Chapter - 1
Insights from State of Email Survey 2024
How was this survey conducted?
The survey was conducted via email campaigns leveraging Mailmodo’s interactive survey forms within emails for better submissions. We also shared the survey as Google Forms on socials and requested pitches on HARO and HAB2B to invite interested marketers to participate.
The survey targeted Mailmodo subscribers, marketing audience, and previous respondents (State of Email 2022 and 2023 participants) through email, social media, and our newsletters. We also sought input from industry thought leaders.
The collected data from 250+ marketers was transformed into insights and compiled by our in-house team for this report.
What were the survey topics?
The survey comprised of 50+ questions covering email marketing objectives, deliverability, infrastructure, email design and development, email marketing strategy, email copywriting, AMP emails, and AI in email marketing.
The survey was crafted with Mailmodo's conditional forms, tailoring survey questions to the respondents' expertise.
For example, if the respondents were deliverability experts, the form would only ask them questions about Deliverability/Infrastructure.
About our respondents
We contacted several email marketers, developers, designers, and deliverability experts worldwide. Our surveyors hail from over 250 B2B and B2C companies, such as Zerobounce, Splashlearn, Designmodo, Nestle, etc.
What did we learn from our survey?
Let’s dive deep into what we learned from our survey and how you can use this data to improve your email marketing.
Which were the top-performing marketing channels last year
The top 3 marketing channels for respondents were email marketing, organic search, and Social media ads. Email marketing has consistently been in the top position, including in all our past surveys.
Despite various emerging technologies that provide alternative marketing pathways, email marketing is still a leading stream in terms of ROI and overall conversion.
- Charles Chow, Lumen
Email marketing objectives that marketers have set for 2024
We asked our respondents what would be their email marketing objectives in 2024 Here’s what they told us
The main objectives for email marketers going into 2024 are product awareness and promotion, followed by retention.
As we approach 2024, my key piece of advice for email marketers is to focus on personalization and segmentation. Data shows that emails tailored to individual preferences and behaviors can increase open rates by up to 26%. Use analytics to understand your audience's interests and tailor your content accordingly.
- Sami Ahmad, UppercutSEO
Deliverability/Infrastructure
- 66.7% or two-thirds of the respondents saw an inbox placement rate of less than 70%
Most people had a 50-70% inbox placement rate. These numbers show that combating spam issues and improving deliverability remained a major issue for many marketers.
⛑️ Action item: Use deliverability tools like Google Postmaster, Spark Post inbox tracker, etc., to estimate your email deliverability rate and inbox placement rate (IPR). If your IPR or deliverability rate is low, you should take all measures to avoid spam, like cleaning your email list, completing all email authentication protocols, etc.
💡 Way Forward: Brush up and update your deliverability practices with our exclusive guide – Everything You Need to Know About Email Deliverability
- 40% of respondents spent 30-45 days for domain warmup
6.7% of the respondents didn’t do any warm up.
It shows that although more email marketers are warming up their domains before sending emails, some are not engaging in it and many others are not doing it for the necessary time.
⛑️ Action item: Warm up your new domain to send emails for at least 30 - 45 days before you start sending massive campaigns.
💡 Way Forward: Refresh and master all about domain warmup schedules with our guide – A Step-by-Step Domain Warm-Up Guide
Focus on quality over quantity in 2024. Many email marketers fall into the trap of sending too many emails, believing more is better. But with crowded inboxes and spam filters getting smarter, the opposite is true.
- Ilan Nass, Taktical
- 6.7% of respondents did not know what ‘Google Postmaster’ was.
Google Postmaster is a tool for tracking email campaigns sent to Gmail users and getting information on metrics like domain and IP reputation, delivery errors, spam rate, etc. But, not a lot of marketers know of it or use it to its potential. We discovered that 6.7% of the deliverability experts surveyed do not know what Google Postmaster is.
⛑️ Action item: Read up on what Google Postmaster is and how to use it to improve your email deliverability. This is even more important since Gmail and Yahoo have released new sender guidelines.
💡 Way Forward: If you are a Mailmodo customer, you can integrate with Google Postmaster to check your domain and IP reputation directly in Mailmodo. You can learn more about this here
- Less than 18% of respondents utilized the triad of SPF, DKIM, and DMARC.
While BIMI emerged as a popular email standard, it is a tool for brand reliability and not primarily for email authentication. SPF, DMARC, and DKIM, which actually help with the authentication protocols, were only used by less than 18% of folks.
⛑️ Action item: Implement SPF, DKIM, and DMARC for your sender domains to authenticate your emails and prevent incidences' like phishing and spoofing. This is even critical as per the latest sender guidelines by Yahoo & Gmail.
