B2B vs. B2C email engagement and deliverability challenges: What really works in 2025

What is B2B email marketing?

B2B marketing is what it’s called when one business targets its marketing toward another business. Emails are often part of a longer nurture sequence, aimed at educating, supporting, and earning trust.

Success here means fewer emojis, and more insights. It means clear subject lines, helpful content, and a tone that says, “We understand your challenges.” The goal isn’t just to get opened. It’s to build enough credibility that your audience follows the call to action: to sign up, request a demo, or submit their information to download a report or asset.

What is B2C email marketing?

B2C marketing is what it’s called when businesses target their marketing directly towards consumers. Comparatively, B2C email marketing moves faster than B2B. Your message is one of hundreds in a consumer’s daily inbox, and it’s probably sandwiched between a LinkedIn job alert and a notification that their favorite jeans just got restocked. That means your message has seconds to form an emotional connection and even less to drive a click. Did you know that the average attention span of a user is about three seconds?

The focus here is often on relevance, timing, and simplicity. To win attention, you need punchy subject lines, scannable content, a sense of urgency, and personalized offers that actually make sense. It should either prompt immediate action or be immediately useful – whether you're sending a discount code or a shipping notification.

Why audience context matters more than ever

Behavioral shifts since 2020

Forget the pandemic – email senders in 2025 have a new set of challenges keeping them up at night. According to our latest deliverability data, the top struggles marketers face aren’t creative... they’re technical. Nearly 48% of marketers cite staying out of spam folders as their biggest hurdle, followed by list hygiene (33.8%) and reducing bounce rates (28.4%). These aren’t abstract concerns – they directly impact whether your emails reach the inbox or vanish into the void. For senders, inbox placement has become a moving target, shaped by evolving platform rules, authentication standards, and user expectations.

And the bar keeps rising. With the European Accessibility Act (EAA) set to take effect in mid-2025, senders must now consider not just whether emails are delivered, but how accessible they are once they land. The EAA mandates a more inclusive digital experience – and that includes email. For marketers, this means accessibility isn’t just a design choice or a legal checkbox. It’s a deliverability factor, a brand equity signal, and a strategic advantage.

Let’s get into the EAA in our next section.

Accessibility and legislation

2025 marks a turning point for email accessibility and compliance. The EAA goes into effect this year, requiring digital communications – including email – to be accessible to people with disabilities. That’s not just a design update; it’s a legal shift.

Ignoring accessibility isn’t just a compliance risk – it’s a missed opportunity to reach more of your audience. Whether you're sending a product update or a purchase confirmation, accessible design is now a baseline expectation.

That said, the EAA doesn’t apply to every sender equally. As Mailgun’s Senior Developer Megan Boshuyzen explained during our recent webinar:

So while B2B senders may not be on the hook for EAA compliance, accessibility is still a strategic advantage – and a courtesy to the 1.3 billion people globally who live with disabilities.

And accessibility is just one piece of the compliance puzzle. As inbox providers tighten enforcement, B2B marketers must also meet rising technical standards. Gmail, Yahoo, and Microsoft have all introduced stricter sender requirements, including:

• Proper authentication with SPF, DKIM, and at least a minimal DMARC policy

• Clear, easy-to-use unsubscribe links

• Valid opt-ins that avoid spam complaints

Falling short on any of these is no longer just bad practice – it’s a direct threat to deliverability.

In fact, according to the 2025 State of Email Deliverability Report, B2B senders are almost three times more likely to use questionable list acquisition methods than B2C senders (12.3% vs. 4.3%). Scraping or buying cold email lists may be common in sales outreach – but at scale, it’s a reputation killer. Once automated, those tactics land you in the same territory as spammers.

Differences and advantages: Key differences in B2B vs. B2C email marketing strategy

Tone and messaging

Tone plays a critical role in shaping audience expectations. In B2C email marketing, tone tends to be casual, energetic, and emotionally driven. It aims to create immediate connections and drive fast decisions, such as a product purchase (“Ooh, 20% off? Yes, please!”). Meanwhile, B2B emails are generally more formal and informational, focusing on long-term value, problem-solving, and building trust brick by brick.

This isn’t just anecdotal. In Mailgun's 2024 Email Benchmarks report, open rates and click-through rates differ notably across industries, underscoring the impact of tone and content style. For example, the healthcare industry saw an average open rate of 29.55% and CTR of 3.42%, where informative and trustworthy tone dominates. By contrast, retail and eCommerce emails, which are often playful and urgency-driven, saw 22.35% open rates and 3.36% CTR. Tone, it turns out, is a powerful engagement tool.

