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What an Email Marketing Strategy Actually Needs to Look Like in 2026
(And why your content calendar is not it.)
⌚ 12–16 minute read - go grab a cuppa!
If your “email strategy” is a spreadsheet of campaigns and a Slack message that says “can we get an email out today?”… that’s not strategy. That’s just organised panic - or maybe unorganised panic.
And I get why this happens - I have been there, done that, got the T-shirt and got the whole wardrobe at this point.
Email is the most inherited channel in marketing. You join a company, you’re handed the keys to the ESP, and you’re told:
“Here’s what we do — pull a list, write the email, hit send.”
So you operate inside the walls you were given (and that is totally okay!). You optimise subject lines, you tweak design, you fight for clicks, you report on open rates, and you're the one they put the pressure on when your emails don't dramatically create leads or sales every time.
Meanwhile, email has changed, and inbox filters have changed. Buyer behaviour has changed. And leadership expectations are still stuck in 2012 (or the prehistoric, either tbh).
So in 2026, if you want an email strategy that actually holds up - strategically, commercially, and deliverability-wise, you need to work towards stopping building “email activity”… and start building an email function.
This blog is your blueprint - hopefully!
Before you dig in, why don't you get access to RE:markable
RE:markable is the weekly email about emails. Dropping the latest email marketing news, updates, insights, free resources, upcoming masterclasses, webinars, and of course, a little inbox mischief.
The first reset: strategy is not a content calendar
A content calendar is a publishing plan. It’s a list of things you intend to send.
A strategy is a decision system. It defines:
- What email exists to do in your business
- What it will not do (this is the bit everyone skips)
- How you’ll measure impact (not attention theatre)
- What data you need to make it relevant
- What systems you need to make it possible
- How email fits into the wider external comms experience
If you don’t have those things, you don’t have a strategy — you have output.
And output without intent is how you end up sending “just in case” emails to “the whole database”, then acting surprised when engagement drops and deliverability starts wobbling.
The 2026 mindset shift: email is an impact channel, not a performance channel
Email is not a performance channel (I want to scream this from the rooftops)!!
Not in the way most teams are pressured to use it, anyway.
Email is a compound channel.
It works by building visibility, recall, habit, trust, and timing and then cashing that in later when someone is ready. That’s true in ecommerce, and it’s even more true in B2B, where around 95% of your audience is out of market at any given moment.
So if your strategy is built around “how do we get more opens and clicks?”, you’re optimising a lagging indicator and calling it leadership.
The better question is:
What impact should email create for the business — and what conditions have to exist for that impact to happen?
That single question changes what you build, what you prioritise, and what you stop sending.
The three pillars you can’t skip: Systems, Strategy, Data
I talk about this a lot because it’s the reality behind every “our email isn’t working” situation.
You cannot build a serious email strategy in 2026 without all three of these pillars working together:
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1) Systems (your infrastructure)
This is your CRM, ESP, website, analytics, form tools, ecommerce platform, CDP (if you have one), integrations, tracking, and anything else that collects or moves data.
Your system pillar is what determines whether your strategy is even possible.
If your CRM and ESP don’t talk properly, if your data is unreliable, if you can’t build exclusions or segment properly, you will hit the glass ceiling of email. Not because you’re bad at email — because your infrastructure won’t let you scale relevance.
And this is where I see marketers suffering the most: they’re trying to “strategy” their way out of a systems problem.
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2) Strategy (your purpose and plan)
This is the why, the who, the rules, and the impact definition.
Strategy decides:
- what email is for
- who it serves
- how it supports the customer journey
- how it supports revenue without becoming a spam cannon
- what “good” looks like -
3) Data (your relevance engine)
A strategy without a data strategy is just vibes.
In 2026, relevance is not optional. If you don’t know why people signed up, what they need, where they are in their journey, and what they’ve done recently, you will always be guessing.
And guessing is expensive — because inbox filters treat “irrelevant at scale” as a deliverability problem.
What an email strategy needs to include in 2026 (in plain English)
Here’s what your strategy should contain — not as a deck to show leadership once a year, but as an operating model you can actually use.
1) A clear role of email in the business
You need one sentence that explains why email exists.
Not “to send updates”. Not “to drive sales”.
Also not to "get more engagement" (that is an outcome btw).
