: Welcome emails achieve an average open rate of 83.6%, making them one of the highest-performing automated email types.
Abandoned cart: Abandoned cart emails achieve an average open rate of 50.5%, a click rate of 6.25%, and a conversion rate of 3.33%.
Post-purchase follow-up: Ask for a review, recommend complementary products, or provide onboarding content.
Re-engagement sequence: Target subscribers who haven't opened in 60 to 90 days before sunsetting them.
Businesses using automated email workflows experience a 320% increase in revenue compared to those that do not use automation.
5. Send at the Right Time (and Test Your Own Data)
Industry benchmarks on send timing can serve as a starting point, but your audience's behavior should ultimately guide your schedule. Research from multiple studies consistently shows that emails sent Tuesday through Thursday between 9 AM and 12 PM achieve the highest engagement rates.
That said, recent data challenges the conventional morning-only wisdom. Studies found that email click-through rates peak between 8 and 9 PM, with Monday at 9 PM hitting a 9.01% CTR. Omnisend's 2025 research found that 8 PM sends reached a 59% open rate compared to 45% for 2 PM sends.
One of the most important findings from email research is that 23% of all email opens occur during the first hour after delivery. After 24 hours, an email's chance of being opened drops below 1%.
The practical approach:
Start with Tuesday through Thursday, mid-morning sends
Segment by time zone for global lists
Use your platform's send time optimization (STO) feature if available: send time optimization uses AI to analyze each subscriber's individual behavior and delivers your email at the moment that specific person is most likely to act. Campaign Monitor found this increased open rates by 23% over static best-practice timing.
Run A/B tests on send time every quarter and let your own engagement data override generic benchmarks
6. Add Interactive Elements to Drive Action Inside the Email
Most emails ask subscribers to click a link to go somewhere else. Interactive emails remove that friction. Interactive features like embedded surveys can increase CTOR by 31.7%. Using embedded surveys rather than a survey call-to-action (CTA) can bring 135% more overall clicks.
Razorpay saw a 257% increase in their survey response rate after using AMP forms. Interactive emails, like those with polls or embedded videos, increase click rates by 300%. 23% of marketers say interactive emails boost user engagement and keep subscribers interested longer.
Interactive elements worth testing:
Embedded polls or surveys (rate this product, vote on the next topic)
Image carousels or accordions to showcase multiple products without extra clicks
In-email forms for quick RSVPs, feedback, or preference updates
Video thumbnails with play buttons that drive clicks to hosted content
Gamification strategies increase engagement by 48%. If subscribers consistently open your emails, mark them important, or click inside them, the ESP will know your content is too valuable to be marked as spam. As a result, your sender domain reputation improves, and your emails are more likely to land inside the inbox instead of the spam folder.
Interactive email content is also a practical way to gather zero-party data, the preferences and feedback your subscribers give directly, which feeds back into your segmentation and personalization engine.
7. Maintain a Clean List to Protect Deliverability and Engagement Rates
A large list is not inherently a strong list. The paradox is counterintuitive but real: removing subscribers increases your reach. A list of 8,000 engaged subscribers with 94% inbox placement delivers more eyeballs than a list of 12,000 with 72% placement. Smaller, cleaner lists generate more revenue per send because they preserve the trust signals ISPs use to route email to the primary inbox.
According to ZeroBounce's analysis of more than 10 billion email addresses, 28% of your current database could be invalid or outdated. Out of every email address validated in 2024, 28% were invalid nonexistent mailboxes or high-risk addresses including spam traps, disposable domains, and abuse emails.
List hygiene best practices:
Define inactivity clearly. As a best practice, contacts that have not engaged with your emails in 3 to 6 months should be removed.
Run re-engagement campaigns before sunsetting inactive subscribers. Acquiring a new subscriber costs five to seven times more than reactivating an existing one.
Monitor your complaint rate. As of February 2024, Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, and other mailbox providers now require all bulk senders to keep their spam complaint rates below 0.3%.
Use double opt-in for new subscribers to confirm intent from the start.
Studies show that companies with clean email lists see 50% higher open rates and 75% better click-through rates compared to those neglecting list maintenance.
Tracking the right metrics throughout all of this is essential. Our guide on Email Marketing Analytics Best Practices covers the measurement framework that ties each of these tactics back to ROI.
Putting It Together
Understanding how do you increase engagement in email marketing comes down to treating your list as a two-way relationship, not a broadcast channel. The seven tactics above work as a system:
Segmentation makes personalization possible
Personalization makes automation more effective
Cleaner send timing and interactive content improve response rates per send
List hygiene ensures those sends actually reach inboxes
None of these require a large budget. They require consistent attention to your subscriber data and a willingness to test what your audience actually responds to.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a good email engagement rate in 2025?
The average email open rate in 2025 is 43.46%, while the average click rate sits at 2.09%. However, because Apple's Mail Privacy Protection inflates open rate figures, click rate and click-to-open rate are more reliable benchmarks. A 2 to 3% click rate remains a strong benchmark, provided those clicks come from the right accounts, not just the right number of accounts.
