Email marketing to Gen Z is widely considered a losing game. They’re on TikTok, Instagram, and anywhere that isn’t their inbox. But brands keep sending emails — and some of them actually work.
We used our Digital Twin network to ask Gen Z consumers aged 18-25 in the US and UK — people who buy skincare online and are subscribed to brand email lists — about their actual email behaviour. How many they get, how many they open, what makes them read, and what makes them unsubscribe.
The data paints a clear picture of what works. Most brands are doing the opposite.
The inbox is a warzone. And you’re losing.
Every respondent described the same experience:
“I probably get like 20 emails a day from brands. I open maybe one or two, if that.”
“Most of them just go straight to trash.”
“I get a ton of brand emails. I barely open any of them.”
The open rate isn’t low because email is dead. It’s low because 95% of brand emails are indistinguishable from each other. You’re not competing with other skincare brands. You’re competing with 20 other emails that all look the same.
The subject line is everything. But not the way you think.
We asked what makes them actually open an email. The answer wasn’t cleverness or urgency:
“If it looks like it’s actually relevant to something I’ve shown interest in, I’ll open it.”
“If it seems like it’s actually for me, like it offers a real deal or tells me something interesting.”
“If it looks visually interesting and not just text and boring.”
Relevance beats cleverness. “Your skin type needs this” outperforms “Don’t miss out!” because it signals that someone thought about who’s receiving this email. Generic blast energy is the fastest path to the trash folder.
They overwhelmingly prefer education over sales.
This was the clearest finding in the entire study. When asked whether they prefer promotional or educational emails:
“I definitely prefer content or educational emails. If a skincare brand is giving me tips on how to get good skin or explaining ingredients, I’m way more likely to read that.”
“I like learning something new. Sales are fine sometimes, but if that’s all they send, it gets old fast.”
“If it’s just about sales, it feels pushy. I’d rather get something useful or interesting.”
Gen Z doesn’t want to be sold to. They want to be taught. The brands winning their inbox are the ones that treat email as a content channel, not a sales channel. Tips, ingredient breakdowns, routines — content that earns attention rather than demanding it.
The unsubscribe trigger is always the same.
We asked what makes them unsubscribe. One pattern dominated:
“If I keep getting emails that aren’t relevant, or if they’re too frequent.”
“If they’re constantly sending me sales stuff I don’t care about.”
“If I’m not getting any value from them, I’ll just unsubscribe.”
Too frequent. Too salesy. Too irrelevant. That’s the trifecta of unsubscribes. And it’s exactly what most email strategies optimise for — more sends, more promotions, broader targeting.
What they actually want to receive.
The final question was the most useful. We asked what a skincare brand would need to send to make them genuinely look forward to their emails:
“Personalized tips based on my skin concerns, behind-the-scenes looks at ingredient sourcing. Make me feel like I’m part of something genuine.”
“Tips for my skin that actually work. Not just constant sales pitches. Something that feels like it’s from a person who cares, not a corporation.”
“If they could show me how to use things to get that ‘glowing’ look, I’d be all about it.”
Personalisation. Education. Authenticity. Behind-the-scenes access. The email they want to receive sounds nothing like the email most brands send.
Write emails for the person reading them.
OriginalVoices lets you understand what your audience actually wants to hear before you write a single subject line. Query your target segment, ask what resonates, and shape your email strategy around real preferences — not open rate benchmarks from a different era.