💡 Way Forward: Learn all about these protocols and what you need to implement in your business in our guide – Understanding Email Authentication Protocols: SPF, DKIM, and DMARC
Email Design
- Email template creators were the most popular choice for building emails with 53.4% respondents opting for it
Nearly 76.7% of people create email templates using various no-code tools like drag-and-drop email editors and email template creators.
Meanwhile, 33.3% of surveyors still use code to create email templates from scratch As a result, they’re losing valuable time and resources on coding, which they could use to focus on strategy and planning.
⛑️ Action item: If you are coding your emails from scratch, check out no-code email creators like Mailmodo for your next campaign. Mailmodo has several ready-to-go email templates for your use case that you can customize and send out. You can also use our editor to build email templates without code.
💡Way Forward: Get access to 500+ ready-to-use email templates here at our Email Template Library
- 18.2% of respondents sent out campaigns with an image-only email in 2023.
Image-only emails are not good as they can cause accessibility issues, spam issues, bad reading experience, etc. Email clients often block image-only emails as a defense against spam. The second line of defense is to route image-only emails directly to the junk or spam folder.
⛑️ Action item: Always opt for HTML, AMP, or even all text emails.
💡Way Forward: Use Mailmodo’s editor to build HTML and AMP emails in minutes without hassle. Try it for free here.
- 66.7% of respondents found that the single-column layout had worked best for them in 2023.
Not many people opt for hybrid, zig-zag, or inverted pyramid layouts. It might signify a lack of time spent on designing, experimentation, or a tendency to stick to the status quo.
⛑️ Action item: Don't be afraid to try new layouts and shake things up in 2024. If you need inspiration, check out our "Email Design for Newbies" ebook
💡Way Forward: Email design for dummies
- 46.7% of respondents didn’t design their emails for dark mode.
46.7% of surveyors didn’t design their emails for dark mode, causing information within emails to become lost. While the light mode is suitable for most people, research says that nearly 34 % of users enable dark mode to open emails in their devices (Source: Litmus)
⛑️ Action item: Check your emails for dark mode before you hit the send button. You can use this tool to check for dark mode issues - Dark Mode checker.
💡 Way Forward: Mailmodo's " Dark Mode Email Survival Kit " can be your savior to help you create the perfect email for Dark mode compatibility. Because It contains the following
Dark Mode Checker Tool
Dark Mode Email cheatsheet
Dark Mode Ready Templates
Dark Mode Guides Examples +Tips
Marketers should focus on 4 things.
- Mobile friendly emails
- Dark Mode (it is very popular and increasing)
- Omnichannel Marketing (user experience purposes)
- Use AI to schedule purposes and automation.
- Andres Solarte Gomez, Click agency
- 33.3% of respondent send emails to different devices and manually check the responsiveness of their emails.
While the ESP previewers for different devices are the most popular, 33.3% of respondents send emails to different devices and manually check the responsiveness of their emails.
⛑️ Action item: If you are someone who does this, make things easier for yourself and use the preview feature that your ESP provides to see how it would look on mobile and desktop. If your ESP doesn’t provide the preview feature, you can use email testers like Litmus, Email on Acid, etc, to check your email’s responsiveness.
Make the most of micro-moments in your emails. Capture the attention of your audience with concise, impactful content designed for brief consumer interactions. Users will crave instant value in 2024. Create emails that provide quick, meaningful experiences, whether it's a bite-sized tip, an exclusive offer, or a visually appealing image. Make every moment count to optimize for short attention spans. By following the 'less is more' philosophy, you will not only cater to today's fast-paced digital landscape, but you will also leave a lasting impression.
- Jason Tebeau, Da Vinci Medical
Marketing strategy/ops
- 67.1% of respondents say their average email open rate was more than 20%.
- Post MPP, 26.5% of respondents used conversion Rate as an alternative to open rates to determine the success of their campaigns.
In the post-MPP world, where Open rates are seen as a less effective performance indicator, most respondents used metrics like conversion rate and CTR to measure their campaign performance in 2023.
⛑️ Action item: If you are still using open rates to measure the success of your campaign, it’s time you set up a backup KPI for your email marketing. Start measuring CTOR or conversion rate as the more effective performance indicator. You might even use some of the other email metrics mentioned above, like CTR, ROI, or reply/submission rate, depending on what suits your needs/use case.
💡 Way Forward: Learn about Apple’s MPP update and how it influenced email strategies in this guide - Apple Mail Privacy Protection: What It Means For Email Marketers
- 48.6% of respondents claim that 40% - 60% of their email engagement comes from mobile devices.
Mobile devices emerged as the most popular devices used by subscribers. The number of people who use mobile devices to engage with emails will increase in 2023 and will likely continue to increase in 2024.
