New year. New me. New . . . Marketing strategy! In terms of email marketing trends, we’ve charted five of the most interesting things that are happening since ringing in the new year!

Of course, we’ve found that ecommerce brands that balance their own creativity with AI-powered optimization are faring quite well. In fact, their email marketers see the highest returns across all industries, as retail, ecommerce, and consumer goods emails generate up to 4,500% ROI.

In order to strike this critical balance, personalize your email content, and achieve amazing metrics, you need access to the right data. Backstroke’s proprietary dataset contains information from 12k+ ecommerce brands. And we think it’s only fair to explore its metrics and uncover its email marketing trends to start your year off right.

Keep scrolling to see 5 charts that cover the creative email marketing trends we’re seeing kick off 2025 and to learn how Backstroke’s AI email generator delivers an average of 31% more revenue per send.

Chart 1: Dive Deep into AI in Ecommerce at Longaxis 2025

Yes, it’s currently Q1, but we’re making BIG things happen in Q2. As one of the best AI tools for digital marketing professionals, Backstroke is excited to announce our conference Longaxis 2025: DTC, Retention, and AI Conference.  

As the chart below shows, Longaxis in New York City will boast: 

• 100 ecommerce marketing professionals in attendance 
• 8 hours of interactive and insightful content
• 3 incredible keynotes (one of which will be delivered by an Olympian!)

Join top CRM, retention, and lifecycle leaders for this one-day event focused on the practical use of AI in ecommerce and DTC marketing within the Klaviyo, Attentive, and Shopify Plus ecosystems. Attendees can expect inspiring keynotes, hands-on sessions, and unique networking opportunities, all while having fun with surprise activations and interactive experiences.

The Takeaway: Longaxis is a chance to think bigger, connect with peers, and leave feeling energized and ready to innovate. You must apply to attend, and you can do that here! 

10 travel scholarships are up for grabs. We hope you get one! 

Chart 2: Emotional Content for Your Retail Email Marketing Strategy 

These are emotional times. More specifically, they’re anticipatory. We say that because our data shows that email messages with Anticipation as their primary emotion are very common, being sent 871% and 1,008% more frequently than Surprising and Fearful emails, respectively.

This comes at a time when The Gallup Global Emotions Report shows that positive emotions reached a score of 71 out of 100 worldwide, the highest since the pandemic began. Additionally, it shows that negative emotions tapered off for the first time since 2014, with young people experiencing more positive emotions than any other age group!

All this is to say that subscribers of all ages, locations, and habits are in their feelings. Most importantly, you as a marketer can use data to uncover how to connect with them.

The Takeaway: You can follow the current anticipatory trend and craft email content that builds off that exact type of excitement. Tease a sale. Share that a new product drop is coming. 

But if you want to take a more emotionally alternative route to stand-out in inboxes, lean into emotional email marketing trends that are less commonly sent. That doesn’t mean your Fear-focused email content should be scary, per se. Instead, inspire some FOMO. Offer a surprise discount code. Send an AI message that combines the two!

You can get a look at how Backstroke creates a full AI generated email in the video below, and you can see exactly how it prioritizes messaging of your choice—both emotional and promotional! 

Chart 3: Speaking of Emotions . . . Let’s Look at Emojis 

While Backstroke is an email generator AI tool that creates high fidelity emails, let’s get granular and look at individual items it generates by examining effective email subject lines. 

In the chart below, you’ll see emoji trends are written in the stars! ✨, 🌟 and ​​💫 emojis are among the most frequently sent right now, with the first being the new year’s most popular subject line emoji, by far.

The Takeaway: Data analysis that's continuously refreshed is the best way to stay on top of email marketing trends as they change. This particular data analysis shows how something as simple as emoji use is dependent on the time of the year, as these particular emojis have exploded in popularity across January.

By studying retail email marketing data, Backstroke pin-points email trends as they ebb and flow across seasons, holidays, months, and more! 

Chart 4: Effective Email Subject Lines & How Capitalization Is Received Across Generations

Looking at the best email subjects from another angle, here we examine brands’ use of capitalization. At the start of the year, data says that subscribers see Title Case subject lines 67% more than PARTIAL caps, 4,750% more than all lowercase subject lines. 

The Takeaway: This is just the tip of the iceberg, when it comes to creative copy analysis for email. As Backstroke’s email generator writes copy beyond subject lines and preview text, it determines exactly what types of content your subscriber segments are most likely to engage with. 

So, for example, Backstroke considers how different age groups interact with capitalization in AI generated email. After all—at least stereotypically—Baby Boomers LOVE ALL CAPS. Gen Z often opts for all lower case. 

For an even deeper look into how to connect with your audience, beyond subject lines, check out our guide Seasonal Email Marketing to Gen Z, Boomers & Everyone In-Between. You’ll get a sense of what types of emotions & content consumers of all ages are engaging with right now!

Chart 5: Let’s Look at Optimized Copy Length 

People spend less than 30 seconds, on average, reading digital content. (So congrats if you’ve made it this far into the blog!)  Maximizing your messaging content for limited time and short attention spans is critical, especially as 49% of people report that their attention span is growing increasingly shorter.

The chart below reflects these shifts. Just after 2025 began, brands started sending shorter subject lines, containing 6 words or fewer. In fact, these short subject lines are sent 31% more often than subject lines that contain more than 6 words.

The Takeaway: We’ve looked at how Backstroke’s AI email generator cross-cuts its proprietary data to determine personalized email content that’ll perform best across age groups, emotional preferences, locations, and more. Here, we pin-point email marketing trends down to the very day, looking at what brands started sending after Jan. 1.

Starting a new year, month, or even a new week brings a variety of novel trends, best practices, and new technologies to the table. As our dataset is refreshed and maintained on a daily basis, we see creative trends like those listed above shift dramatically over time. The best way to stay on-trend and keep your subscribers engaged is by consulting real-time data and incorporating its findings into your email content.

To get the latest scoop on email marketing trends in ecommerce, check out our guide Email Marketing Trends 2025: Tips to Get Your Campaigns In Shape!