Beyond the click – are we measuring email too narrowly?

Email’s value is not only in the response it generates, but in the relationship it helps build over time.

We don’t talk about email the way we talk about other content.

Think about how marketers talk about print, podcasts, films or branded magazines and the conversation tends to open out. We talk about audience, experience, storytelling and the world a brand is trying to build.

Now think about email. The language changes almost immediately: automation, triggers, journeys, segmentation, open rates, clicks, deliverability, conversion. All of that is important, but it can make email feel smaller than it is.

Marketing automation has helped turn email into an efficiency tool. We use granular metrics to keep optimising for engagement, response and performance; CRM has become increasingly sophisticated, and that has real value. The issue is that the technical conversation can become the dominant one, and that is where the more interesting editorial questions start to get overlooked.

Email should be judged by more than the response it generates. It should also be judged by the connection it creates, the expectation it builds and the conversation it allows a brand to continue.

Email comes back. That is its advantage. One message can pick up a thought from the last, develop an idea or give someone a reason to open the next. It has the potential to behave less like a series of sends and more like a continued conversation.

AI makes this more urgent. As content becomes easier to produce and harder to distinguish, owned audiences matter more. Email is one of the places where a brand can have a direct, opted-in relationship with its audience, whether that comes through a membership, ownership package, event, publication or purchase. It gives brands a different starting point from channels where they are competing for attention and, handled with care, can make someone feel they are entering the brand’s world rather than receiving another marketing message. You can read more about our approach to email, CRM and automation here.

The language we use shapes the emails we create

The way we talk about a channel affects the work we make for it. If email is discussed mainly through triggers, journeys and optimisation, attention narrows to what can be tested, adjusted and reported.

A strong email programme needs good data, intelligent segmentation and a clear view of performance. But when those are the only terms of the conversation, email can improve on the dashboard while losing some of the qualities that make people want to hear from the brand.

The same is true of personalisation. More data does not automatically create a better experience; if the communication lacks judgement, relevance or restraint, personalisation can start to feel like pressure rather than service. We explored this opportunity in more detail in our article on the rise of hyper-personalised email, where the focus is on using data to make communication more timely, relevant and useful. In this context, personalisation only strengthens the relationship when it is guided by a clear idea of what the audience needs from the brand, not just what the brand wants to send next.

Twilio’s 2025 State of Customer Engagement Report puts useful numbers against that tension: 75% of businesses report increased customer spend from personalisation, yet only 45% of consumers say they feel understood by the brands they interact with. The gap matters because it shows the limit of data on its own: personalisation only works when the message still feels relevant, trusted and human.

That strategic risk is easy to miss. Most organisations would not plan a magazine, a film or a brand partnership solely by asking what single action it needs someone to take in the next few seconds. They would ask how it shapes perception and how it changes the audience’s relationship with the brand. Email deserves the same level of thought.

This is the risk we have previously described as tactical gravity: the slow pull away from shared strategic intent towards the logic of individual channels, teams and metrics. An email programme can appear to be improving – with sharper segments, more efficient journeys and better immediate response – while losing sight of the bigger role it should play in the customer relationship.

Email is built for relationships over time

Most content gets one clear shot at making an impression. Email is different because it comes back. It can pick up a thread, create a pause and make the next message feel connected to the last. How many brands come quickly to mind as using email in that way?

This is why you can easily make a comparison with print magazines. Magazines are not successful because someone happens to read a page. They are successful because people anticipate the next issue and a return to the world the brand has created. They recognise the tone, the pace, the point of view and the quality of attention being offered to them.

Email can borrow that editorial thinking too, giving people a recognisable tone, a reason to return and the sense that each message belongs to a wider brand experience. It also gives marketers a useful natural break, allowing a story to pause, resume and build expectation without needing to force everything into one message.

For a luxury brand, that might mean revealing the making of an object in stages so the audience has time to appreciate the craft. For a hotel, it might mean following the emotional shape of a stay, from anticipation before arrival to the details that make the visit feel personal afterwards. The point is to use the rhythm of the channel with more imagination.

A subscription is not just a data point. It gives the brand permission to enter a more personal space, and that permission should be treated as a chance to continue the conversation rather than simply increase campaign reach.

Trust is built when the brand keeps being useful, relevant and respectful of people’s time.

Trust looks different for different brands

A useful way to think about email is to consider what should have changed after a sequence of messages: what the audience understands, feels, trusts or expects from the brand.

For some brands, the answer will be expertise. In sectors such as finance, automotive, technology or B2B services, trust is often built through clarity, authority and the ability to guide an audience through complexity. The value of email might come from helping someone understand a decision, recognise a risk, interpret change or feel more confident about a future purchase.

For luxury and premium brands, good email is not always about saying more. Sometimes it is knowing when to hold something back, so the brand still has space, desire and a sense of access around it.

Quality will not mean the same thing in every inbox. It might be useful expertise, a well-timed invitation, a moment of inspiration or the confidence to leave something unsaid. What matters is that the email reflects the role the brand wants to play in someone’s world, rather than becoming a by-product of the next campaign send.

When email content is created only to optimise engagement, the channel can drift from the wider strategy. A fine dining restaurant launch, for example, might be reduced to the angle most likely to win clicks, even when the better story sits with the chef, the provenance, the craft or the reason the opening matters. That is tactical gravity in practice: the email may be doing better on its own terms while doing less for the world the brand is trying to build.

If you removed email from the customer journey, what would disappear with it? Would the audience feel less connected, lose a sense of momentum or miss a useful point of contact with the brand?

We measure what is easiest, not always what matters

Email is one of the most measurable channels available to marketers, which is part of its strength. Opens, clicks, conversions and revenue attribution all tell us something useful. At Dialogue, that performance view still matters because email has to earn its place in the marketing mix.

But when traditional metrics sit at the centre of the conversation, they can start to control the work. The channel gets optimised around the signals that are easiest to capture, even when the most valuable outcomes may take longer to see.

In magazine publishing, no one is judging the value of an issue only by asking who read to page 18. Value also sits in the time spent with the brand, the understanding created and the role the publication plays in the wider customer journey.

Email should be judged in the same broader context. Opens and clicks still matter, but they should sit alongside a view of how the channel is sustaining interest, building confidence and keeping the brand present between bigger moments.

Measurement still matters. It just needs to sit within a broader view of what the channel is there to build.

What email leaves behind

Email gives brands the chance to tell a story over time, in a space the audience has chosen to open. Automation, personalisation and testing all have their place, but they work harder when they support the story, the relationship and the wider brand world.

Every email teaches the audience something about the brand: whether it understands their world, respects their time and has something useful or interesting to offer next.

The most useful email strategies look beyond the next send and think about what people should come to expect from the brand over time.

At Dialogue, we bring strategy, data, content, design and performance together to create email programmes that work commercially and build something more lasting with the audience. Drawing on our editorial heritage, we treat email with the same care as any other brand channel: not as a sequence of isolated sends, but as a way to shape what people come to know, feel and expect from the brand over time.

Resources

2025 State of Customer Engagement Report – Twilio