In the startup ecosystem, the allocation of the marketing budget is often dominated by the same decisions: paid acquisition, SEO, social networks, content. Email marketing rarely comes to the top of the list of priorities — especially at the early stage where we are chasing traction. This is a miscalculation.
According to the Litmus Email Marketing ROI report, email generates an average return of $36 for every dollar invested — a higher ROI than SEO, Google ads and social media combined. 81% of SMEs identify it as their primary customer acquisition channel according to Emarsys. These figures do not only concern large groups: they apply from the first hundreds of contacts, from the first automated workflow.
The problem is not the email. It’s how we use it
Most startups that “do email” actually send an irregular newsletter from their Gmail box or a poorly configured free tool. Result: poor deliverability, no segmentation, zero automation, and statistics that say nothing actionable.
Successful email marketing is based on three distinct pillars that many founders confuse into one: campaigns (newsletters, product announcements, promotions), automated sequences triggered by user behavior, and transactional emails (confirmations, onboarding, password reset). Treating all three categories the same — or leveraging just one — is leaving most of the value on the table.
Automation: the most under-exploited lever
Automated emails – onboarding sequences, reminders after inactivity, upsells triggered by an action – represent only 2% of the total volume of emails sent by companies. Yet they generate 320% more revenue than traditional campaigns, according to Litmus. The explanation is simple: these emails arrive at the right time, triggered by a real behavioral signal, with relevant content for this specific recipient.
For a SaaS startup, this translates concretely into: a series of onboarding which guides the user towards their first success within 7 days following registration, an automatic reminder if the user has not activated a key functionality, a re-engagement email on D+30 for inactive accounts. These scenarios only require one hour of configuration on a suitable emailing solution, and then run autonomously. For e-commerce, these are abandoned cart reminders, post-purchase sequences and reactivation campaigns. In both cases, the principle is the same: exploit behavioral data to send the right message at the right time, without manual intervention.
Acquisition vs retention: email excels on both counts
In SaaS particularly, customer acquisition cost (CAC) is often the most closely watched metric. But customer lifetime value (LTV) depends as much — if not more — on retention as on acquisition. And email is one of the few channels that performs on both dimensions simultaneously.
On the acquisition side: a well-constructed nurturing sequence on a list of qualified prospects converts better than a paid campaign at equivalent volume, and at almost zero marginal cost beyond the first configuration.
On the retention side: regular, personalized communication, anchored in the actual use of the product reduces churn. Users who receive relevant emails about their use cases stay longer and become more engaged. It is a simple, documented mechanism, and still under-exploited by the majority of French scale-ups.
What founders should do now
Email marketing does not require a large budget to produce results. It requires method. Three concrete priorities:
Separate the three types of emails and manage them with appropriate infrastructure. Mixing newsletters and transactional emails in the same sending IP is the most common mistake — and the most costly in terms of deliverability.
Implement automated onboarding from the first weeks. This is the sequence with the best ROI for any startup: users are most receptive right after signup, and every unaddressed friction point costs conversions.
Measure the right indicators : not just the open rate (increasingly biased by privacy protections), but the click-through rate, the email conversion rate, and especially the correlation between email engagement and product retention.
Email is not an “old” channel. It is a mature channel, whose apparent complexity hides documented effectiveness. Startups that seriously integrate it into their marketing stack — with the right tools, the right segmentation and the right automations — make it one of their best growth levers. Those who ignore it pay more for their growth than necessary.
