If you look at the continuous introduction of new channels and platforms, you would think that the email share of the marketing budget will start to disappear. But in fact it continues to grow. According to Gartner’s 2025 CMO Spend study, email accounted for 7.4% of total digital marketing spend – making it the only owned or acquired channel to increase its share of the budget year over year, even as the overall marketing budget remained low at 7.7% of company revenue.
ROI data supports that spending behavior. Research from Litmus from Validity found that 65% of email programs produce between 10x and 50x ROI. That kind of consistent, driven performance is rare in a media environment where measurement is hard, not easy. It explains why email can be cut when budgets are tight.
But there is a problem. The inbox where all the ROI is generated has become very competitive and technically demanding at the same time. There are now an estimated 4.73 million email users worldwide who generate approximately 392.5 billion messages per day, according to the Radicati Group’s Email Statistics Report, 2024-2028. All of those messages are competing for attention – and many of them never make it to the inbox.
These are some of the trends and issues we covered in our latest update MarTech Intelligence Report in section – Email Marketing Platforms: Marketing Guide.
Delivery is no longer an afterthought
Despite the widespread adoption of email authentication standards, the average inbox placement rate is around 83%. That means nearly one in six marketing emails don’t reach their intended recipients, according to EmailToolTester’s deliverability test.
Nearly half (48%) of email marketers cite avoiding the spam folder as their biggest challenge, according to Mailgun’s 2025 State of Email Deliverability report. That number has real business implications. You can have the best segment, the most compelling subject line, and the most perfectly timed post – and still lose a significant portion of your audience to any of that activity.
The certification landscape has changed significantly in recent years. In February 2024, Google and Yahoo began enforcing requirements for bulk senders to use the Sender Policy Framework (SPF), DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM), and Domain-Based Message Authentication, Reporting, and Correspondence (DMARC), and opt out with just one click. Gmail strengthened enforcement further in November 2025. Global DMARC adoption among top domains increased by 64% between 2023 and 2025 — from 29.1% to 47.7%, according to EasyDMARC’s 2025 adoption report. In the US, 95.8% of analyzed domains now have a DMARC record.
What this means for consumers evaluating platforms: authenticity and delivery infrastructure have moved from perceived capabilities to primary evaluation criteria. Platforms with built-in DMARC monitoring, automatic authentication settings, and established relationships with major inbox providers offer a measurable, operational advantage. The gap between retailers with strong delivery infrastructure and those without has widened as inbox providers continue to raise standards.
Email has become your identity infrastructure
Another change that I found myself coming back to throughout this research was a significant change in the role of the email address. In a marketing environment plagued by privacy laws, platform restrictions, and the erosion of third-party identifiers, the email address has emerged as the primary determining identifier for many marketers. It is the key on which many commercial ownership graphs are built because it is persistent, portable across systems, and transparently allowed.
That changes what the email marketing platform is, in practice. These platforms are not just tools for sending campaigns. Systems for recording customer interactions are on the rise – reinforcing ownership, aggregating behavioral data, and supporting lasting, consent-based relationships across channels.
This also explains why the decision to choose a dealer has higher statistics than ever before. Differences in data architecture, delivery expertise, depth of automation, and ownership management create significant switching costs, especially for organizations operating at scale. The platforms in this market are not interchangeable, and the evaluation process should reflect that.
The market is growing – and consolidation
The email marketing software market was estimated at $1.7 billion by 2025 and is expected to reach $4.27 billion by 2034, representing a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 10.6%, according to Fortune Business Insights. That growth is attracting continued investment and strengthening – the dominant force in this market right now is mergers and acquisitions (M&A), not new market entry.
Recent deals — including Zeta Global’s acquisition of business software business Marigold, Braze’s purchase of AI decision-making company OfferFit, Validity’s acquisition of Litmus, and Constant Contact’s acquisition of Moosend — show vendors combining broader integration stacks than individual features. That’s important to buyers because the platform you’re evaluating today could have a different ownership, depth of integration, or pricing structure within 18 months.
None of this makes email any less valuable. On the contrary. But it makes platform testing more effective than it has been in years.
If you are working on that assessment – or just trying to understand where this market is headed – the 2026 MarTech Intelligence Report on Email Marketing Platforms available now. The full PDF walks through skills, values, and a four-step evaluation process. We’ve also produced a podcast episode covering key findings, and there’s a custom chatbot on the page that lets you ask questions specific to your situation. All three are free with registration.