Something like:
- Email exists/supports/assists to build consistent brand visibility and convert qualified demand when it appears.
- Email exists/supports/assists to drive repeat purchase through education, replenishment, and smart retention journeys.
- Email exists/supports/assists to move leads through lifecycle stages and support pipeline progression.
- Email exists/supports/assists to reduce churn by onboarding users properly and preventing drop-off.
If you can’t state the role, everything becomes an argument later.
And yes — email can have multiple roles. But you still need priorities. Otherwise it becomes: “email does everything”, which is code for “email is everyone’s dumping ground”.
2) A definition of audience truth (who you’re actually emailing)
Most databases are a mix of:
- intentional subscribers (they genuinely opted into an ongoing relationship)
- consequential opt-ins (they wanted a thing, not you)
- customers who are in different lifecycle stages
- contacts who have quietly churned (attention debt, job changes, inbox fatigue)
A 2026 strategy must define:
- which entry points exist and what promise each one makes
- what “invisible permission” looks like (the second opt-in you earn through value)
- how you will protect new relationships from premature promos and random blasts
- how you will handle disengagement without nuking your sender reputation
3) A journey map (not a campaign plan)
Campaigns are not a strategy. Journeys are.
Your strategy should define your core journey architecture. At minimum:
For B2C / D2C / ecom:
- welcome / orientation (yes, orientation — more on that in another blog)
- browse / product education
- abandonments (basket + browse, and ideally not a three-email shrug)
- post-purchase onboarding
- replenishment / repeat purchase
- winback / re-engagement
- VIP / loyalty
For B2B:
- orientation (especially for consequential opt-ins like gated content)
- nurture by problem-to-solve, not by product features
- sales conflict exclusions (please)
- onboarding for trials / product adoption
- re-engagement and preference resets
- customer expansion journeys (based on usage and milestones)
4) A data collection strategy (what you learn, when, and why)
You don’t need more fields. You need more useful fields.
Strategic data is anything that changes:- who gets what
- when they get it
- what gets excluded
- what gets prioritised
- intent: why did they sign up and what are they here for?
- opt-in type: consequential vs intentional (this fixes a lot)
- topic interest: what do they actually want more of?
- lifecycle stage: where are they in the journey?
- behavioural signals: what are they doing on site/in product?
- risk signals: who is cooling off, and who needs a break?
And then the key part: you decide how those signals change messaging and cadence.
If you collect data and send the same emails anyway, you’re not running strategy. You’re running admin.
5) Deliverability as a strategic pillar (not a technical checkbox)
Most teams still think deliverability lives in the ESP, and the “health score” is proof everything is fine.
It’s not.
Deliverability is the outcome of:- permission quality
- sending behaviour
- engagement patterns over time
- complaint rate
- list hygiene
- relevance and segmentation
- volume decisions
- provider-specific reputation shifts
A 2026 strategy should explicitly include:
- how you will protect reputation (especially at Gmail/Microsoft)
- how you will handle disengaged segments (and not keep hammering them)
- how you will validate and maintain your list
- how you will segment by mailbox provider when needed
- how you will test inbox placement when performance drops
6) Exclusions and collision rules (the maturity marker)
This is the bit that separates “we send emails” from “we run an email programme”.
Exclusions are not just nice-to-have.
They’re how you:- reduce friction
- avoid tone mismatch
- prevent automation overlap
- protect deliverability
- stop your email programme from embarrassing you
- new subscribers don’t get thrown into promo blasts
- people in an active sales cycle don’t get generic nurture
- people with an open support ticket don’t get “we miss you!” emails
- recent purchasers don’t immediately get discounts (unless you want that chaos)
- low-engagement cohorts get throttled, not punished with more volume
Collision is what happens when your systems do things to people, not for people.
And it’s one of the fastest ways to erode trust.
7) Measurement that makes sense (and survives leadership conversations)
If your strategy success metrics are opens and clicks, you’re building a fragile programme that can’t defend itself.