⛑️ Action item: You need to optimize your emails and make them responsive to look good even if people read them on mobile devices. Read our guide to find out tips and tricks to create responsive email design.
- 40% of respondents sent 1-4 emails/month on average to each subscriber in 2023.
Most people sent 1-4 emails/month to each subscriber, a maximum of 1 email per week. It's an optimum frequency since people get annoyed if they are bombarded with too many emails.
⛑️ Action item: Avoid sending too many emails to your subscribers and clearly inform them about the frequency of your email when people sign up. Test your email sending frequency before settling on it, as every brand’s audience reactions differ across brands, demography, and industries.
- Newsletter was the most sent email campaign with 16.8% respondents sending it.
Newsletters were the most common email marketing campaign sent in 2023. The second most common type of campaign was promotional, followed by welcome and lead nurture emails in the third position.
⛑️ Action item: If you didn’t send newsletters in 2023, try them out in the upcoming year. You can read our guide to learn how to create newsletters.
- 35.3% of surveyors observed Tuesday as the best day to send emails.
35.3% said Tuesday is the best day to send emails. Only a small percentage of respondents found weekends the best days to send emails.
This could be because more people checked their emails at the beginning of the work week. And, towards the weekend, people tend not to open their emails. The sending time must be validated and tested for your audiences, as it might depend on many factors.
The hour is just as important as the day of the week. Sending marketing emails is generally most effective during the times when your subscribers would normally take a break. To find out which day and time will work best for your target audience, you will still need to conduct your own testing. Finding that ideal spot will ultimately ensure that your email appears at the top when your subscribers check their messages in 2024.
- Clint Brasher
- 52.8% of respondents saw a 2X improvement in their email marketing ROI in 2023.
More than half of our surveyors saw a minimum 2X improvement in their email marketing ROI in 2023. Email marketing has been a profitable marketing channel for most businesses.
⛑️ Action item: If you are not already investing in email marketing as a marketing channel, you should try it out in 2024, Read our guide to learn everything you need to know about email marketing and get started.
Email copywriting
- 64.7% of respondents said they sent 50% of their campaigns with subject line personalization in 2023.
Although nearly two-thirds of our surveyors used subject line personalization in many of their campaigns, the rest didn’t take advantage of it.
Email personalization helps you stand out, build a stronger relationship with your audience, and increase engagement.
Personalisation is still king, especially when it comes to cold email. Ensuring you have really thought about your prospect and showing them that you have done so can make a real difference to response rates.
- Shane McEvoy, Fycastmedia
Understand your audience know their interest and see the magic happen. More personalized, hyper personalization is important .
- Vanshikha Sharma
- 67.6% of respondents sent emails in the local language in 2023.
Most respondents have been sending emails in the local language in 2023. This is because English is not the vernacular in several countries, like Germany, Korea and Japan. So, when you send emails in the local languages to these countries you can connect better with them.
⛑️ Action item: Send emails in the language your audience understands to form deeper connections with them. If you get a good response, implement this more often when applicable.
- 67.6% of respondents used a CTA in their email signature.
More than two-thirds of the surveyors used a CTA in their email signature. This could be because it helps them passively get potential leads for their business.
For example, by adding a CTA to download their ebook in the email signature, their audience is made aware about the ebook and they would download it to see what it was about.
⛑️ Action item: Add a CTA in the email signature as a hyperlink, asking readers to take the desired action like signing up for your newsletter, demo, ebook, etc.
- 2.9 % of respondents didn't use an email footer in their campaigns.
85.3 % of respondents added social media links in their footers. Adding social media links to the footer helps your subscribers to see more of what the brand does and make a connection.
3% of the respondents didn’t use an email footer in their campaigns. This is not a best practice as having a footer can help add addresses to comply with email laws, prevent spam, and add brand details.
⛑️ Action item: Want to build an amazing email footer? Get inspired by our guide on email footers to create one for your brand - 8 Inspiring Email Footer Examples in 2024
- 23.6% of respondents found that actionable CTA copies worked best for them in 2023.
Most people got good results with actionable CTAs and ones with offers. Witty and humorous CTAs also resonated with subscribers
⛑️ Action item: A few tips to optimize your email CTAs
Use first person pronouns to speak directly to your subscribers
Be specific with the intended actions. For example “Take Me To The Sale” will have a better impact than “Click Here”
Experiment with the CTA button. For example, try the hover and roll effect to hook subscriber
Read up more such ideas about email CTAs and determine what works best for you.
AMP emails
- 35.4% of respondents sent interactive emails in 2023.
35.4% of respondents have sent interactive emails in 2023. That’s an improvement of 4.1% as only 31.3% of the surveyors sent interactive emails in 2022.
