This year marks the fifth time that we’ve teamed up to conduct our annual survey of email marketers. If you find the results valuable, thank the following organizations, and watch for our 2026 survey. Even better: if you have a list of email marketers, reach out to learn how to help us get the word out and increase participation.
- Email Connect
- Email Innovations World
- Email Optimization Shop
- Only Influencers
As always, we took a focused look at the biggest challenges email teams are facing and the features and capabilities they most want in their current or future ESP.
This year, we gave special attention to the role AI is beginning to play in platform expectations. A number of the questions remained the same as in previous years, allowing us to make a few year-over-year comparisons.
About the Survey Respondents
Once again we got a good mix of companies responding to the survey.
We had a solid mix of brands across the spectrum, from the top end of the SMB space to enterprise senders. Respondents represented a broad range of email volumes, which adds meaningful context when we look at ESP interest and RFP trends later in the report.
Biggest Email Challenges in 2025
In last year’s survey, we decided we wanted to hear from our respondents regarding their biggest email marketing challenges in 2024. These challenges often lead to the decision to RFP, as many of them are the result of a brand using a legacy platform, rather than one of the nextgen platforms, which continue to gain market share.
This year’s overwhelming winner of biggest challenge is “Lack of consolidated customer data’ with 20% of respondents citing it. Last year it was also the top answer, but nearly twice as many marketers, 38%, were feeling the pain.
This year we had a tie for second place, with each cited by 16% of respondents:
- “Managing the frequency of messaging across channels”
- “Deliverability: getting emails into the inbox”
Last year the challenge of frequency was only cited by 8% of marketers (ranking it 5th).
Managing frequency was difficult enough when brands were primarily using email, but as more brands take advantage of the native multichannel capabilities of the nextgen platforms the challenge becomes even greater. Many of these platforms have introduced better tools for touch governance, but it remains challenging as brands struggle to determine what exactly is the right frequency across all channels.
Deliverability was the top challenge for 10% of respondents last year, putting it in third place, making it another of the challenges that will not go away because inbox placement can be a moving target.
Top Priority for Improving ROI in 2025
We also asked email marketers what their top priorities were for improving ROI in 2025. The top two answers are—not surprising—data related.
Leading the pack at 28% is “Improving segmenting and targeting through AI”. There are two requirements for achieving this:
- more and better data, and
- a platform that can leverage that data in real-time.
Perhaps, then, it comes as no surprise that, at 16%, the second most checked box was “Leverage real-time data.” For this you also need two things:
- more and better data, and
- a platform that can slice and dice that data to optimize your messaging (a bit of déjà vu here….).
One big change between 2024 and 2025 was the increased importance of improving attribution. It was an afterthought last year, but jumped up to 16% in 2025, tied for second place.
What about deliverability you ask? Consistent with the results of the previous question, around 12% said that was his or her top priority.
What is/was the Primary Driver of your RFP?
I have been saying since the middle of 2024 that we would see a surge in RFPs in 2025 as renewals, hastily done during Covid in 2020 and 2021 would be coming up for renewal in late 2025 and early 2026.
That seems to be supported by the survey. Tie for first place, with each earning 25% of the responses, are:
- “Haven’t done an RFP in the last 5 years”
- “To lower the cost of our email program.”
In third place? “Outgrown our existing platform” continues to be a leading driver of RFPs at 21%.
What capabilities are most important in an ESP?
The top capabilities cited were clear:
- "Reporting tools/BI" (64%)
- "Real-time data" (56%)
These responses track closely with the priorities mentioned earlier.
Next up, each at 48%:
- "Cross-channel native to platform"
- "Best-of-breed email platform.”
At first glance, that looks contradictory.
But in RFP after RFP, we see the same pattern: brands want a platform that can do multichannel natively, but not at the expense of robust email functionality.
Platforms entering the ESP space from another channel (mobile, for instance) should take note: "good enough" email won’t cut it in the mid-market or enterprise.
Hot or Not
Among enterprise vendors, these are the leaders in brand awareness:
- Braze
- Iterable
- Salesforce
- Zeta
But actual RFP participation tells a different story.
We haven’t seen a brand proactively include Salesforce Marketing Cloud in an RFP since before 2020. When it shows up, it’s typically as the incumbent.
Also living in the RFP wilderness:
- Epsilon
- Oracle
- Adobe.
That may be changing for Adobe, as brands begin to better understand the (many, many) pieces of their platform. Still, too many modules and too many acronyms (AEP, AJO, RT-CDP) can be a barrier.
At the lower end of the market, Klaviyo continues to dominate in buyer interest among "cheap and cheerful" platforms.
Once again, the wide range of platforms mentioned by respondents underscores the ongoing confusion around which ESPs belong in which evaluations.
It bears repeating: picking the wrong platforms to evaluate is the number one cause of RFP failure. Forrester and Gartner reports can be helpful, but they don’t replace doing your homework. (Or, better yet, hiring someone who already has.)
Interest in CDPs
CDP interest hasn’t shifted much year-over-year.
Just under 50% of respondents say they have no plans to add a CDP. Just over 50% either have one, are evaluating one, or plan to start the process within the next 12–24 months.
One new theme we’re seeing in our work: brands looking to consolidate ESP and CDP functions into a single platform. Many marketers have learned the hard way that standalone CDPs often fail to deliver. In a lot of cases, the marketing use cases that drove CDP adoption in the first place can now be handled by the next generation of ESPs.
Closing Thoughts
Marketers have spent the last few years making do; navigating siloed data, aging platforms, and vendor promises that didn’t always match reality. And somehow, they’ve still delivered.
But 2025 brings a different kind of urgency.
With AI capabilities maturing and expectations rising, brands are looking not just for features, but for partners that can execute—at scale, in real time, and across channels.
The RFP has become more than just a sourcing exercise. It’s a strategic opportunity to realign with the right platform for what comes next. Because the future is no longer a vague aspiration. It’s here. It’s just not evenly implemented. Yet.