Audience and decision-making

Selling to a business isn’t like selling to a single consumer binge-scrolling in bed. The B2B audience is often a group of stakeholders who need to justify every dollar – and take longer to agree with each other. That means slower decisions and, usually, lower engagement metrics. According to the 2025 State of Email Deliverability report, high-volume B2B senders were far more likely to face challenges with low subscriber engagement and list hygiene.

Meanwhile, B2C campaigns can typically count on emotion-driven decisions from individual consumers. These campaigns tend to move a bit faster – think impulse buys and one-click checkouts. But there's a twist in 2025: Accessibility. As our European Accessibility Act webinar explained, the EAA applies to B2C and B2B2C campaigns but not B2B.

This means that B2B campaigns don’t necessarily have to be designed with accessibility in mind – at least, not by June 2025 in accordance with EU law. But still, as Mailgun’s Senior Developer, Megan Boshuyzen, put it: “Accessibility is for everyone.” With 1.3 billion people globally living with disabilities, ignoring accessibility is like ignoring a third of your audience.

Engagement and timing

B2C campaigns tend to see spikes in engagement during mornings and weekends, aligning with consumer browsing habits. In contrast, B2B emails perform best during the workweek, particularly on Tuesdays through Thursdays, and between 9-10 AM local time, according to Mailgun's engagement benchmarks. These trends reflect behavioral patterns and should inform send-time optimization strategies.

Knowing these engagement windows also helps teams plan multi-channel campaigns more effectively. If your B2B audience checks email mid-morning on weekdays, align your social or retargeting efforts accordingly. For B2C, don’t be afraid to test weekend sends or after-hours promotions that align with leisure-time browsing.

Design and layout

If B2C emails are the digital equivalent of a glossy magazine ad, B2B emails are the executive summary. B2C layouts often go bold – hero images, vibrant buttons, mobile-first interactivity. B2B design leans on clarity: minimalist structure, left-aligned text, and visuals that support – not overpower – the message.

A clear visual structure and logical reading order are essential in either context (that’s just an accessibility no-brainer), but B2B emails are more likely to be passed around between decision-makers. This means that information must be clear, legible, and easy to copy-and-paste; good for multiple stakeholders and more that can’t be determined by a single click.

Segmentation and personalized content

Both B2B and B2C benefit from personalization, but the tactics differ. B2C brands often rely on behavioral and demographic segmentation to trigger product recommendations or promotions. B2B segmentation is more complex, often involving buyer personas such as job title or industry. The State of Deliverability 2025 report found B2B senders more frequently struggle with engagement, suggesting that more precise targeting and personalization could yield improvements.

Validation and list hygiene

List quality is a universal challenge, but it presents itself differently in either scenario. In B2C, high list churn from promotions or seasonal spikes can lead to inflated lists with poor hygiene. B2B lists degrade more slowly but are highly vulnerable to role changes and outdated domains.

39% of senders rarely or never conduct list hygiene, with B2B senders almost three times as likely to use questionable list building methods compared to B2C (12.3% vs 4.3%) despite higher stakes in reputation. Mailgun to reduce bounce rates and clean up inactive records.dation tools like Mailgun Optimize to reduce bounce rates and clean up inactive records.

Reporting and determining success

Success in B2C email marketing is often defined by immediate revenue metrics – conversions, clicks, and purchases. In B2B, the goal is to educate, build trust, and guide prospects through longer sales cycles.

According to Mailjet, B2B campaigns measure performance through metrics like MQL to SQL ratio, pipeline contribution, and conversion to revenue, while B2C tends to focus on open rates, CTRs, and transactional ROI. That said, email as a channel outperforms across the board – with an average ROI of $57 for every $1 spent. For context, SEO averages a 702% ROI for B2B SaaS, making email a standout performer.

Open and click rates are still valuable across both models, but B2B senders should also track reply rates and forwarded emails as indicators of interest among decision-makers. Regularly refining KPIs and tying them to strategic business outcomes helps clarify what success looks like in each case.

Sender challenges

B2B and B2C email programs operate under distinct pressures that impact deliverability, list quality, and overall performance; each audience comes with its own pitfalls. Here’s a quick comparison of the most common challenges each segment faces:

Wrapping up

B2B and B2C emails may travel through the same pipes, but they’re built for different audiences, different mindsets, and different goals. That’s why engagement isn’t about following a universal playbook – it’s about knowing your reader and adapting your message to fit the moment.

Fortunately, you don’t need to guess. With the right tools, clean data, and smart strategy, you can craft campaigns that make it past the preview pane and actually perform. Whether you’re driving demos or discount codes, the rules are the same: stay relevant, respect the inbox, and don’t forget to be human.

Now, go forth and hit “send!”