2025 is here and we've grabbed a few minutes with some of the top commentators in the email marketing industry - those in our very own services team. Each team member will take you on a journey with their prediction, what it is, what it means to them and how it will impact your email marketing and CRM in 2025. Let's get stuck in!
Author: Rachael Tajbhai
Prediction 1: 2025 will be the year of SMS experimentation for brands
In 2025, brands will explore new boundaries in SMS marketing. Leveraging advancements in AI and Klaviyo’s latest SMS updates, businesses can implement personalized two-way conversations, automate customer interactions, and introduce creative use cases like product quizzes—all tailored to enhance engagement and drive sales.
SMS marketing continues to demonstrate impressive growth:
"86% of consumers made two or more purchases via SMS in the last year." (klaviyo.com)
Klaviyo’s latest updates empower brands to experiment more effectively with SMS:
‘"Create personalised two-way SMS conversations to drive sales using automated messages.
This allows you to automatically answer customer questions and introduce use cases like a product quiz via SMS." (klaviyo.com)
These advancements highlight how SMS will evolve into a critical channel for brands seeking to deepen customer relationships in 2025.
Prediction 2: 2025 challenges marketers to be more personal than ever
As a marketer, I see 2025 as the year we truly push the boundaries of personalisation. Customers are no longer satisfied with generic experiences—they expect brands to understand them on a deeper level.
With AI-powered CRM tools, we can predict behaviours, adapt content in real time, and create moments uniquely tailored to each individual. Emails can now change dynamically based on browsing or purchase history, while personalised surveys foster genuine two-way engagement.
The challenge is ensuring this feels authentic and human, not robotic.
As Shopify puts it, “Brands that are able to predict the desires of their online customers, and push relevant and inspirational content to them based on those desires, will see huge success in the coming years.” (shopify.com)
It’s not just about using AI for efficiency - it’s about creating genuine, meaningful connections with every customer.
Prediction 3: Dynamic content will dominate email marketing
Dynamic content is no longer a luxury-it’s now accessible for all marketers. AI is making it easier than ever to create hyper-personalised emails that adapt in real-time to customer behaviours.
From AI-powered product recommendations to in-email polls and location-specific updates, brands of all sizes can now deliver tailored experiences that feel genuinely relevant.
As HubSpot highlights:
“AI-powered product recommendations, location-specific information, and personalized images are some of the ways brands are getting dynamic content right. Litmus Personalize users have seen a 52% increase in conversions with dynamic content.” (HubSpot State of Marketing 2024)
The tools are here, making 2025 the year every brand can create impactful, engaging email campaigns that truly resonate.
Author: Will Swatton
Prediction 4: Zero party data collection will become even more crucial to businesses
With the growth of AI-based content creation being rolled out and utilised across many businesses, hyper-personalised experiences will soon become much more easy and efficient to set up.
To truly capitalise on these experiences, marketers will be turning their focus to acquiring valuable zero party data. These insights will then be used to optimise and execute deeper and more enriching communications across all channels, gaining an edge in the market.
“Advanced CRM analytics, and A.I driven machine learning will hasten the speed at which dynamic addressable customer segments can be created and addressed with paid and owned media channels”. (DMA Future Trends Report 2024)
Prediction 5: WhatsApp will become the leading direct communication channel
WhatsApp conversations are private and offer a great one-to-one communication opportunity for brands to foster deeper relationships with their subscribers.
The platform offers multiple ways to engage in video, chat and document forms that some other channels such as SMS lack. This creates opportunities such as promoting high quality product imagery, tutorials on how to use a service/product, GIFS and even customer service.
As DotDigital highlights:
“With its vast user base and intuitive interface, WhatsApp is poised to become the primary channel for direct customer service. By providing real-time support and personalized assistance, brands can significantly enhance customer satisfaction and loyalty.”
Prediction 6: Increases in gamification to drive customer loyalty
With loyalty programmes becoming increasingly popular, gamification and experience based rewards are set to become key initiatives that drive loyalty and retention over the competition. This was previously only utilised by brands with big budgets such as Nike’s Run Club, a platform where targets, rewards and encouragement are leveraged to drive a deeper relationship with to the brand.
As Open Loyalty highlight:
“Gamification and experience-based rewards were both highlighted by over 45% of respondents as game-changers. These trends point toward a shift from transactional loyalty to engagement-driven customer interactions.” (Open Loyalty Loyalty Trends 2025)
Author: Charlie Borley
Prediction 7: The impact of iOS 18: Opens and clicks set to plummet due to the new Promotions Tab
With iOS 18, Apple Mail app now categorises emails into 4 categories: Primary, Promotions, Updates and Transactions. With marketing emails landing in the Promotions tab, there’ll be a significant decrease in opens, but CTOR will likely increase given those engaging with emails in the Promotions tab are likely to have a higher level of buying intent. Apple’s new Branded Mail feature (BIMI equivalent) will become key in order to stand out in the inbox.
“Given the potential for lower open and click-through rates in the Promotions tab, marketers should focus more on driving onsite conversions. By optimizing your website for conversions, you can still achieve your marketing goals even if your emails don’t get as much immediate attention.” (Dotdigital blog - Apple iOS 18: what’s next for marketers?)
Prediction 8: Even shorter attention spans and inbox blindness will demand more interactive emails
Interactivity in emails transforms traditional, static emails into dynamic and engaging experiences, fostering two-way communication with your audience. By using AMP or incorporating features like live polls, social feed counters, sentiment trackers, scratch-offs, image carousels, personalised images, interest signals, you create opportunities for subscribers to actively participate, increasing engagement and strengthening their connection with your brand.
“Deciding whether to invest in interactivity within your emails is always going to come down to knowing what is supported in your subscriber’s email clients and whether you or your team has the additional bandwidth to devote time to it. However, if it makes sense for your audience, there are many examples and options of adding interactivity with low effort.” (Logan Sandrock Baird, Senior Community Evangelist at Beefree)
"Interactive content can increase engagement. This increased engagement delivers useful real-time data that can be used for strategies like database segmentation and content personalization." (Dorota - Email marketing specialist - MailerLite)
Prediction 9: Location-based personalisation and automation in CRM campaigns is set to soar
In 2024, Burger King used geofencing technology to create a groundbreaking offer: a one-cent Whopper, available only when customers opened the Burger King mobile app within 600 feet of a McDonald’s store. Yep, you read that correctly - their biggest competitor. This campaign turned 14,000 McDonald’s locations into promotional hotspots, showcasing the power of location-based marketing in a CRM campaign. Email marketing played a vital role in this campaign, delivering messages in a timely and extremely relevant way.
The use of automation allowed Burger King to deliver timely and personalised messaging to boost engagement.
“The idea was such a success, it won a Titanium Lion at the Cannes Lions Festival, boosted the company's app monthly users by more than 50%, generated more than 3.2 million app downloads, and more.” (Braze blog: How Burger King Used Braze to Boost Monthly Active Users by More than 50%)
