When to Use Email Marketing

Last updated: 5 June 2025 — ⏱ 4 min read

Email still delivers the highest bang-for-buck in digital marketing. Litmus pegs the average return at 36:1 – that’s £36 back for every pound invested.¹ Meanwhile, GetResponse’s 2025 survey shows $40 ROI on every $1 spent.² No wonder 81 % of businesses list email among their top three revenue drivers.³
But results skyrocket only when each message lands at the right moment. This guide maps the best use-cases and timing tactics so you can send with confidence.

Why Timing and Context Matter

Reliable reach. Email lands in inboxes about 45× more often than organic social posts appear in feeds.⁴
Superior conversion. Visitors from email convert roughly 4× more than those from search or social.⁵
Audience preference. Four in five consumers say email is their favourite way to hear from brands.⁶

Line up intent, timing and relevance, and email beats every other channel on ROI.

Core Scenarios for Email Marketing

1 Lead Generation & Nurture

Offer white papers, webinars or mini-courses to capture addresses, then warm prospects with educational drips.⁵

2 Customer Onboarding

Welcome sequences guide new users to first success and cut early churn. Encharge notes that behaviour-triggered onboarding flows are “the single biggest churn-reducer for SaaS.”⁷

3 Product Launches & Flash Sales

Need immediate attention for a 48-hour drop? Email’s instant inbox delivery routinely outranks algorithm-based channels for click-throughs.⁴

4 Loyalty & Retention

Regular newsletters, member perks and personalised how-to content keep existing customers buying. Loyalty should be one of your primary email objectives.⁶

5 Re-engagement & Win-Back

“Still interested?” nudges and limited-time incentives reactivate subscribers gone dark for 30-90 days. Data show a 12% revenue lift after automated win-back flows went live.⁷

6 Transactional & Trigger-Based Messages

Order receipts, shipping updates and password resets enjoy 4–8× higher open rates than bulk campaigns.⁸ They also prime customers for cross-sell offers.

7 B2B Relationship Building

Long-cycle, high-ticket sales benefit from nurture tracks that educate and build trust; Forbes calls email “indispensable for complex purchasing journeys.”³

Best Days, Times and Frequencies

| Insight | What the Data Show | |-------------------------------|-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|--------| | Weekdays dominate | Most campaigns go out Monday-Friday; Thursday and Friday are most popular send days. | | Monday surprise | Monday emails notch the highest median open rate at 51.9 %. | | Late-afternoon bump | Engagement peaks between 3pm and 7pm local time on weekdays. | | Testing beats folklore | Send-time-optimisation algorithms consistently out-perform fixed “best practice” slots. |

Takeaway: start with weekday afternoons (or Monday a.m. for B2B) and let your own A/B tests or STO tools surface the true “golden hour.”

Automation: The Right Message at the Right Moment

Campaign Monitor reports 760% more revenue from segmented, automated workflows than from one-size-fits-all blasts.⁸ Today’s ESPs can trigger emails off almost any event—page views, cart status or CRM stage—ensuring relevance without extra manual work.

If you need hands-on practice with triggers and workflows, check “Where to Learn Email Marketing” next for free ESP sandboxes like Moosend and GetResponse (/blog/where-to-learn-email-marketing/).

When Not to Hit Send

No clear value. If the benefit skews to you and not the reader, re-think it.
List fatigue. Rising spam complaints or heavy unsubscribes mean you’re over-mailing—or under-segmenting.
Purchased lists. Beyond GDPR/PECR risk, response rates crater and sender reputation dives (a recurring warning in digital-marketing subreddits).⁹

Quick “Should I Email?” Checklist

Goal defined? (nurture, convert, retain)
Relevant segment selected?
Timing matched? (trigger, seasonal hook, or tested send window)
One unmistakable CTA?
Compliance covered? (permission, unsubscribe link, data rules)

Tick all five? You’re cleared for launch.

Final Thoughts

Email excels whenever you need a targeted, measurable jolt of engagement, from onboarding a new user to nudging a loyal customer toward a refill. Combine smart timing with behaviour-based triggers, keep your list permission-based and squeaky clean, and iterate constantly. Do that, and you’ll understand why Campaign Monitor calls email the best ROI channel, ten years running.⁴

Endnotes

Litmus State of Email ROI 2024 report
GetResponse Email Marketing Benchmarks 2025
Forbes Agency Council, “Email Marketing Still Works — And It’s More Effective Than Ever,” 21 Jun 2024
Campaign Monitor, “Why Email Beats Social Media (Reach & ROI)”
Marketing Mo, “When to Use Email Marketing”
Mailchimp Marketing Glossary: “Email Marketing”
Encharge, “What Is Email Marketing? (Guide to Behaviour-Based Automation)”
Campaign Monitor, The New Rules of Email Marketing (2024)
r/digital_marketing thread, “Is Email Marketing Still Worth It in 2024?” (May 2024)