Email marketing is the practice of sending targeted, permission-based emails to a list of subscribers to achieve business goals — building customer relationships, nurturing leads, driving sales, and retaining existing customers. It consistently delivers the highest ROI of any digital marketing channel: industry benchmarks suggest an average return of £35–£42 for every £1 spent. Email works because it is permission-based (recipients have opted in), delivered directly to an owned channel not controlled by a social media algorithm, and highly measurable.
In a marketing landscape dominated by algorithm-dependent social media and increasingly expensive paid advertising, email marketing stands out as a channel your business owns and controls. An email list is an asset that cannot be taken away by a platform update, an ad account suspension, or a change in organic reach. A well-maintained list of engaged subscribers is one of the most valuable marketing assets a UK business can build.
Types of email marketing
- Newsletters — regular updates (weekly, monthly) that deliver value to subscribers through content, insights, or curated information
- Promotional emails — sales, offers, and product launches designed to drive immediate revenue
- Welcome sequences — automated series of emails sent to new subscribers introducing your brand and building early engagement
- Abandoned cart emails — automated messages sent to e-commerce shoppers who add products to their basket but do not complete checkout
- Post-purchase sequences — emails sent after a sale to onboard customers, request reviews, and encourage repeat purchase
- Win-back campaigns — re-engagement emails sent to inactive subscribers to revive the relationship or remove them from the list
- Transactional emails — order confirmations, shipping notifications, and account emails triggered by specific customer actions
Email marketing benchmarks for UK businesses
Average UK email marketing benchmarks vary significantly by industry, but general reference points are: open rate 20–35%, click-through rate 2–5%, unsubscribe rate under 0.5% per send. If your open rates are below 15%, the primary issue is usually subject line quality or list health (too many inactive contacts). If click-through rates are below 1%, the issue is typically email content relevance or call-to-action clarity. If unsubscribes exceed 1%, you are likely emailing too frequently or the content is not aligned with subscriber expectations.
The most widely used email marketing platforms in the UK are Mailchimp (best for beginners, free tier up to 500 contacts), Klaviyo (best for e-commerce, deep Shopify/WooCommerce integration), HubSpot (best for B2B with CRM requirements), ActiveCampaign (best for complex automation), and ConvertKit (best for content creators and personal brands). The right platform depends on your use case, list size, automation requirements, and budget. For most UK SMEs starting out, Mailchimp's free tier provides enough capability to build foundational email marketing competence before migrating to a more advanced platform.
Email marketing in the UK must comply with UK GDPR and the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations (PECR). Key requirements: you must have explicit consent to email individuals (a pre-ticked opt-in box does not constitute consent); you must clearly identify yourself as the sender; every email must include an easy one-click unsubscribe option; you must honour unsubscribe requests promptly; and you must not purchase or use email lists where recipients have not consented to receive communications from your business. Using a reputable email platform and building your list through genuine opt-ins is the practical path to compliance.