Email Marketing RulesIs Email Marketing’s ROI Sky-High or Irrelevant?
For the better part of the past two decades, email marketing’s return on investment (ROI) has hovered around 36:1, according to a variety of sources. That means the average brand can expect to earn $36 for every $1 they spend on their email marketing efforts. Compared with other channels, email marketing’s ROI is typically near the…
Is Your Brand Chasing the Wrong Marketing Goals?
“Do you want to be right, or do you want to get what you want?” This is a saying that my wife, a leader at a Boston hospital, has become very fond of in recent years. She mostly uses it when counseling her team members and peers (but also sometimes uses it…
Second Quarter 2026 Marketing Benchmark Report
Zeta Global’s latest Marketing Benchmark Report shares aggregated data on SMS click rates and on email sends, open rates, click rates, click-to-open rates, and unsubscribe rates from Apr. 1 through June 30, 2026, including year-over-year changes. The email benchmarks are broken down by industry (e.g., retail; travel, hospitality & entertainment; financial services…
Why Your Marketing Benchmarks Don’t Mean What You Think
A collection of industry averages, benchmarks can help you evaluate your campaign performance, highlighting where you excel and where improvement is needed. This third-party validation is often used to demonstrate success to internal stakeholders and inform the setting of performance goals. However, while benchmarks can strengthen your marketing strategy, you should be…
France’s CNIL Rules Push Marketers to Use Opens Even Less
New privacy rules in Europe are placing fresh limits on the use of tracking pixel data, which has already seen its usefulness decline dramatically in the wake of Apple’s Mail Privacy Protection. In the latest move, the French data protection authority CNIL has published its final recommendations on the use of email…
Email Marketing Underperforming? Let’s Troubleshoot It
While no one has claimed email marketing is dying for many, many years, some marketers have become increasingly concerned with performance declines, despite the channel generating returns on investment that are often at least twice as high as most other channels. If your organization is concerned about your email marketing performance, here…
First Quarter 2026 Marketing Benchmark Report
Zeta Global’s latest Marketing Benchmark report shares aggregated data on SMS click rates and on email sends, open rates, click rates, click-to-open rates, and unsubscribe rates from Jan. 1 through Mar. 31, 2026, including year-over-year changes. The email benchmarks are broken down by industry (e.g., retail; travel, hospitality & entertainment; financial services…
What Makes Enterprise Email Marketing Different
Enterprise email marketing and SMB email marketing use the same protocols, the same inbox providers, the same basic formats. But the operational reality behind them is so different that organizations scaling from mid-market to enterprise often discover their tools, processes, and team structures need to be rebuilt from the foundation up. This…
Fourth Quarter 2025 Email Marketing Benchmark Report
Zeta Global’s latest Email Marketing Benchmark report shares aggregated data on sends, open rates, click rates, click-to-open rates, and unsubscribe rates from Oct. 1, 2025 through Dec. 31, 2025, including year-over-year changes. The benchmarks are broken down by industry (e.g., retail; travel, hospitality & entertainment; financial services & insurance; and media) and…
2025 Q3 Email Marketing Benchmark Report
Zeta Global’s latest Email Marketing Benchmark report shares aggregated data on sends, open rates, click rates, click-to-open rates, unsubscribe rates from July 1, 2025 through Sept. 30, 2025, including year-over-year changes. The benchmarks are broken down by industry (e.g., retail; travel, hospitality & entertainment; financial services & insurance; and media) and by…
Welcome! Email Marketing Rules is your guide to understanding the best practices of this complex, often misunderstood channel as you craft the best executions for your brand. Every week, we’ll explore strategies and tactics, discuss tips and inspiration, and dig into industry news and trends.
Chad S. White
GVP of CRM Strategy
Zeta Global
Author of Email Marketing Rules and nearly 4,000 articles about digital and email marketing
