Email marketing is pronounced deceased every time a new communication platform emerges, yet it delivers the highest ROI of any digital channel.
Nothing in marketing ever truly dies. It evolves, contracts, expands into new forms, and makes room for whatever arrives next. Our ecosystem adjusts rather than annihilates its incumbents.
As we hurtle towards an exhausting end to 2025, it is tempting to view this moment as an ending too. But of course, we carry on. The sun will rise on New Year’s Day with the usual mix of optimism and hangover.
PR professionals will still be shaping narratives. SEO specialists will still be optimizing. Brand managers will still be branding. Television advertising will still be reaching mass audiences. Email marketers will still be delivering ROI.
There is something wonderful in that persistence.
While marketing undertakers sharpen their headlines and advertising eulogists prepare their conference presentations, the rest of us simply get on with it. We adapt. We evolve. We continue. We ignore.
So, as 2026 approaches, let’s accept that everything from PR to SEO to brands to advertising will still be with us into the New Year and beyond. Let’s make a disciplinary New Year’s resolution to lay off the fascination with marketing death.
Happy New Year. See you on the other side.
Mark Ritson will teach the ADWEEK MiniMBA in Marketing in April 2026, a ten-week MBA level program for senior managers who never received (or have completely forgotten) proper marketing training. Sign up here.
