For South African businesses, email remains one of the most controllable and cost-effective channels available. Retail, eCommerce and Consumer Goods are currently enjoying the highest email ROI, with up to R36 for every R1 spent. Even so, budgets are tight, audiences are selective, and every send needs to earn its place. Here are a few of the global email marketing trends we are seeing this year, what they mean for South African businesses, and how you can best position your email marketing to benefit from them.
Email Marketing Trend 1: Writing for Inboxes That Use AI
This year, modern inboxes are becoming even less of a passive delivery system. Email providers are increasing their use of AI to summarise, categorise, and prioritise messages before a person ever sees them. Therefore, emails should be written with both AI and people in mind. Emails that clearly state their value, use readable text, and focus on a single message are more likely to be acted upon. If your email can’t be understood in five seconds, it’s unlikely to perform in a 2026 inbox.
Put the Value in The Subject Line
Be upfront about the value your email, and by extension your business, delivers. Avoid vague teasers and mystery subject lines. Clearly spell out the audience and the outcome. For example, “For HR teams: a 10-minute guide to better onboarding emails” or “Retailers: 3 ways to drive repeat purchases this weekend”. The goal is instant relevance. The customer should know within seconds whether it’s meant for them and why it matters.
Use the Preheader to Add Proof or Urgency
Treat the preheader as a second subject line, not leftover space. It should strengthen your promise by adding specificity, reassurance, or a reason to act now. Some example preheaders: “Includes a free template”, “Limited seats”, “Ends Friday at 17:00”, or “See the example campaign inside”. Default phrases like “View in browser” or repeated subject lines waste high-visibility real estate and can weaken your message before the email is even opened.
Repeat the Promise in the First Line of Copy
The opening line is your confirmation moment. Many customers will only see the first few words before deciding whether to keep reading, so use this space to restate the value clearly and expand it slightly. Think of it as: “Here’s what you’ll get, and why it’s worth your time.” If your subject line promises a solution, your first line should immediately deliver context and direction, without forcing the reader to scroll to figure out what the email is about.
One Email, One Outcome, One Call-to-Action (CTA)
When an email tries to sell three offers, share five links, and request multiple actions, it becomes harder to understand and easier to ignore. Choose one primary objective (like book a demo, download a guide, claim an offer, read a single article) and build everything around that. Keep the CTA obvious, while any supporting links remain secondary. This also makes reporting easier because you can tie the send to one measurable business outcome.
Email Marketing Trend 2: Newsletters as a Long-Term Retention Tool
In South Africa, we’ve seen that buying cycles are often longer and more considered. That’s where newsletters earn their keep. The best newsletters aren’t catch-all promotional emails. They deliver consistent value over time, offering insight, updates, and practical relevance that keep your brand top-of-mind until your customer is ready to act.
Treat your newsletter like a product with a clear purpose and predictable value for customers, giving them a reason to come back to your business when they are ready to make a decision.
A strong newsletter has one clear role. Here are some of the roles it can play in your business:
Leading with insights: In this role, your newsletter shares trends, commentary, or educational content to build trust and stay top-of-mind. It usually reflects a strong point of view, practical interpretation of industry changes, or bite-sized educational tips that make the reader feel better informed.
Helping customers execute: This role wins when your customers have limited resources and need helpful tools they can apply immediately. It offers a way to share step-by-step instructions, examples, and “done-for-you” frameworks that reduce effort and improve consistency.
Sharing updates or important notices: These are for keeping customers informed and reducing uncertainty, especially around products, special offers, service updates, or events taking place. It shares clear, factual updates with minimal fluff, and exactly what the reader should do next. It can also support adoption if you’re rolling out a feature, a policy, or a process change.
Email Marketing Trend 3: Automation That Reflects Real Behaviour, From Campaigns to Journeys
Automation will continue to mature this year, especially in the South African context. Customers expect relevance but are sensitive to over-communication. There is a shift away from bulk campaigns and towards lifecycle journeys that reflect how people engage. Because of this, repeat business and long-term relationships are becoming even more valuable than one-off conversions.
To get the most out of your automated customer journeys, shift your business perspective to sending emails at the right time in your customer journey, and be clear on the purpose of the emails you send. The strongest email marketing platforms use triggers and segmentation to deliver messages when they matter most.
Here are some customer journeys you can create easily that reflect a good ROI:
- Onboarding that educates and reduces early churn.
