9 Reasons Email Marketing Will Deliver the Highest ROI in 2026

9 Reasons Email Marketing Could Be Your Highest-ROI Channel in 2026

Email marketing has long been one of the most effective marketing tools, and this is not looking to change anytime soon.

Being able to land directly into the inbox of your subscribers and reach out to them with regular content is a huge opportunity to increase visibility and increase conversions – but it’s not always that easy. The landscape is becoming increasingly competitive, so marketers have to think outside the box if they want to stop their click-through rate from falling. 

Let’s explore some of the ways that email marketing has the potential to be the channel producing your highest return-on-investment (ROI) in the upcoming year.

9 Ways Email Marketing Can Be Used to Elevate Your Marketing

Although email marketing offers an opportunity to increase ROI, this is only the case if you know how to use it to your advantage. Creating a regular stream of email content that appeals to your subscribers requires a lot of time, analysis, and creativity.

Let’s discuss nine of the ways that you can make email marketing your highest-performing marketing channel…

1. Create hyper-personalized content

Consumers are used to seeing their inboxes full of marketing material. Since they are exposed to content at all times, standing out from the crowd is no easy task for businesses. This is why personalization is becoming essential if you want to catch the attention of your audience.

It is said that 71% of consumers are more likely to engage with emails that feel personally relevant to them. If people see that your brand has an actual desire to understand their preferences and send them content that resonates, there’s a much higher chance that they will engage with your emails.

Hyper-personalization is a great way to utilize the data available, as it allows you to tailor your content based on a user's browsing history and behaviors. Combining your data with artificial intelligence is a powerful strategy that is not currently well utilized by marketers.

You should start this with some basic personalizations like adding the name of the recipient and the name of the company. 

Depending on the nature of your email, personalization should often go beyond basic elements like the name of the person or their company. 

For example, if you’re cold emailing your social media management service to startups, make sure that you go through their social accounts to gather any relevant information and provide insight into what can be improved. 

2. Send out automated campaigns

Nowadays, automation is key if you want to make the most of your email marketing strategy. As much as scheduling newsletters every month or updating your subscribers on your latest offer can still create results, automated workflows are what will help you improve your conversion rate.

Using an email marketing tool which uses AI to build custom templates that can be personalized to the recipients will help you set up automations, sending out the emails at certain moments in the buyer journey. Whether this is welcoming a new subscriber after they sign up, sending out discount codes on birthdays, or setting up abandoned cart emails, these automated emails can help build more personal relationships. 

You can use providers like Hostinger Reach to help you craft your emails and automate sending schedules. 

3. Repurpose existing content

Marketers are continually sending out new content but failing to utilize the content that has already been created. Old blog posts that performed particularly well, recent social media updates, and campaign videos that took hours to produce are all valuable pieces of content that can be repurposed through your email marketing channels.

Although using the exact same content across different channels is not recommended and can completely lose the interest of your audience, incorporating existing content into your new email campaigns can help drive more traffic back to your website. Try creating shortened versions or picking out key snippets that can provide value to your readers (while saving yourself hours of work in the meantime!).

Repurposing content also means keeping it updated. Every year, statistics and trends change. So instead of producing the same piece of content every year, you should expand and update your existing content. 

4. Access real-time analytics

One of the biggest mistakes made by marketers is not using the data that is in front of them. Your email marketing platform stores data that shows you exactly what content your subscribers are engaging with the most and where your conversions are coming from.

By keeping an eye on your email analytics and using this to inform your upcoming email marketing campaigns, you can continue to improve your strategy and make sure you’re giving your subscribers the content that they want to see.

This is also a great opportunity to segment your mailing list into smaller groups. Using analytics to separate subscribers based on their behaviors, areas of interest, and engagement levels will allow you to target groups with more tailored content that aligns with their preferences.

5. Reward long-term customers

Instead of putting your focus on building your mailing list with new contacts, you should be making sure to maintain your existing relationships. Long-term customers are some of the most valuable, and since 95% of customers are more likely to stay loyal to brands they trust, keeping your existing customers engaged is just as valuable, if not more, than finding new ones.

