The holiday season is make-or-break for email marketers. With inboxes bursting from October through New Year’s, even your most dazzling email content could disappear into spam folders if your deliverability isn’t solid.

Mailbox Providers (MBPs), such as Gmail, Yahoo and Outlook, receive an overwhelming volume of emails during peak seasons. Their systems work harder to protect their users and reward senders who follow best practices with more reliable inbox placement.

Validity surveyed 1,000 U.S. consumers, revealing what drives them to open, engage with, or unsubscribe from holiday emails. This holiday season, consumers signal that they want transparency, real discounts and thoughtful timing, not inbox overload or misleading subject lines. Retailers that continue to rely on volume over value risk unsubscribes and missed opportunities.

Here’s what consumers told us about what’s working, what’s not, and what brands can do to improve their holiday email performance.

With Gmail and iOS now using AI to generate email previews before a message is even opened, marketers are facing a new frontier. You can’t avoid or ignore these changes. They’re already here. And they’re reshaping how we think about content, strategy, and measuring success.

AI Previews Are Changing the Inbox Experience

AI-generated summaries are often the first thing users see when they check their inbox. These previews aren’t just pulling the first few lines of your email. They’re interpreting your content, sometimes arbitrarily, and surfacing what they think matters most.

Email and SMS - friends, enemies, or frenemies? The experts at PostScript say, friends, if you do it right. If a customer is already on your email list, they’re only one step away from being a high-intent SMS subscriber. Leveraging this established connection can unlock SMS as a more direct and immediate communication channel. Think of the possibilities: time-sensitive promotions delivered instantly, personalized reminders that cut through inbox clutter, and real-time customer service interactions that foster loyalty.

Let’s get the bad news out of the way first… Consumer expectations have shifted and there’s no single type of funnel that’s going to convert everyone. What really works is creating personalized experiences that focus on the micro-moments within the shopper’s journey and using those to influence and capture the customer––again, and again, and again.

This is what retention marketing focuses on, and some experts have suggested that it be renamed to “ re-acquisition” to highlight just how important it really is in today’s market.

As email service providers crack down on spam and the inbox becomes more competitive, deliverability is more critical than ever. Marketers are no longer just chasing open rates—they’re fighting to land in the inbox in the first place.

Successful brands aren’t just “getting by” on reputation. They’re adapting to a new set of rules: technical requirements, authentication protocols, list hygiene, and smarter segmentation —all while preparing for the next wave of AI-driven personalization and inbox innovation.

The enthusiasm among B2B firms to include AI in their email campaigns shouldn’t obscure some sticky challenges. The number of B2B marketing channels continues to proliferate at a rapid clip, from social media platforms to long-form video to podcasts. But despite the growing array of platforms in which B2B marketers can place their bets, email remains the king of the castle when it comes to keeping existing customers satisfied and bringing in new ones. Indeed, 73 percent of B2B buyers say they prefer to hear from sellers via email, far outpacing telephone (49 percent) and in-person events (38 percent). That’s according to “ The State of Prospecting 2025,” released by the B2B marketing company Sopro. The report, based on the responses of 400-plus B2B senior decision-makers and billions of data points throughout 10 years of prospecting campaigns, also found that 75 percent of businesses say that email produces “good to excellent” ROI.

With ecommerce email marketing automation, B2C marketers can expect more of the revenue benefits of personalised marketing—without the manual work of sending email campaigns. Email marketing, in general, is still one of the most effective ways ecommerce businesses drive revenue. But email automations, also known as flows, generate up to 30x more revenue per recipient (RPR) than one-off campaigns, according to Klaviyo’s latest email marketing benchmarks. That’s because they’re sent automatically based on people’s real-time actions—which makes them timely, targeted, and relevant.