- Browse and enquiry follow-ups that respond to intent.
- Retention journeys that respect timing and preference.
- Reactivation that targets inactivity without spamming the entire list.
As digital communication platforms become more powerful, especially with automation, the differentiator is shifting back to human judgement and understanding. South African audiences are diverse, pragmatic, and highly attuned to authenticity. They respond best to communication that feels useful, respectful, and relevant to their context.
Automation offers a powerful way to improve efficiency and drive growth without sacrificing authenticity, especially for businesses with limited resources. Find out more about the basic steps businesses can take to kickstart their email automation journey.
Email Marketing Trend 4: Measuring What Matters in a Local Business Context
Open rates used to be the headline metric, but they’re increasingly unreliable due to privacy changes in email clients. This will not be changing in 2026.
For South African businesses focused on growth and efficiency, it’s important to find metrics that measure what matters. When you measure the right outcomes, it becomes easier to justify the value of your email marketing strategy to finance, sales, and leadership. It also makes it easier to improve the performance of your campaigns without having to guess what works well and what doesn’t.
Here are some metrics that are more inclined to measure what matters:
Track Clicks and Click-to-Open Trends
Tracking click trends over time helps you see which topics, offers, formats and CTAs consistently get attention. Click-to-open rate adds useful context by showing whether the content delivered on the promise of the subject line. It helps compare campaigns fairly when list sizes and deliverability fluctuate.
Measure Conversion Rates
Depending on your business, conversions might be seen as an online purchase, a form submission, a demo request, a webinar registration, a booking, or a completed application. The key is to define what “conversion” means for your business and tie email performance back to those actions.
Keep Track of Enquiries Generated
For this metric, you can measure the actions that show buying intent, such as contact forms submitted, click-to-call activity, replies to your email, and responses via preferred channels like WhatsApp or SMS. These metrics help teams understand how email contributes to lead flow, pipeline momentum, and customer conversations, not just website traffic.
Track Revenue or Value per Campaign
Where tracking is possible, revenue-based metrics create the clearest line between effort and return. This can include revenue per campaign, revenue per subscriber, average order value influenced by email, or lead value where sales cycles are longer. Consistent tracking using tracking links and goal-based reporting will reveal what drives the most meaningful outcomes over time.
Keep an Eye on Your List Health
List health metrics protect long-term performance and deliverability. Rising unsubscribes or complaints often indicate misaligned messaging, poor targeting, or frequency fatigue, while a growing inactive segment signals that your content might not be relevant. Tracking these trends helps you adjust cadence, refine segmentation, and run re-engagement or list-cleaning initiatives before deliverability and trust start to erode.
Was your last bulk email campaign successful? Take a deep dive into how email marketing analytics can help you get results consistently.
Email Marketing Trend 5: Privacy, POPIA, and the Rise of Permission-Based Marketing
In South Africa, consumer privacy is becoming non-negotiable. POPIA has changed how businesses collect, store, and use customer data, and consumers are more aware of their rights than ever before. When customers can trust how your business handles their data, they are more likely to engage with you and build long-term relationships with your brand.
Permission-based marketing uses clear opt-in language, so there are no surprises for the customer; an option to manage preferences, like topics, frequency or preferred regions/branches; and targeting that improves content relevancy while reducing email fatigue and unsubscribes.
The Way Forward for South African Marketers
Email marketing in 2026 is about refining your marketing plan, paying attention to detail and putting the customer first. When your messaging is clear, your data practices are responsible, your automation is well-timed, and your metrics are focused on meaningful outcomes, you create email campaigns that customers want to receive – and that’s business you can rely on.
Next-Level Email Marketing with Everlytic
We know many South African businesses are navigating tight budgets, competitive categories, and informed audiences, however email stays one of your most reliable and cost-effective channels. Used well, it supports retention, drives measurable outcomes, and strengthens long-term customer relationships. Partner with Everlytic today to take your email marketing to the next level.
Sources:
Eight Things You Should Do Now to Set Up Your Newsletter for Success in the New Year
Email Marketing Trends for 2026: Insights to Boost Every Send
Email Marketing in 2026: What to Keep, What to Drop, What to Try
2026 Email Marketing Trends: 5 Top Strategies to Master
Design and Marketing Trends We’ll See More of in Email in 2026
