Your click rates are collapsing.
Email remains the most profitable digital marketing channel. The problem is not email: it is what you put inside it.
Email marketing: why your click rates are collapsing (and how to reverse the trend in 2026)
Damien Bouquet · CEO Pulp’in
One email in five gets opened in France. One in twenty gets a click. And one in a thousand converts.
1 / 5
Emails opened
1 / 20
Emails clicked
1 / 1,000
Emails converted
Email marketing is still the most profitable channel in digital marketing. Yet the numbers speak for themselves: in France, the average open rate sits at 18.22% (against 37.93% worldwide). The click-through rate, for its part, tops out somewhere between 2 and 5% depending on the sector.
And “personalization”? In 92% of cases, it comes down to a first name in the subject line.
Emails go out more than ever, but they no longer engage. Consumers are worn out:
70%
of consumers unsubscribed from at least 3 brands in 3 months (too many messages)
60%
receive badly timed emails, which drags down perceived engagement
The real problem
The problem is not email. The problem is what we put inside it.
1. The state of play: numbers that do not lie
| Indicator | France average | Global average |
|---|---|---|
| Open rate | 18.22% | 37.93% |
| Click-through rate | 2–5% | 2.09% |
| Conversion rate (e-commerce) | 0.08% (standard campaigns) | 1.4–3% |
Source: email marketing benchmarks 2025–2026, standard campaigns.
French recipients open fewer emails than the global average. And when they do open them, they rarely click. Standard e-commerce campaigns convert at 0.08%, which is less than one order per 1,000 emails sent.
The verdict is brutal: the flat, interchangeable email no longer works.
2. Why has it stopped working?
2.1. Marketing fatigue is real
60% of consumers receive badly timed emails, which lowers both their engagement and how relevant they find the message. Email is no longer seen as a privileged channel, but as one more source of noise.
2.2. “Personalization” is a mirage
Done properly, personalization lifts open, click and conversion rates by 15 to 30%. In practice, it rarely goes beyond a first name in the subject line. The rich data — purchase history, browsing behavior, preferences — stays under-used.
2.3. Email is a “blind” channel
1 bit
Email opened: yes or no
2 bits
Click: yes or no
0 bit
After the click: total silence
You know nothing about what the recipient actually looked at, what caught their interest, what made them hesitate.
2.4. Premium solutions are out of reach
Personalized video tools like Idomoo or SundaySky start at around €4,000/month, reserved for enterprise accounts. The mid-market is poorly served.
3. The fix: move from “broadcast” email to “intent” email
An email = 1 bit of information. An interactive Story = 12 to 40 signals.
The answer is not to send more emails. It is to turn every email into an interactive experience that reveals the recipient’s intent.
Interactive layer
You do not replace email: you add an interactive layer on top of it.
Enriched CRM
You do not replace the CRM: you enrich it with intent signals.
20 minutes
You do not need a technical team: 20 minutes to launch the first campaign.
The result: each recipient no longer just opens or clicks. They interact, choose, explore. And every interaction becomes usable data for the next message.
8×
more replies than a plain text email
+340%
more replies on abandoned cart follow-ups
6.7×
ROI on loyalty campaigns
55–75%
Story completion (vs 8–18% newsletter read rate)
4. Why interactive Stories change the game
| Criterion | Classic email | MP4 video | Pulp’in Story |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1:1 personalization | ❌ | ❌ | ✅ |
| Interactivity | ❌ | ❌ | ✅ |
| Signals collected | 1–2 | 0 | 12–40 |
| Automatic CRM enrichment | ❌ | ❌ | ✅ |
| No technical team | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Affordable price | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ |
An interactive Story is a form disguised as an experience: questions, choices, clicks, time spent, drop-offs. Every journey generates 12 to 40 qualified signals that flow automatically back into your tools (CRM, ESP, CDP).
The virtuous loop
5. Real-world use cases
Premium fashion
+31% revenue and 38% completion on Stories, against 2–3% clicks on classic emails.
Outbound prospecting
8 to 15% of meetings booked (vs 1–3% with a classic deck) and 85%+ show-up when the Story is completed before the call.
Large groups
55–75% Story completion, against 8–18% read rate for an intranet newsletter.
6. What now?
Email is not dead. It just needs a second wind.
The next generation of email marketing will not be a question of volume or catchy subject lines. It will be a question of intent: understanding what each recipient really wants, and shaping the next message accordingly.
The future of email is interactivity. Not a video you watch passively. An experience where every click is a signal.