In 2025, 81% of organisations worldwide will be using email marketing as part of their core business growth strategy. It’s an approach that is growing in popularity, with latest statistics suggesting that email marketing has the potential to reach 4.59 billion users this year.
For those operating in the B2B space, 73% agree that this channel is the best for reaching customers and prospects, with an estimated ROI of 3,600%.
However, recent changes have the potential to alter the way email marketing campaigns are designed and executed this year. These range from AI developments, new data protection regulations such as The Data (Use and Access) Bill, to major email providers amending their rules for senders.
The Data (Use and Access) Bill
The DUA Bill was initially introduced as The Data Protection and Digital Information (DPDI) Bill by the former Conservative Government, with a similar aim to use the power of data for economic growth, to support a modern digital government, and to improve people’s lives.
The DUA Bill retained several elements of the DPDI Bill, including the introduction of ‘recognised legitimate interests’ i.e., a legitimate reason to process data without having to conduct certain data risk assessments. What is key is that the DUA Bill now includes direct marketing purposes in this list of ‘recognised legitimate interests’, which essentially legally removes a business’s requirement to measure the impact of planned data processing on the data’s owner.
This is a huge opportunity for marketers to streamline compliance and reduce any administrative burden. However, businesses must still ensure they comply with current GDPR rules and existing requirements under the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations (PECR), which mandates prior consent for most marketing emails. What’s more, it is important that marketers do not overuse the DUA Bill exemption and risk backlash from customers or a breakdown of trust.
Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations
The DUA Bill also sets out the PEC Regulations to govern electronic marketing activities such as emails, texts and cookies.
These regulations are not necessarily new; however, marketers should be aware of certain aspects. These include an increase in the enforcement powers of the ICO (Information Commissioner’s Office) and an increase of fines for breaches relating to unsolicited direct marketing to £17.5 million or 4% of global turnover, matching GDPR penalties.
The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) will continue to release further guidance on these updates, to ensure compliance with regulations and help marketers avoid unnecessary administrative burdens and penalties for unintentionally breaching regulations. It is crucial that marketers and those processing data monitor these updates closely to stay compliant and streamline their activities.
AI – The third wave
AI may not be new, but new products, updates and ways of using AI are always being developed and fine tuned, and this shows no sign of stopping.
For example, the use of Generative AI is now commonplace across industries, using natural language processing to offer solutions and answers to questions and queries. While Generative AI will no doubt continue to evolve, the next frontier is agentic AI. Agentic systems require vast amounts of data – first party data in particular – to independently review challenges and develop solutions and strategies. Where Generative AI is reactive, based on prompts, Agentic AI is proactive, based on a continuous stream of data and information.
With Generative AI, marketers are reported to be already saving approximately three hours per piece of content and two hours per day overall. As new AI tools, such as Agentic AI, continue to emerge and become understood, marketers have the opportunity to fine tune and cut time even more on manual, administrative and operational tasks that can be streamlined using these more intelligent systems. It may be that email lists are more effectively and continuously segmented and updated, or content updated according to live performance data such as clicks and conversions.
The possibilities in email marketing are yet to be fully discovered, but what we do know is that ensuring compliance around the use of these new platforms as part of a wider email marketing strategy will be key in 2025.
Building trust and authenticity
In late 2023 to 2024, Yahoo and Google announced plans to get stricter on authentication standards for bulk senders, especially those wanting to reach their users’ inboxes. Since then, 49.5% of senders have made changes to their email strategy and programs, with 79% updating their authentication practices to ensure the domain from which they are sending emails is verified.
These kinds of updates to email security requirements can be a challenge for marketers, however, as advancements in AI develop, so too does its use for the wrong reasons, such as to create realistic phishing emails. As such, it is inevitable that 2025 will see even stricter email security requirements for marketers to comply with, to keep users and their inboxes safe and secure.
There may be additional updates and developments to come this year, be that to tech, processes, requirements or legislation. Some we may be expecting and others perhaps not. The crucial thing is that marketers stay up-to-date and adapt accordingly, otherwise they may risk being left behind.
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