How often should I send marketing emails?
There is no universal answer. Two of the top reasons subscribers unsubscribe include sending too many emails in general (26%) and emails that are irrelevant to them (21%). The safest approach is to let subscriber behavior guide frequency: if open and click rates drop as you increase cadence, pull back. If engagement holds, you have room to send more.
Does list size matter more than list quality?
No. A smaller, more engaged list will always perform better than a large, unresponsive one. High engagement signals to inbox providers that your messages are wanted, which improves deliverability for your entire program. A smaller, cleaner list typically delivers higher ROI per send than a bloated one full of inactive addresses.
What is the fastest way to improve email click-through rates?
The highest-leverage move is combining segmentation with a stronger CTA. Make CTA links clear, for example by putting them in buttons with strong color contrast. Your CTAs should stand out from the rest of your message. Use action or value-oriented language, such as "Discover Resources" or "Upgrade Your Skills," instead of "Learn More." Pair that with better subject line testing and you will typically see measurable lift within two to three campaign cycles.
Common segmentation criteria that drive results:
Purchase history (what they bought, how recently)
Behavioral data (pages visited, links clicked, content downloaded)
Lifecycle stage (new subscriber, active customer, lapsed buyer)
Demographics (location, industry, job function)
Implementation of email segmentation results in an 86% improvement in engagement rates. If you're looking for a practical framework, our guide to Email List Segmentation Strategies That Boost ROI by 760% covers the mechanics in detail.
2. Go Beyond "Hi [First Name]": Real Personalization
Personalizing a subject line with a subscriber's first name is a start, but it barely scratches the surface of what's possible. Personalized email campaigns reach 41% higher click-through rates than non-personalized ones, and 57% of email marketers manage to enhance engagement with personalized content.
Effective personalization uses behavioral data, not just demographic fields:
Reference products the subscriber has viewed or purchased
Tailor content to where they are in the customer lifecycle
Use dynamic content blocks to show different offers to different segments
Trigger emails based on specific actions (browsing a product category, abandoning a cart, completing a purchase)
Using dynamic email content isn't just a nice touch. It can boost revenue by up to 22%. From personalized product recommendations to location-based offers, dynamic elements make email marketing campaigns more relevant and more effective.
74% of marketers say targeted personalization increases customer engagement. For hands-on tactics, see our article on 7 Email Personalization Techniques That Boost Conversions 47%.
3. Write Subject Lines That Earn the Open
Subject lines are the front door to your email. 47% of recipients determine whether to open an email based exclusively on its subject line. Equally important: 68% of recipients choose whether to classify an email as spam, again relying solely on the subject line.
What the data says about subject line performance:
43% of people open emails based on the subject line. Statistics show that 61 to 70 character-long subject lines generate the highest open rate at 43.38%.
Words like "Free!!" or "Urgent" can send emails straight to promotions or junk folders. Email spam filters have become increasingly sophisticated at detecting promotional language and pressure tactics.
Practical subject line principles:
Be specific and lead with value ("3 onboarding mistakes costing you trial users" beats "Important update")
Match the subject line to the actual content inside
A/B test at least two variants per campaign
Keep mobile display in mind: the average mobile device displays only 30 characters in an email subject line.
Read more about the research and best practices behind high-performing subject lines in our post on Email Subject Line Best Practices That Boost Open Rates by 27%.
4. Use Automation to Send the Right Email at the Right Moment
Triggered and automated emails consistently outperform broadcast campaigns because they arrive when a subscriber's intent is highest. When customer behaviour triggers email automation, these emails generate nearly 10 times more revenue than other emails.
Newsletters have an average open rate of 40.08%, while triggered emails have an average open rate of 45.38%, according to GetResponse data. The click-through rate gap is even wider: the average click-through rate for newsletters is 3.84%, while triggered emails have a CTR of 5.02%.
High-impact automation sequences to build:
Welcome sequence: Welcome emails achieve an average open rate of 83.6%, making them one of the highest-performing automated email types.
Abandoned cart: Abandoned cart emails achieve an average open rate of 50.5%, a click rate of 6.25%, and a conversion rate of 3.33%.
Post-purchase follow-up: Ask for a review, recommend complementary products, or provide onboarding content.
Re-engagement sequence: Target subscribers who haven't opened in 60 to 90 days before sunsetting them.
Businesses using automated email workflows experience a 320% increase in revenue compared to those that do not use automation.
5. Send at the Right Time (and Test Your Own Data)
Industry benchmarks on send timing can serve as a starting point, but your audience's behavior should ultimately guide your schedule. Research from multiple studies consistently shows that emails sent Tuesday through Thursday between 9 AM and 12 PM achieve the highest engagement rates.
That said, recent data challenges the conventional morning-only wisdom. Studies found that email click-through rates peak between 8 and 9 PM, with Monday at 9 PM hitting a 9.01% CTR. Omnisend's 2025 research found that 8 PM sends reached a 59% open rate compared to 45% for 2 PM sends.
