9 Benefits of Email Marketing for Your Business in 2025

By Lucy Bedford • Last updated: Friday May 9th, 2025

Why your business needs an email strategy

With the available marketing channels constantly growing and evolving, is email marketing still effective in 2025? We think so. To explain why, we’ll explore the unique benefits of email marketing and why it should still be a key part of your marketing strategy.

As one of the easiest marketing channels to automate, email can be a low-cost and low-effort way to boost customer retention while delivering a high ROI. In this article, we’ll uncover the full range of benefits that email marketing has to offer and discuss why the channel has these advantages.

What is email marketing, and why is it important?

Email marketing is the process of sending promotional messages to your shoppers via email. 

Marketing emails sent with a specific purpose are known as ‘campaigns’, and these could include newsletters, abandoned basket reminders, or even post-purchase follow-ups.

The importance of email marketing is made clear when the channel is integrated as part of a multi-channel approach. This is where multiple marketing channels work together to support your wider business goals.

Email allows you to reach shoppers in a way that other channels can’t. Using email, you control how your message looks, who receives it, and when. 

With email, your marketing won’t be solely at the mercy of never-ending algorithm updates, which can prevent your message from reaching shoppers. This is why email marketing is important for businesses to include in their strategy.

Now that we’ve discussed why email marketing matters, let’s explore how the capabilities of email marketing have changed over time.

Is email marketing still effective in 2025?

It can be easy to get swept up in the excitement of new marketing channels, but there’s a reason so many brands still use email marketing. It remains a highly effective tactic to boost sales through shopper retargeting and customer nurturing

So, why is email marketing still important for eCommerce businesses?

Unlike some other marketing channels, which have become less popular over time, email marketing has been able to stay relevant through constant advancement.

Email service providers (ESPs) have adapted their platforms using new technology, making way for developments such as email automation and personalisation. This is what makes email marketing effective.

The ability to automate the sending of emails means businesses can implement a complex email marketing strategy using minimal resources. With data-driven personalisation and targeting, brands can send shoppers emails that are more engaging and more likely to result in conversion.

Don’t just take our word for it either. A study revealed that the channel delivers an average ROI of 4200%, making it clear to see why email marketing is so effective.1

Salesfire x Runrug case study showing the benefits of email marketing

Now that we’ve discussed why email marketing works, let’s delve deeper into the specific benefits of email marketing.

9 benefits of email marketing

We’ve briefly touched on some of the reasons why you should carry out email marketing, but in this section, we’ll explore these in more detail.

As a marketing channel, email has many unique features that make it advantageous to leverage within your overall marketing strategy. So let’s get to discussing the benefits of email marketing.

  1. High ROI and cost-effectiveness

Earlier in this article, we discussed how email marketing has a high ROI, making it a very cost-effective marketing strategy. 

This ROI can be attributed to the high conversion rate of email marketing. For B2C brands, email has an average conversion rate of 2.8%, placing it above both paid and organic social channels.2

Additionally, email marketing is cost-effective because it’s cheap and easy to implement. 

Email marketing is much more accessible for beginners to set up than channels like paid ads. This means you won’t have to spend on hiring specialists when you’re just starting out with the channel.

With email marketing, you also avoid partaking in bidding wars or paying a fee per click, the costs of which can quickly add up. Instead, pricing is simple, typically involving paying a set fee to send a certain number of emails.

  1. Direct access to your audience

Email marketing allows you to deliver your message directly to your audience’s inbox. 

Compared to other channels, email gives you greater control over who your message reaches and when. With platforms like social media, typically, an algorithm controls if and when your content appears on a user’s feed.

With email marketing, you can act as your brand’s own algorithm. As you own the shopper data, you can choose the audience, send time and content of your email campaigns. 

This means your shoppers can receive a message meant for them at the exact moment you want them to see it. You can also display your message exactly how you like, with email offering a high amount of design flexibility.

The targeted and intentional nature of email marketing means your message is more likely to resonate with the shopper, which can boost engagement.

  1. Easy to automate 

You may be wondering if email marketing is hard. The truth is, without the right tools, it can be. Luckily, email marketing tools are usually accessible and affordable for businesses of all sizes.

With these tools, you can easily automate the sending of email campaigns. This can significantly reduce the time and personnel required to implement your email marketing strategy.

Email automation tools like Salesfire can connect with your website to deliver personalised campaigns that align with your shoppers’ on-site journey. Once you’ve set up your initial email sequences, shoppers will automatically be sent relevant emails. 

This allows you to drive conversions for your brand through email while freeing up time for you to focus on the rest of your to-do list.

You can automate email campaigns to drive shopper engagement at all stages of the customer lifecycle, for example:

  • Voucher code confirmation emails: Automatically send new mailing list subscribers an email containing an exclusive discount code. This can incentivise these shoppers to make their first purchase.
  • Abandoned cart reminder emails: Encourage shoppers showing high purchase intent to complete their order by sending an email reminding them of their basket contents.
  • Post-purchase recommendation emails: Promote complementary items to shoppers who’ve made a recent purchase by sending an email containing personalised product recommendations.
  1. Personalise communication at scale

71% of consumers now expect to receive personalised experiences from brands.3 This demonstrates the value of incorporating personalisation into your marketing strategy.

