Executive Summary

Email may be the most traditional of digital marketing channels, and it’s still going strong thanks to mass consumer usage, flexibility and utility. Smartphones have made it a mobile marketing channel, and advances in marketing technology adoption have made more sophisticated programs possible, with email often central to a cross-channel strategy.

How many people use email?

We estimate that nine in 10 US internet users send email, making it one of the leading digital activities. Data from the Advertising Research Foundation (ARF) indicates checking email is the most common activity on PCs as well as mobile apps. Many consumers say email is their preferred way to receive brand communications.

How are marketers using email today?

Many marketers first got accustomed to using marketing automation for email. Practitioners have long been familiar with rules-based systems that send triggered messages to maintain and nurture customer relationships. Marketers have built on these programs, sometimes with more sophisticated technology involving artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning, to combine more data sources and marketing channels and enable more-personalized messaging.

What other trends will shape email marketing practices in 2020 and beyond?​

Email is a permissioned marketing channel, meaning recipients of marketing messages have opted in. But that doesn’t mean there are no privacy concerns—personalization means bringing together data from other sources, and consumer privacy regulations have affected what’s allowed here and what requires additional consent.

WHAT’S IN THIS REPORT? This report includes our estimates of consumer email usage, the latest benchmarks for email performance and analysis of trends in email marketing this year and next.

KEY STAT: More than nine in 10 internet users send email regularly, making it one of the most common digital activities in the US, according to our estimates.