In our last post, we reviewed what we got right in 2024 and examined how our marketing predictions played out in practice. Now, it’s time to turn our crystal ball to the new year.
As we enter 2025, email and mobile marketing continue to evolve, driven by advancements in personalization, multi-channel engagement, and privacy-first strategies.
In a landscape of shifting consumer behaviors and rising expectations, owned channels like email and SMS will play an increasingly vital role in building trust and driving growth. By adapting to these changes, brands can create impactful campaigns that foster loyalty and deliver meaningful experiences.
Email Marketing Predictions for 2025
As 2025 unfolds, email marketing remains a cornerstone of digital engagement, adapting to new technologies and consumer expectations.
Several key trends are set to shape email marketing strategies in the coming year.
Social Media App Fatigue
Recent shifts in the social media landscape, including the U.S. government’s role in the future of TikTok and concerns over Meta’s content moderation updates, may lead consumers to disengage from apps that were once dominant communication channels. This presents both challenges and opportunities for marketers.
As users reduce their reliance on social media for brand discovery and engagement, owned channels like email and SMS will take an even more prominent role. Unlike social media, email gives brands complete control over their messaging, ensures consistent delivery, and fosters direct, personal connections with customers.
AI Journey Orchestration
The next phase of customer journey automation will leverage AI to orchestrate real-time, adaptive experiences. These AI-driven journeys will adjust dynamically based on user behaviors, preferences, and engagement patterns, creating seamless, personalized interactions across email and other channels.
AI tools like Iterable’s Journey Assist will further free up marketers’ time by automatically building out entire journeys rather than requiring manual creation of every step. These tools will also enable predictive recommendations and adaptive content blocks, ensuring emails resonate deeply with individual recipients.
Iterable’s Journey Assist can help email marketers build automated journeys, such as a welcome series, with just a few clicks.
Interactive and Gamified Content
Email will continue to evolve as an interactive medium, featuring embedded surveys, mini-games, dynamic forms, and even AI-generated elements to engage recipients directly in the inbox.
Innovations like Movable Ink’s Studio make it easier than ever to create dynamic, engaging content at scale. These features not only elevate user engagement but also provide seamless opportunities for zero-party data collection.
Renewed Focus on Data Governance and Integration
Clean and accurate data will be more critical than ever in 2025, especially as marketers increasingly rely on AI automation to power personalization and campaign optimization.
Robust storage and integration tools, such as Iterable’s Smart Ingest, will ensure that data feeding into cross-channel marketing platforms is not only accurate but also actionable.
Maintaining high-quality data will be essential for maximizing the potential of AI automation, optimizing campaign effectiveness, adhering to evolving privacy regulations, and building trust with consumers.
Privacy-Centric Email Strategies
With the tightening of privacy regulations, email marketers must adapt to heightened compliance standards while fostering trust with their audiences. Recent enforcement actions, such as the $2.95 million fine levied against security camera firm Verkada for violations of the CAN-SPAM Act, underscore the importance of adhering to established laws.
This trend highlights a larger shift toward transparency and user-driven data practices. To comply with laws like GDPR, CAN-SPAM, and Australia’s recent privacy reforms, marketers should prioritize:
- Robust Preference Centers: Allowing users to customize their email preferences ensures greater control over the type and frequency of communications they receive.
- Clear Consent Mechanisms: Obtaining explicit opt-in consent and maintaining detailed records of user permissions protect businesses from legal risks.
- Regular Audits: Periodic reviews of email lists and marketing practices help eliminate outdated or non-compliant contacts, reducing the risk of sending to unengaged or unsubscribed users.
By embracing these privacy-centric strategies, email marketers can navigate the evolving regulatory landscape while maintaining user trust. In 2025, compliance isn’t just a legal obligation—it’s a key driver of sustainable engagement and brand loyalty.
Mobile Marketing Predictions for 2025
Growth of Mobile Commerce
The rapid growth of mobile commerce is set to drive increased reliance on mobile apps and messaging platforms as key touchpoints in cross-channel strategies. With 72% of consumers in 2024 preferring to make purchases on their smartphones or tablets, marketers are leveraging these channels to provide real-time updates, transactional messaging, and personalized recommendations.
By integrating mobile messaging into broader multi-channel orchestration efforts, brands can create seamless, engaging shopping experiences that meet consumers where they are.
Privacy-First Mobile Marketing
As global privacy laws continue to evolve, platforms like Apple and Google are setting new standards that influence how marketers approach mobile strategies. These shifts emphasize the growing reliance on first-party and zero-party data to maintain compliance and foster trust in customer interactions.
Apple’s iOS 18 update, for example, introduced enhanced privacy features, such as blocking tracking parameters in URLs, limiting the ability to follow user activity across apps and websites. Similarly, Google’s Privacy Sandbox initiative is reshaping the digital advertising landscape, aiming to balance user privacy with the need for effective data-driven marketing.
These updates illustrate the broader trend toward prioritizing transparency and consent in data collection. To adapt, marketers must embrace innovative strategies of qualitative data collection–such as short-form surveys—that prioritize personalization without compromising privacy, ensuring they remain compliant while delivering value to their audiences.
Personalization Through AI and Machine Learning
AI and machine learning will continue to enhance mobile messaging, enabling marketers to send contextually relevant and highly personalized communications. For organizations with apps, these technologies will unlock deeper insights into how users interact with their platforms.
By analyzing in-app behaviors—such as browsing patterns, feature usage, and purchase triggers—marketers can gain richer, more actionable first-party data. This will fuel more tailored messaging strategies built around optimized timing, content, and user experience.
Evolving features like Iterable’s GenAI Journeys will extend this AI-driven personalization by enabling dynamic, real-time journey adjustments based on user behavior. This evolution empowers marketers to deliver more impactful messages while streamlining the creation of complex, adaptive campaigns.
Interactive Mobile Experiences
Interactive mobile experiences will take center stage in 2025, transforming how brands engage with users. Features like tappable responses, quick-reply buttons, and embedded interactive elements will empower customers to take immediate action within the messages themselves.
For example, users might confirm attendance to an event by responding quickly to an RSVP button or one-tap survey served to them by a push notification. Or, they might shop directly from a carousel of curated product options served seamlessly within an in-app message.
You can maximize your mobile marketing with push action buttons
These experiences streamline customer interactions while providing real-time data, like click-through rates and user preferences, which marketers can use to refine campaigns, improve targeting, and enhance customer experiences.
As brands compete for attention in crowded digital spaces, interactivity will become a key differentiator, offering customers a more engaging and responsive experience.
Onwards—To 2025 and Beyond
As we make our marketing predictions for 2025, email and mobile are transforming at the intersection of innovation and adaptation. Privacy-first strategies, AI-driven personalization, and seamless data integration are redefining how brands engage with their audiences.
Iterable remains committed to leading this evolution, empowering marketers with tools that drive advanced segmentation, real-time insights, and cohesive cross-channel orchestration.
To learn more about Iterable’s AI-powered, data-driven activation capabilities for email and mobile, schedule a demo today.