By rewarding long-term customers with exclusive offers to thank them for their ongoing custom and recognize their loyalty, you can strengthen your relationships and make your top customers feel genuinely appreciated. In turn, this can create long-term loyalty among customers and make them more inclined to make repeat purchases.

Introducing customer-specific loyalty or discounts is an effective way to increase the longevity of your customers. Customers like feeling valued, and there’s nothing worse than a customer who’s treated cold and without appreciation. 

6. Encourage user interaction

Engagement is an ongoing challenge for marketers looking to catch the attention of their subscribers. Nowadays, a catchy subject line and well-written email copy are not enough to keep readers engaged, so you need to think outside the box.

Introducing interactive elements into your emails is a good way to get your subscribers involved and interacting with your content. Whether you include a poll to get people’s opinions on your new product ideas, a spin-the-wheel that offers unique deals, or a user-generated content feature that encourages submissions, unique additions to a standard template can make a big difference.

7. Build trust in your brand

Trust is a huge factor in the success of a relationship between a brand and a consumer. Once somebody has built up a level of trust in a business, they are going to be more confident investing in their products or services and making repeat purchases.

Building up trust is not going to happen overnight and requires continuous efforts. The key is consistency – if your email subscribers become familiar with your name in their inbox and begin to recognize your branding, it will establish familiarity and can make your business feel more trustworthy.

Many businesses also find that using an open and honest approach helps build trust among their audience. Being transparent about your business, sharing behind-the-scenes content, and asking for the opinions of subscribers are all good ways to make a reader feel more connected to your brand and build up a stronger relationship.

It’s important that you avoid sending out too many emails. Far too often, we receive numerous emails to our inboxes that we simply stop opening. When a brand that you subscribe to starts sending out mass emails, we, as users, stop opening any emails received from the said brand. 

This can literally make or break your email marketing campaign. 

Make sure to pace out your offers and emails to maximize the effectiveness of your campaigns. 

8. Add a new touchpoint to your email with a signature 

In a high ROI email strategy, it’s not uncommon to overlook your email signature. But when used correctly, it could be the key to extending your marketing strategy that little bit further.

With every email sent in a campaign, you make an impression on your target consumer. If your team has a consistent signature block in a high-visibility space, you immediately reinforce your branding and support your campaign goals.

Think about it this way. If you turn your email signature into a dynamic marketing asset, you have another opportunity to promote your brand. Whether this is a seasonal offer or a limited-time discount, you can use your email signature to reach engaged recipients without contributing to inbox fatigue.

Let’s not forget that a powerful email signature can also drive your traffic to clickable destinations such as your social media pages or any landing page you’re hoping to promote. 

Using tools like Newoldstamp, it’s easy to centrally manage your branded clickable signatures and track your click performance, turning what was once just a sign-off into a new touchpoint for your campaign.

9. Utilize upsell opportunities

Once your customers have made a purchase, don’t stop there! Setting up automated upsell emails to land in their inbox following their order is a great opportunity to tempt them into further purchases.

Upsell emails should always be as subtle as possible to avoid coming across as pushy. A popular strategy is to add a ‘other products you may like’ section beneath the order confirmation email or send a ‘X% discount off your next order’ email.

Since the customer will already be in a buying mindset and has clearly got an interest in your business, reaching out to them with a personalized email based on their buying history can have a good success rate.

A great example of effective upsell emails is Amazon. They would track your order history (or the items you’ve recently viewed) and occasionally send over related items that you might also find useful. They don’t do it too often, and that’s key to an effective open rate. 

Finetuning Your Email Marketing Strategy for 2026

Since we are all exposed to so many marketing communications, it’s no surprise that businesses are struggling to stand out.

Many businesses are using email within their marketing strategy, but not many are using it to its full potential. A half-hearted effort is likely to produce underwhelming results, but making small changes can go a long way.

By adapting to the modern consumer, making the most of personalization opportunities, and nurturing relationships, your brand can place itself ahead of the competition and become a go-to contact in your subscribers’ inboxes.

Refining your email marketing strategy and really putting yourself in the shoes of your target audience will allow you to improve your approach to email marketing and give it a new lease of life – just in time for the new year.