• by Ray Schultz , Columnist, January 16, 2025

What are the best kind of emails to send? Behavior-based.

Not only do they way outperform batch-and-blast emails, but they are also edging out journey-based messages, according to Email Benchmarks Report: Optimizing Email for 2025 and Beyond, a study by MoEngage. 

MoEngage analyzed 17.3 billion marketing emails from three types of businesses: Retail and Ecommerce, Media and Entertainment, and Banking and Financial Services (BFSI). These results are from the North American edition.

In the retail category, behavior-based emails pulled an open rate of 37.04%, click-to-open rate (CTOR) of 25.52% and a 5.46% conversion rate.

In contrast, journey-based emails generated a 33.79% open, 3.09% CTOR and a 5.03% conversion rate. 

Attribute-based emails drove a 32.64% open, 25.54% click-to-open and 0.15% conversion. 

“Previously, Journey-based emails had the highest open rates and CTORs, but this year, Behavior-based emails led in both metrics, as well as in conversion rates,” the study states. “This shift likely reflects the difficulty of predicting customer journeys, with marketers finding greater success using clear data points like past purchasing behavior for personalized campaigns. 

Behavior-based emails also scored the highest open rates (42.36%) and click-to-opens in the financial services category. But journey-based messages achieved a higher average conversion: 29.15%, versus 26.15% for behavior-based. 

This shows that “customers want Financial Services brands to consider both the journey and behavioral insights (such as the buying journey stage and financial products viewed) to customize the emails they sent.” 

Similarly, journey-based emails greatly outperformed behavioral in the entertainment category, with a conversion of 42.04% versus 6.19% for behavior based. 

This proves that customers want brands in this sector to “use both journey and behavioral insights (such as the customer’s journey stage, frequently watched content, and bookmarks) to customize the emails they send.

The overall takeaway? 

"The data is clear,” says Raviteja Dodda, CEO of MoEngage. “Regardless of the industry sector, non-personalized and broadcast emails provide no value.”

Dodda adds: “To create meaningful connections with customers, marketers must invest in deeply personalized emails that are segmented for the right audience and based on each customer's behavior and previous interactions with the brand."