Email marketing has been a powerhouse in ecommerce for years, delivering one of the highest returns on investment among all digital marketing channels. With direct access to an owned audience, the ability to schedule campaigns, and a strong track record in driving conversions, email has been a staple for businesses.
From transactional updates like order confirmations to promotional offers, editorial content, retargeting ads, and account verifications, email plays a crucial role in customer communication. But what happens when marketers can no longer guarantee that their messages are seen—or even measured accurately?
In 2025, major inbox changes are making it increasingly difficult to reach customers effectively. Here’s what’s changing and what it means for marketers.
Gmail’s AI-Powered Search: A Game Changer
Gmail’s latest update brings artificial intelligence into the mix, reshaping how emails appear in inboxes. According to Adweek, Gmail’s AI-powered inbox now functions more like a social media feed rather than a chronological list of emails. This means that messages are no longer ranked purely by send time or keywords. Instead, factors like recency, engagement (how often a user clicks on emails), and frequent contacts influence what appears first.
For instance, in Gmail’s own example, a marketing email containing the keyword “reunion” was pushed to the bottom of search results—despite being the most recent. This shift means that email visibility is no longer a given, and marketers will need to rethink their strategies to stay on top.
Stricter Spam Filters: A Growing Challenge
Email deliverability has never been foolproof. Since AOL introduced the first automated spam filter in 1994, email providers have been working to keep inboxes clean. Over the years, governments have reinforced these efforts with laws like the U.S. CAN-SPAM Act, reducing the flood of fraudulent emails.
However, even with these protections in place, legitimate emails—including transactional messages and security codes—sometimes land in spam folders or are blocked outright. As email filters become more sophisticated, marketers must work harder to maintain strong sender reputations and ensure their messages actually reach users.
The Promotions Tab and AI-Powered Prioritization
Since 2013, Gmail has been categorizing marketing emails into a dedicated “Promotions” tab, making them less visible to users. Early reports showed that this change led to a noticeable drop in engagement.
Fast forward to 2025, and AI-driven inbox sorting takes this concept even further. Services like Yahoo Mail now display only a handful of messages when users open their inboxes, filtering out most promotional content. The days of assuming emails will be seen—even if they land in an inbox—are over. AI agents are now deciding what’s important, and marketing emails often don’t make the cut.
Email Open Rates: A Flawed Metric
Apple’s Mail Privacy Protection (MPP), introduced in 2021, was a game-changer for email tracking. This feature prevents senders from accurately tracking open rates by preloading email images and reporting them as opened—even if the recipient never actually engaged with the email.
Within the first month of MPP’s launch, Twilio SendGrid reported that it inflated Apple Mail open rates by 22.9%. The same effect extended to Yahoo Mail, Outlook, and Gmail, making open rates an increasingly unreliable metric. Today, many email service providers attempt to estimate MPP’s impact, but AI-driven inbox changes only add to the complexity. Marketers can no longer rely on opens as a key performance indicator.
Click Tracking: Less Reliable Than Ever
Tracking clicks has long been a go-to method for measuring email engagement and attributing sales. However, this data is becoming less reliable due to new privacy measures.
Apple Mail and Proton now strip URL parameters that identify individual subscribers, making it difficult to track user behavior across campaigns. Additionally, fraud-protection bots designed to detect phishing attacks often click on email links, creating false engagement data. Some email service providers are filtering out bot-generated clicks, but many still report them as legitimate.
What This Means for Marketers
The golden age of email marketing is shifting. AI-driven inbox filtering, stricter spam controls, and privacy measures are making it harder to reach and track customers. Here’s what brands can do to adapt:
Focus on Engagement: Encourage genuine interactions through valuable, highly relevant content.
Optimize for Deliverability: Maintain a strong sender reputation and follow best practices to avoid spam filters.
Shift to First-Party Data: Build relationships through loyalty programs, SMS marketing, and other direct channels.
Adapt Tracking Methods: Use broader analytics, such as conversion rates and website activity, rather than relying solely on email metrics.
Email marketing isn’t dead, but the rules of the game are changing. Marketers who evolve with these shifts will continue to see success—while those who rely on outdated strategies may struggle to keep up.