In 2026, you need a measurement model that includes:
Visibility + reach- inbox placement (where possible)
- deliverability indicators (complaints, bounces, engagement distribution)
- reachable audience size vs total list size (these are not the same)
- movement through lifecycle stages
- time-to-value (how quickly people reach a meaningful action)
- retention and repeat behaviours
- revenue per 1,000 recipients (not just total revenue)
- assisted revenue or pipeline influence (trend-based, not perfection theatre)
- conversion by segment and by journey stage
- churn reduction / retention lift
- unsubscribe rate (contextual)
- spam complaint rate (non-negotiable)
- replies / qualitative feedback where relevant
- preference centre adoption
- what email influences
- what email protects
- what email risks if misused
- why smart exclusions and segmentation increase value even if volume drops
The practical version: what to build if you’re a small team
A strategy is not “do everything”. It’s “do the right thing first”.
If you’re a one-person marketer, or email is 20% (or more like 2%) of your role, here’s what a sane 2026 strategy looks like:
Pick one impact lane
Choose the single most valuable job email can do for you right now.
Examples:
- B2B: one strong newsletter that builds trust + one lead magnet journey that converts demand when it appears (it has to be something that solves a problem or helps with someones need/pain point)
- D2C: one orientation flow + one post-purchase retention flow
- Ecommerce: one improved abandonment journey (done properly) + one retention journey
- Membership/subscription: onboarding + habit building + renewal protection
Set rules that protect you from chaos
Even a simple strategy needs guardrails:
- exclusions for new subscribers
- suppression for disengaged
- collision rules with sales/service
- cadence boundaries you can actually sustain
Define 3–5 success indicators you can track
Not 25.
Pick metrics that match your lane:
- time-to-first-action
- repeat purchase rate
- pipeline influenced trend
- inbox placement health signals
- revenue per 1,000 recipients
- retention/churn shift
That alone makes you more strategic than most teams. Lots more metrics at the end of this blog here
The mature version: what to build when you want scale
If you’ve got more resources, your strategy needs to look like an operating system:
- clear lifecycle segmentation and journey architecture
- data capture and progressive profiling mapped to the journey
- provider-aware sending where needed
- tested, documented exclusions and collision logic
- cross-functional comms alignment (marketing + sales + service)
- measurement that ties to business outcomes, not inbox vanity
And yes, it requires work. But the payoff is you stop living in reaction mode.
The final piece most strategies ignore: email must fit external comms
Your audience does not experience:
- “marketing email”
- “sales email”
- “service email”
- “review platform email”
- “product email”
One brand/business, one relationship and one mental model.
So your email strategy must include external comms reality:
- What else is hitting the inbox
- What tone collisions exist
- What systems are sending messages you’re not controlling
- What the overall cadence feels like to a human
This is why audits fail when marketers audit what they see — not what people experience.
And this is why “strategy” must include experience design, not just campaign planning.
You can do an experience audit following this blog here that covers more about external comms & overall experience.
What to do next: a practical build plan for your 2026 strategy
If you want a simple order of operations, use this:
- Define email’s role in the business (one sentence, then priorities)
- Map the journeys that support that role (minimum viable architecture)
- Audit systems for feasibility (what can you actually implement?)
- Define data needs (signals that drive relevance and exclusions)
- Set deliverability guardrails (hygiene, throttling, provider risk)
- Build exclusions + collision rules (protect trust and placement)
- Choose outcome metrics (impact, progression, commercial indicators)
- Start with one lane and iterate (strategy is lived, not launched)
The truth (and the relief): you don’t need more emails — you need more intent
Most email programmes or strategies don’t fail because marketers aren’t trying hard enough (you're doing good). They fail because email has been treated like a megaphone instead of a system.
In 2026, the teams that win will be the ones who stop asking:
“How do we send more?”
And start asking:
“What impact should email create — and what conditions make that possible?”
Build the pillars. Build the guardrails. Build the journeys. Measure what matters. Protect deliverability like it’s part of your commercial strategy (because it is).
And if you want to be properly disruptive?
Stop calling it a content plan.
Call it what it is: a business function that lives in the inbox.
Email, CRM and HubSpot Support
I help marketers and businesses globally improve, design and fix their email, CRM, and HubSpot ecosystems, from strategy through to execution.
My services include:
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Email marketing strategy, audits, training, workshops, and consultancy
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CRM strategy and enablement
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Full HubSpot implementations, optimisation and onboarding through my agency
If you’re looking for experienced external support (and lots of enjoyment along the way), this is where to start.
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RE:markable is the weekly email about emails. Dropping the latest email marketing news, updates, insights, free resources, upcoming masterclasses, webinars, and of course, a little inbox mischief.