Why Email Is Your Best Digital Marketing Channel in 2026

My history in email is long, both as an agency leader and personally as a creator. I’ve been sending email marketing campaigns since the late 1990’s. I was one of the first Mailchimp Experts back in 2015, and today I am a Mailchimp Pro Partner, among other certifications.

Looking back at the history of digital marketing, a lot has changed since the early days. In fact, there are only two channels that still exist in any recognizable format from the last century: websites and email. Every other channel we use, from social media to video to live events, has undergone considerable changes, and in some cases, no longer exists at all.

So why is that relevant to your marketing strategy today? It means that your website and your email marketing are the foundational channels for any campaigns you pursue. While other channels may help to provide revenue or drive awareness, none are as long-lasting or as relevant as these channels we have come to depend on for decades.

That’s especially true as we start 2026, when email continues to outperform crowded digital channels. In 2025, B2B marketers reported an average ROI of roughly $36-42 for every $1 spent on email, and more than 90% said email is “critical” or “very important” to their overall marketing strategy. Nonprofits, meanwhile, sent more email in 2024–2025 (up about 9% in volume) and still saw strong engagement, with average open rates around 28–29% and roughly $1.11 raised per email contact. In other words: for B2B and nonprofits alike, email isn’t just still here—it’s doing a lot of heavy lifting.

TL;DR

Email is (still) not dead. It remains the most effective digital marketing channel because it creates a personal, one-to-one connection with customers. It allows for high levels of personalization, unlike other channels that are limited by privacy restrictions and platform constraints. Statistically, current data shows that B2B and nonprofit organizations are still seeing industry-leading ROI from the inbox.

The Advantage of Creating a One-to-One Connection in the Inbox

For a moment, let’s put stats aside and just think about user experience. When a marketer sends an email campaign, an individual (and hopefully personalized) communication is landing directly in the subscriber’s personal space, their inbox. For that subscriber, those ten thousand or more emails that we marketers send are received as personal, individualized communications. That lone email arrives directly on a digital space that is special for that reader…a space that they invited you to by subscribing to your list.

Email is personal. And if done right, it’s also relevant.

Email lets marketers make the most of that opportunity for personal connection by offering ample opportunities to customize the content for the subscriber. Sure, first name has long been a tool for personalization, and it’s still great, but today you can also reference deeper data. From expressed interests to past purchases, marketers can leverage subscriber data that goes deep and wide to make that inbox experience specific to them.

Now, this is not to say that social media isn’t also useful, but while social media might offer a wide reach, the content you present on social media has limits to the level of personalization you can create. The more that privacy laws are developed and enacted, the harder it is to leverage the data you have outside the platform to personalize your touch with your followers. Email, on the other hand, is filled with opportunities for personalization thanks to your ability to use the zero- and first-party data collected via your website to push relevant information to the subscriber.

This is a big reason B2B marketers continue to rely on email to nurture complex buying journeys and account-based programs, and why nonprofits still point to email as one of the top channels inspiring donors to give. You’re not just “posting” into the void; you’re showing up where your audience has explicitly invited you and where you can speak with them about topics you know they care about.

Where Email Excels

As an agency leader, I have to be responsible with our clients’ budgets. That means not wasting money on marketing efforts that aren’t producing measurable results. My team has wide experience in a variety of channels, but when I need a solid place to start, email marketing is one of the most quantifiable digital channels available.

Email opens are not the primary data point we used to depend on (thanks to Apple’s MPP updates back in 2021 and other industry filtering created since), however many other data points are still highly valuable and more relevant to success. From spam and unsubscribe reports for audience health measures to click-throughs and checkouts, email allows you to measure engagement data with a higher level of reliability than many other channels, meaning that the dollars you spend can find a measurable performance analysis on the other side.