With its many opportunities for personalisation, email marketing can be a great way to deliver personalised interactions to your shoppers. 

As we’ve mentioned, you can use email automation to send shoppers emails aligned with their unique on-site activity and buying journey. However, email personalisation doesn’t stop there, you can also personalise the email content itself.

With more advanced email solutions like Salesfire’s Email Sequences, you can leverage dynamic content to enhance email personalisation further. Dynamic content uses shopper data to adapt the email content to each recipient.

Here’s how you can use it:

  • Personalised subject lines: Include the shopper’s first name or the name of a product they’ve been browsing in your email’s subject line. This can help to capture the shopper’s attention and entice them to open the email.
  • Personalised recommendations: Adding personalised product recommendations to your email campaign can result in shoppers being 4x more likely to purchase.4 Features like Salesfire’s Recommendations use data to display products relevant to the shopper’s interests.
  1. Audience segmentation

Email allows you to send highly targeted marketing campaigns by leveraging audience segmentation.

You’ll have already invested your time and budget in capturing shopper data for your email lists. By segmenting this data, you can get even more from your email campaigns.

Shoppers are more likely to engage with email campaigns that are relevant to their needs and interest them. For example, a first-time buyer may need more detailed follow-up communications than a loyal customer.

Consider grouping your shoppers based on:

  • Demographics
  • Location
  • On-site behaviour
  • Purchase history
  • Engagement level

Segmentation of your email audiences can lead to higher open rates, click rates, and fewer unsubscribers.

  1. Boost customer loyalty

Another benefit of email marketing is that it can promote increased customer loyalty.

Email allows you to deliver consistent communication to your shoppers, which can help to keep your brand at the forefront of their minds.

It’s important you have campaigns in place that can nurture shoppers at every stage of their buying journey. Ensure you implement email campaigns that:

  • Build trust with new visitors: You could guide new shoppers towards making their first purchase by showcasing your brand’s USPs.
  • Re-engage shoppers: Try recapturing the attention of shoppers who’ve disengaged from your brand with an email featuring a ‘welcome back’ offer.
  • Reward loyal customers: Consider thanking customers who have made repeat purchases with birthday discounts, VIP offers, or early sale access emails.

Having campaigns like these in place can help you build long-term relationships with your shoppers and drive continued purchasing.

  1. Easy performance tracking

You can easily measure the performance of your email marketing campaigns and make optimisations to improve their effectiveness.

Most ESPs will provide analytics within their dashboard, where you’ll be able to view metrics such as:

  • Open rates
  • Click rates
  • Conversion rates

Some email providers, like Salesfire, offer even more detailed analytics, such as enabling you to see how a specific email campaign influenced revenue.

Being able to see these figures means you can assess how well your campaigns are currently performing. You can discover what your audience responds to best and adapt your future campaigns accordingly to maximise their performance.

  1. Supports sales and retargeting

With the future of third-party cookies uncertain and continued economic instability, email offers a way to future-proof your marketing strategy. 

Email marketing allows you to use first-party data to send your shoppers relevant marketing campaigns. This is data your brand collects itself, directly from shoppers.

This allows you to retarget your shoppers to drive increased conversions, without relying on expensive ad platforms that use third-party cookies.

As these shoppers have willingly opted in to receive your emails, they are more likely to engage with your marketing messages through this channel. Additionally, using data you’ve collected can boost the accuracy of your email targeting, helping to ensure shoppers receive campaigns that resonate.

Pro tip: You can re-engage lapsed customers by displaying personalised product recommendations within your email campaign. Bring your products to the shopper to pique their interest and drive them back to your site.

  1. Scalable for any business

Due to its scalability, email marketing can be effective for all eCommerce business sizes, from SMEs to larger enterprises.

Many ESPs offer tiered pricing models, so you’ll only pay a fee corresponding to the number of shopper profiles you have. This means email marketing can be affordable for smaller businesses while still being able to grow with larger companies.

Modern email marketing tools mean the resources required to implement advanced marketing strategies are significantly reduced. This is especially important for SMEs, as they typically have more limited budgets, time, and personnel. 

With providers like Salesfire, you can choose from pre-set campaigns and easily select triggers. This means setup time is minimal, and you can quickly deploy personalised campaigns to audiences large or small.

Experience the benefits of email

Email marketing should be a key part of any successful eCommerce marketing strategy.

While a low-cost marketing channel, email can drive high engagement for your brand, especially when personalised to the individual shopper. Using automation, you can nurture shoppers at every stage of the customer lifecycle and reclaim even more lost sales.

A strong email marketing strategy can lead to boosted conversions, increased AOV and a higher customer lifetime value.

1 Marketer Email Tracker 2019 | DMA

2 Average Conversion Rate by Industry & Marketing Channel | FirstPageSage

3 The value of getting personalization right—or wrong—is multiplying | McKinsey & Company

4 Mastering Abandoned Cart Emails: A Best Practice Guide for Enhanced Email Performance | Salesfire

To learn more about implementing an email marketing strategy for your eCommerce business, download our free guide, ‘The Email Retargeting Playbook’.