Email marketing: Impact, examples, and glossary
Email marketing has the potential to improve your marketing efforts. Read on to learn how and learn some of the key terms email marketers use daily.
Email marketing impact
Email is one of the most popular modes of online communication. Experts predict users worldwide will send nearly 392.5 billion emails daily in 2026 [1].
The ability to reach large numbers of potential customers with just a click makes email a relatively cheap digital marketing tool with a potentially high impact. The data backs this up. For instance, one 2024 study of worldwide marketers found that the average return on investment (ROI) for email marketing is 42 USD for every dollar spent [2].
Nonetheless, the ROI for email marketing is different for every industry. Research shows that the average ROI per dollar spent for four different industries is as follows [3]:
Retail, economics, and consumer goods: 45 USD
Marketing, PR, and advertising agency: 42 USD
Software and technology: 36 USD
Media, publishing, events, sports, entertainment: 32 USD
Whatever the industry, it is clear that email marketing offers a potential return worth many times the initial investment.
Email marketing examples
If you have an email account, you likely encounter some form of email marketing. Typical examples of email marketing include:
Email newsletters that inform recipients about upcoming events, such as at a gallery, eatery, or concert venue
Emails promoting holiday sales, such as Diwali or Christmas sales
Emails sent after a purchase (also known as transactional email), offering a discount on a future purchase
Email marketing glossary
Digital marketers use a variety of terms to describe the email marketing process. This glossary includes some key terms you should know:
Acceptance rate: This is the percentage of messages received by recipients’ email servers.
Bounce rate: This represents the percentage of messages not received by recipients’ email servers.
Open rate: This is the percentage of emails opened by recipients. An email campaign’s open rate is one of the key metrics for determining its success. The higher the open rate, the better.
Subject line: The subject line is the text in a recipient’s inbox describing the email. Subject lines should be intriguing and relevant to recipients.
Call-to-action (CTA): This is a link or button that connects to a download or website, such as a product page, blog post, or scheduling page.
Conversion rate: This rate shows the number of recipients who follow through with a CTA by clicking a link or making a purchase, such as when a recipient clicks on a link to your website.
Click-through rate (CTR): CTR is the percentage of recipients who click on a CTA in an email.
IP warming: This is the practice of gradually sending an increasing number of emails to a recipient to establish your IP address.
Opt-in/opt-out: This means to subscribe (opt-in) or unsubscribe (opt-out) from an email list.
Nurture sequences: Automated emails are sent when someone signs up for your email list. Nurture sequences foster customer engagement and help push customers further along the marketing funnel.