It also means that a vast majority of marketers are not using interactive emails to improvement engagement rates and conversions.
⛑️ Action item: Interactive emails bring landing pages inside an inbox. The subscribers can take any action, say filling a form or RSP to an event, inside the email. This way, interactive emails provide a friction-free experience to subscribers and improve conversion.
💡 Way Forward: Get started with interactive emails in minutes with Mailmodo. You can create interactive AMP emails with forms, polls, quizzes, survey, spin-the-wheel and many other games inside email. Try it for free here.
Email marketing is not just about sending static messages, but also about creating interactive experiences that invite users to take action. In 2024, use elements like polls, quizzes, surveys, videos, GIFs, and animations to make your emails more engaging, fun, and memorable. Interactive emails can also help you collect feedback, data, and insights from your subscribers.
- Alexej Pikovsky, Nuoptima
- 37.1% of surveyors used a no-code tool/editor to create interactive emails.
The majority of them used a no-code tool to create interactive emails. However, many respondents still had to code interactive emails as their email marketing platforms don’t have a drag-and-drop creator for interactive emails yet.
⛑️ Action item: Interactive emails aren’t complicated anymore. Tools like Mailmodo have simplified the creation of interactive emails with their powerful editor so that a non-developer, too, can design AMP components within minutes.
💡 Way Forward: Still apprehensive about trying interactive emails? Check out some of our prebuilt AMP templates and experience how they work.
Heading into 2024, my recommendation for email marketers is to leverage AMP widgets more effectively to boost engagement. Ensure to include a 'View in browser' option for those receiving HTML emails, enabling them to access the AMP version.
- Keyur Rawal, Fynd
- 60 % of our respondents saw a 2X increase in conversion rate after using AMP emails.
About 60% of respondents got a 2X increase in conversions because AMP emails help reduce the friction, making it easier for readers to take the desired action.
For example, when you send an AMP email to get webinar registrations, people can register for it within the email. So you’ll get more registrations than you would have if you had to redirect them to a landing page to get them to register.
⛑️ Action item: If you want to begin your journey with interactive emails but don’t know how, here’s a quick plan for you
Jot down the goal and CTA of your next email campaign
Match them with the use cases liste down here. You can filter based on your industry, goal, and funnel.
Try sending one interactive campaign and compare the results with your HTML emails. You’ll se the difference yourself.
💡 Way Forward: Read up on AMP email and its benefits to be able to fully use it to your advantage.
- 27.9% of respondents didn’t send AMP emails because they lacked developers to code them.
The major reason people don't send AMP emails is that they lack developers to code them. Another reason is the lack of awareness of AMP emails and what they can do for campaigns.
⛑️ Action item: Coding an interactive email is so 2020. You can create and send an interactive email in minutes without developers using Mailmodo. Also, the fear that AMP emails might cause spam issues is fortunately just a myth and we have busted in the previous chapter.
💡 Way Forward: Check out interactive emails in action and practical examples from brands who are already loving them.
AI in Email Marketing
- 48% of respondents started using AI in their email marketing
While AI is making inroads in every field, email marketing has seen a lag in any solutioning built with AI as 52% of the respondents claim to not use any AI. ESPs have rolled out email content generators, subject line writers and segmenting capabilities with AI, but the potential remains hugely untapped for now.
⛑️ Action item: Start with the basics here. Try using AI for email copies especially the header and subject line. You will get more ideas in lesser time and can focus on other aspects of email marketing
💡 Way Forward: Try OpenHigher AI, Mailmodo’s free AI subject line and preheader generator that gives you best options based on the type, context, and tone of your campaign.
- 41.2 % of respondents cited the poor quality of generated content as the reason for not using AI
Out of the total respondents who didn't use AI, 41.2% of respondents say that they were concerned about the quality of AI-generated content. Many also mentioned about budget constraints and their lack of awareness about AI in email marketing.
⛑️ Action item: The quality of AI-generated content depends on your prompt and ability to refine the output. Master prompt writing and you’ll see the difference in your results.
💡 Way Forward: We’ve collected 300+ AI prompts from AI markeetrs and built a free library for the community. Check it out and try using AI with the help of these experts today.
- 49.5% of respondents claims that AI has helped in improving automation and efficiency of email campaigns
A whooping 49.5% email marketers admitted that AI has positively impacted the efficiency of their overall automation while only 1.1% that AI only hepd them in copywriting.
⛑️ Action item: AI tools are a part and parcel of a good email marketing stack now. They can help you save time and maximize productivity.
💡 Way Forward: We spoke to 6 marketing experts who have been using AI in their marketing workflow effectively and built an educational web series based on their insights. Add it to your watchlist and have fun learning.
