Boost Your Email Marketing in Dubai: UAE Guide [updated for 2025]

Updated: October 2024

Dubai has become one of the world's 'smart cities' in the digital age, and as such, businesses in Dubai have implemented an integrated online marketing approach. Email marketing in Dubai and the UAE has been and continues to be the primary stepping stone to this success.

Email marketing has been the starting point for many online marketing campaigns for businesses in Dubai, as most businesses already have a vast collection of existing or potential customer data. The easiest and most effective way to leverage this data is to directly send each customer or potential customer an email. Before we dive into how to create a successful email campaign, let’s first tackle one of the biggest misconceptions about this subject.

How can email marketing help businesses in Dubai succeed in 2025 and beyond?

As the digital age progresses and evolves, email marketing is more important than ever. While we know that email marketing has most certainly changed over the years, digital tools have evolved alongside it. With advanced tracking, creative thinking, and professional strategy, email marketing has the power to convert leads into paying customers.

There's no doubt that email marketing and its role have changed. Therefore, when it comes to using this channel to market your business, proper execution is key to success. Here, we run through the best practices businesses should take to achieve success through an email campaign.

What does a successful email campaign look like?

Two of the most common email marketing metrics in 2025 are the “Delivery Rate” and “Open Rate.” Your delivery rate should be as high as possible, and the most effective email marketing campaigns should have a 0% non-delivery rate. Often, there are variables that will affect this, which are out of your control.

Increasing and maintaining the open rate of emails is a lot harder to achieve. Using our best practices will help you reach your target. But what is a good open rate to target, and what are the numbers to consider when beginning your email marketing strategy?

Targeting between 15% - 25% open rate of your campaign is a favorable ratio. Of course, reaching 100% would be ideal, but the reality of email marketing is that this percentage is, in many cases, unachievable. You have to consider various factors. For example, not everyone checks their emails daily or even weekly; therefore, your email can become buried beneath many others.

If you take a look at successful metrics of email marketing across the board, you gain a greater idea of how your emails should be performing. Your average click-through rate should be about 2.5%, and your average click-to-open rate should be between 20 - 30%. These statistics are a good starting point when you launch your email marketing strategy and monitor its success.

Beyond delivery and open rates, here are a few other essential metrics to track:

Click-Through Rate (CTR)
This measures the percentage of recipients who clicked on a link within your email. A higher CTR indicates that your email content is engaging and your call-to-action (CTA) is effective. Improving your CTR involves creating relevant content, clear and enticing CTAs, and optimising your email design for easy navigation.

Bounce rate
The bounce rate tracks the percentage of emails that were not delivered. Hard bounces occur when an email is permanently rejected (due to an invalid address), while soft bounces happen when delivery is temporarily prevented (for reasons like a full inbox). Keeping an eye on this metric ensures you maintain a healthy email list. Regularly remove hard bounces and review soft bounce reasons to enhance deliverability.

Conversion rate
The conversion rate is the percentage of recipients who take the desired action after clicking through your email. Whether it's purchasing a product, signing up for a webinar, or filling out a form, this metric helps you assess how well your emails drive action. To improve conversions, ensure a seamless transition from your email to the landing page, and that the content remains highly relevant to your audience.

Unsubscribe rate
This shows the percentage of people who unsubscribe after receiving an email. While it can be disheartening, it’s an important indicator of whether your content resonates. A high unsubscribe rate may mean your email frequency is too high or your content misses the mark. Reducing unsubscribe rates can be achieved by segmenting your audience more effectively and ensuring your emails provide genuine value.

Incorporating and analysing these metrics will help ensure your email advertising UAE campaigns are performing at their best, allowing you to make informed decisions and drive continued success.

5 best practices of effective email marketing in Dubai

1. Verify your database

Too often, verifying your database as an action point is overlooked. To ensure your marketing efforts are not in vain, you should have your database verified and tested for false, unsubscribed, or inactive emails. Marketing agencies such as NEXA offer automated tools to verify your data. Verification should be done regularly, and quarterly or bi-annual reviews should be suggested.

2. Timing

There are peak times throughout the day when individuals will access their email accounts. During the working week, the best times to send your mailers are:

At the start of the day, between 7:00 – 8:30
During lunch hours 12:30 – 14:00
In Dubai and across the GCC, we see a spike in email activity after 21:00 in the evening.

Also, keep in mind the content you are presenting. For example, If your content relates to a lunch promotion, make sure that your campaign goes out during lunchtime. As per above, 11 am - 12 pm would be the optimal time to send out this kind of campaign.

3. Have a strong and impactful subject line

This is the most important of all best practices, as the subject header of your email will be the difference between your mail being opened or it going straight into the trash can. We know the saying, "never judge a book by its cover" but unfortunately, that is exactly what happens with email campaigns. Think of the subject line as the “cover of your book.”

The best subject lines are specific to the information within your email. You don’t want to mislead your audience with a subject line unrelated to your content. A subject line that grabs the recipient's attention and relates to their interests is enticing and will prompt them to open the email.

Always avoid using retail "buzzwords" such as "Free," "Sale," or "Discount" unless you're confident that your recipients want to receive this type of content. Although you may think these words will attract your recipients, this will land your campaign in the trash because most recipients will immediately view your mailer as spam.

These subject lines are perceived as spam because we are inundated with communications that overload their content with these particular buzzwords, and most of the time, these communications don’t relate to the recipient's interests.

Not only are these buzzwords perceived as spam by the recipient, but many email providers flag these words as spam, causing your campaign to land straight into a spam folder. Similarly, avoid using any emojis in your subject line, as these and the previously mentioned buzzwords often get your emails flagged as spam and won’t reach your end users.

4. Personalise your email

The simple things make a difference. Avoid addressing your recipients with ’Dear All’ or another generalisation. Keep it personal, using the recipient’s name both in the Subject line and in the intro line of text. If you know the recipient's company name, add this, too, but be sure to keep these inclusions within the context of your email.

5. Create a strong call to action

Always finish your emails with a ‘Call to Action’, which will prompt an action from the user. An example may be a message to ‘buy now’ or ‘search more,’ with a hyperlink that leads to your website.

This click-through is the ultimate goal of your email marketing campaign. It gets the user to your website, where they can get more information, and hopefully, this action ends in a purchase. It's also a great metric to understand the quality of your email campaign. The higher the click-through rate on your website, the higher the quality of your email and call to action.