Email teams have one reason to rejoice this season: The channel is more than carrying its weight despite concerns about data, judging by State of Inbound Marketing Trends, a recent study from HubSpot, working with Litmus.

First, here are longstanding truths: On average, email delivers $36 for every dollar spent, the study says. And 95% of the respondents claim email marketing efforts were  effective in meeting business goals last year.

In addition, email is one of the top traffic sources: 

• Direct — 22%
  
• Organic Search — 17%
  
• Social — 16%
  
• Email — 14% 
  
• Display Ads — 12%
  
• Paid Search — 9%
  
• Referral — 9%
  
• Other — 1%

Here’s the reason: Email is in a strong position, in part, because it can be used in a compliant way, thanks to tools like email preference centers. 

Brands are now studying the different kinds of data that will be utilized when cookies disappear:

• Zero-party data — Individual-level data explicitly given to you directly rom your audience. Examples: Email preferences, topic or product interests, account preferences.  
  
• First-party data — Individual-level data collected from your audience on your own channels. Examples: Email engagement, website activity, purchase history. 
  
• Second-party data — Individual-level data acquired from a trusted partner aka someone else’s first-party data. Examples: Go-marketing efforts, customer reviews, loyalty programs.
  
• Third-party data — Aggregate data collected from one or more sources. Examples: Browsing acitivity (aka cookies), demographics, survey responses.

Where does email figure into overall usage? The respondents say they are deploying:

• Social media — 44% 
  
• Website/blog — 36% 
  
• Email marketing — 35% 
  
• Content marketing — 32%
  
• Influencer marketing — 30% 
  
• SEO marketing — 26% 
  
• Virtual events — 25% 

The main uses of email? Brands use it to:

• Improve customer loyalty and retention 
  
• Increase revenue/sales 
  
• Generate leads
  
• Generate website traffic
  
• Increase brand awareness 

Meanwhile, the report lists the top 10 email clients as follows: 

• Apple — 5% 
  
• Gmail — 28.1%
  
• Outlook — 4.2%
  
• Yahoo Mail — 3.1%
  
• Google Android — 1.9% 
  
• Outlook.com — 1.0% 
  
• Samsung Mail — .3% 
  
• Windows Live Mail — .08% 
  
• Web.de — 0.6% 
  
• GMX — 0.5%

HubSpot and Litmus surveyed 1,600 marketers from U.S., Australia, Canada, Germany, UK, France and Japan. The sample included both B2B and B2C marketers. 

Email drives $ 36 for every dollar spent, but faces data challenges, HubSpot reports.