New York, March 05, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Email is the most preferred digital marketing channel among consumers. It is also the most likely to irritate them. New research from Optimove Insights reveals that this is not a contradiction. It is a warning.
The results are one part of the comprehensive Optimove Insights Marketing Fatigue Report 2026 based on survey 1,034 consumers ages 18-65. The findings cited here are from Part 3: Email: Preferred by the Customers, Fueled by Relevancy which found that 60% of consumers identify email as their preferred channel for brand communication, outperforming social media ads (50%), push notifications (37%), and SMS (34%).
Yet the same research found that email ranks as both the channel most likely to capture consumer attention (35%) and the channel least likely to do so (40%). During peak shopping periods, the moments when email investment is highest, 55% of consumers say email overwhelms them more than any other channel.
Preference, the data makes clear, does not equal engagement. It equals expectation. And most brands are failing to meet it.
These numbers show that consumers are still being oversaturated with too many irrelevant messages, while some may simply be receiving marketing messages on a channel they don't prefer, and therefore, it doesn't catch their attention.
Message and channel personalization and orchestration are key for breaking this pattern.
The Gap Between Opening and Ignoring
Only 11% of consumers report having no unread marketing emails. The remaining 89% are accumulating dozens to thousands of unopened messages. The reason is not volume. It is relevance.
When asked what would most compel them to open a marketing email, 41% of consumers cited a single factor: a personalized offer tied to something they have already shown interest in.
According to Pini Yakuel, CEO of Optimove, "The brands filling inboxes with generic, untargeted messages are not just being ignored. They are actively damaging their relationships."
The data supports this. While 58% of consumers say they would welcome more emails because they find them helpful, the reasons they leave tell a different story. Of those who unsubscribe, 46% do so because they receive the same promotions repeatedly, 18% because offers are unrelated to their interests, and 17% because messaging feels generic and impersonal.
This apparent contradiction actually reveals something important: email itself does not irritate consumers. Irrelevant, generic messages do. The channel remains powerful. The execution is what fails.
Yakuel recommends that brands segment audiences thoughtfully and combine hyper-personalized content, recommendations, and storytelling to create emails that are truly individualized and conversational rather than transactional or intrusive.
"The winning strategy is not about more or fewer messages, it is about the right message, at the right moment, to the right person. To deliver that, marketers need to be Positionless, with data, creative, and optimization power at their fingertips, enabling them to move at the speed of the customer," Yakuel added.
Consumers Are Ready to Take Control
The research signals where email marketing must go next. Ninety-two percent (92%) of consumers say they want to control the frequency and type of messages they receive. Fifty-nine percent say they would use a message pause feature immediately if one were available, not to abandon the brand, but to manage the relationship on their own terms.
This is the future of email: not a broadcast channel driven by brand calendars, but a conversation shaped by consumer behavior and preference.
"Email remains one of the most powerful tools a marketer has," Yakuel continued, "but the data shows that power cuts both ways. Done well, email builds loyalty and drives purchase. Done poorly, it is the fastest way to lose a customer who was already yours. The difference is relevance and the organizational ability to deliver it in real time."
The full Optimove Marketing Fatigue Report 2026 is available at this link.
Report Methodology
The findings are based on a Q4 2025 online survey of 1,034 U.S. consumers aged 18+, conducted by Optimove Insights to examine loyalty, communication preferences, and digital purchasing behavior.
About Optimove
Optimove, the creator of Positionless Marketing, frees marketing teams from the limitations of fixed roles, giving every marketer the power to execute any marketing task instantly and independently. Positionless Marketing has been proven to improve campaign efficiency by 88%, allowing marketing teams to create more personalized engagement with existing customers.
For two years running, Optimove has been positioned as a Visionary in Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for Multichannel Marketing Hubs, recognized for its AI-driven decisioning, prescriptive insights, and proven ability to orchestrate thousands of personalized campaigns in real time across channels. AI-led marketing is a hallmark of Optimove’s visionary leadership. By embedding AI directly into its platform as early as 2012, Optimove paved the way for today’s Positionless Marketing standard.
Its Positionless Marketing Platform includes Optimove Engage and Orchestrate for cross-channel campaign decisioning and orchestration; Optimove Personalize, a digital personalization engine; and Optimove Gamify, a loyalty and gamification platform.
Today, its comprehensive AI-powered suite is at the leading edge of empowering marketers to streamline workflows from Insight to Creation and through Optimization. Optimove provides industry-specific and use-case solutions for leading consumer brands globally.
About Optimove Insights
Optimove Insights is the analytical and research arm of Optimove, dedicated to providing valuable industry insights and data-driven research to empower B2C businesses.
Olivia Arruda Optimove 8585881053 olivia_a@optimove.com