And the quality of that data is improving. Most ESPs have invested heavily in detecting and filtering out “bot” activity from security tools and spam filters, which can otherwise inflate click and open metrics. Mailchimp’s 2025 guidance outlines automatic, global-level filters that identify suspicious behavior patterns (like extremely rapid, multi-link clicking) so those interactions can be excluded from your reports or segmented separately. Some providers enable bot filtering by default, removing a significant portion of automated activity so marketers are looking at real engagement—not noise. That’s a big win if you’re reporting to a board, justifying B2B pipeline, or evaluating the success of a fundraising campaign.

So while open rates might look like they are dropping, what matters is not the fleeting number in the first hours of the send, but the long-term results. By improving our metric measurements, it quickly becomes clear that email marketing has real power to move the bottom line and drive audience engagement for the long term.

Lastly, email is incredibly reliable. Name one other channel that is more likely to be opened on a daily basis by most of your prospective customers. Social is fantastic, but you can’t control what is seen or when, and while search is incredibly useful for bottom-of-funnel actions that drive sales, it can be pricey. Email, however, is the only channel where marketers can guarantee exactly what the subscriber will see, how it looks when it gets there, and then measure the level of engagement once delivered.

Email + SMS: Better Together

While I firmly believe that email is the best channel, no channel operates alone in the real world, and email is no exception. One of the most effective pairings I’m seeing for our B2B and nonprofit clients is email with SMS.

When email campaigns are paired with SMS, performance tends to lift across the board. Recent 2025 reports from major platforms show that brands using both email and SMS together can see 20–30% higher open and engagement rates compared with email-only campaigns. Omnisend’s 2025 ecommerce and lifecycle marketing report, for example, found that automated workflows that include both email and SMS generate more than double the conversion rate of email-only flows and up to 147% higher click rates.

For those concerned about being the first in their industry to use SMS, this doesn’t mean your organization has to become a text-first marketer. It means email can be your reliable backbone, with SMS stepping in to reinforce time-sensitive messages (e.g., event reminders, last-chance appeals, webinar links, application deadlines), and other high-intent moments where a short, timely nudge can dramatically improve outcomes.

Deliverability, Security, and Playing by the Rules

Behind the scenes, the email landscape has also become more rigorous, and that’s a good thing if you’re doing things the right way.

In 2025, Google and other major mailbox providers tightened enforcement around authentication standards like SPF, DKIM, and DMARC for bulk senders, especially those sending more than a set volume per day. These requirements are designed to keep bad actors from spoofing domains and clogging inboxes with malicious or unwanted messages. For legitimate organizations that authenticate properly and honor best practices, this shift is actually helping.

Industry reports show that senders who implement strong authentication and follow DMARC policies see meaningfully better inbox placement, with some studies citing inbox rates up to 2–3x higher than poorly configured or unauthenticated senders. At the same time, adoption of DMARC is still relatively low overall (under 20% for many top domains), so organizations that “play by the rules” have a competitive advantage in getting their emails seen.

For our clients, that means a few things:

Better protection of your brand reputation and your subscribers from phishing or spoofing attempts.
Higher likelihood that your carefully crafted campaigns actually land in the inbox instead of spam.
A clearer signal to mailbox providers that you’re a trustworthy sender, especially when combined with strong engagement and list hygiene.

As Mailchimp Pro Partners and email specialists, we work directly in DNS, authentication, and deliverability strategy so your campaigns are set up for success, ensuring you are not flagged alongside spammers.

No Channel Operates in a Vacuum

When marketers leverage email as a channel, they need to ensure that every part of their marketing program works together in concert to maximize their results. That means maintaining a well-functioning website, an effective social media strategy, solidly-performing ad campaigns, and an overall plan that drives results.

In 2026, that orchestration also means:

Letting email do the heavy personalization and storytelling work across the buyer or donor journey.
Using SMS and other channels to reinforce key moments and deadlines, not to replace email.
Making sure your data and reporting are clean by using bot filtering and authentication so you can make smart, confident decisions.