One of the most important findings from email research is that 23% of all email opens occur during the first hour after delivery. After 24 hours, an email's chance of being opened drops below 1%.
The practical approach:
Start with Tuesday through Thursday, mid-morning sends
Segment by time zone for global lists
Use your platform's send time optimization (STO) feature if available: send time optimization uses AI to analyze each subscriber's individual behavior and delivers your email at the moment that specific person is most likely to act. Campaign Monitor found this increased open rates by 23% over static best-practice timing.
Run A/B tests on send time every quarter and let your own engagement data override generic benchmarks
6. Add Interactive Elements to Drive Action Inside the Email
Most emails ask subscribers to click a link to go somewhere else. Interactive emails remove that friction. Interactive features like embedded surveys can increase CTOR by 31.7%. Using embedded surveys rather than a survey call-to-action (CTA) can bring 135% more overall clicks.
Razorpay saw a 257% increase in their survey response rate after using AMP forms. Interactive emails, like those with polls or embedded videos, increase click rates by 300%. 23% of marketers say interactive emails boost user engagement and keep subscribers interested longer.
Interactive elements worth testing:
Embedded polls or surveys (rate this product, vote on the next topic)
Image carousels or accordions to showcase multiple products without extra clicks
In-email forms for quick RSVPs, feedback, or preference updates
Video thumbnails with play buttons that drive clicks to hosted content
Gamification strategies increase engagement by 48%. If subscribers consistently open your emails, mark them important, or click inside them, the ESP will know your content is too valuable to be marked as spam. As a result, your sender domain reputation improves, and your emails are more likely to land inside the inbox instead of the spam folder.
Interactive email content is also a practical way to gather zero-party data, the preferences and feedback your subscribers give directly, which feeds back into your segmentation and personalization engine.
7. Maintain a Clean List to Protect Deliverability and Engagement Rates
A large list is not inherently a strong list. The paradox is counterintuitive but real: removing subscribers increases your reach. A list of 8,000 engaged subscribers with 94% inbox placement delivers more eyeballs than a list of 12,000 with 72% placement. Smaller, cleaner lists generate more revenue per send because they preserve the trust signals ISPs use to route email to the primary inbox.
According to ZeroBounce's analysis of more than 10 billion email addresses, 28% of your current database could be invalid or outdated. Out of every email address validated in 2024, 28% were invalid nonexistent mailboxes or high-risk addresses including spam traps, disposable domains, and abuse emails.
List hygiene best practices:
Define inactivity clearly. As a best practice, contacts that have not engaged with your emails in 3 to 6 months should be removed.
Run re-engagement campaigns before sunsetting inactive subscribers. Acquiring a new subscriber costs five to seven times more than reactivating an existing one.
Monitor your complaint rate. As of February 2024, Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, and other mailbox providers now require all bulk senders to keep their spam complaint rates below 0.3%.
Use double opt-in for new subscribers to confirm intent from the start.
Studies show that companies with clean email lists see 50% higher open rates and 75% better click-through rates compared to those neglecting list maintenance.
Tracking the right metrics throughout all of this is essential. Our guide on Email Marketing Analytics Best Practices covers the measurement framework that ties each of these tactics back to ROI.
Putting It Together
Understanding how do you increase engagement in email marketing comes down to treating your list as a two-way relationship, not a broadcast channel. The seven tactics above work as a system:
Segmentation makes personalization possible
Personalization makes automation more effective
Cleaner send timing and interactive content improve response rates per send
List hygiene ensures those sends actually reach inboxes
None of these require a large budget. They require consistent attention to your subscriber data and a willingness to test what your audience actually responds to.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a good email engagement rate in 2025?
The average email open rate in 2025 is 43.46%, while the average click rate sits at 2.09%. However, because Apple's Mail Privacy Protection inflates open rate figures, click rate and click-to-open rate are more reliable benchmarks. A 2 to 3% click rate remains a strong benchmark, provided those clicks come from the right accounts, not just the right number of accounts.
How often should I send marketing emails?
There is no universal answer. Two of the top reasons subscribers unsubscribe include sending too many emails in general (26%) and emails that are irrelevant to them (21%). The safest approach is to let subscriber behavior guide frequency: if open and click rates drop as you increase cadence, pull back. If engagement holds, you have room to send more.
Does list size matter more than list quality?
No. A smaller, more engaged list will always perform better than a large, unresponsive one. High engagement signals to inbox providers that your messages are wanted, which improves deliverability for your entire program. A smaller, cleaner list typically delivers higher ROI per send than a bloated one full of inactive addresses.
What is the fastest way to improve email click-through rates?
The highest-leverage move is combining segmentation with a stronger CTA. Make CTA links clear, for example by putting them in buttons with strong color contrast. Your CTAs should stand out from the rest of your message. Use action or value-oriented language, such as "Discover Resources" or "Upgrade Your Skills," instead of "Learn More." Pair that with better subject line testing and you will typically see measurable lift within two to three campaign cycles.
