Mailchimp has published an analysis of more than 44 billion emails and 83 million text messages sent by its customers during the 2025 holiday shopping season. The report, Breaking Through Peak Season Noise, was produced with analytics firm Datalily and announced on 21 September.
It covers aggregate activity from active Mailchimp free and paid accounts between 31 October and 31 December 2025, with a separate cut for Black Friday to Cyber Monday (28 November to 1 December).
The timing data is the most useful part. Mailchimp says weekend order rates were twice those on weekdays, while brands sent roughly 60% fewer messages at weekends. The Sunday between Black Friday and Cyber Monday carried 59% fewer emails than Black Friday itself. Quiet inboxes, it turns out, get read.
During BFCM, emails using segmentation and personalisation recorded an average order value of $166 against $150 for those without, an 11% difference. Abandoned-cart content blocks were linked to 36% higher open rates and 28% higher click rates. Readers will apply the usual discount to any open rate measured after Apple Mail Privacy Protection.
SMS order rates ran up to six times those of email at peak. Email volume was more than 500 times larger, so email still brought in most of the money.
Generative AI gets the promotional treatment. About 450 million emails, roughly 1% of the total, used Mailchimp’s generative AI features. Those emails showed a 50% higher order rate and a 33% higher conversion rate. The report says the technology “improved performance”. Its methodology describes a straight comparison of campaigns with and without the feature over the same period, with no controls. Early adopters of new tools are often the same senders who segment, test and keep their lists clean. The figures show an association on Mailchimp’s platform and nothing more.
Revenue, order and conversion metrics apply only to customers with connected e-commerce stores, who recorded 7.5 million orders and more than $1.1bn in attributed revenue. SMS figures cover only markets where Mailchimp SMS was available. The dataset describes Mailchimp’s customer base and is no proxy for the email market as a whole.
