Email Marketing in 2023: How Mailchimp Stacks Up Against New Trends

Outcome: by the end of this article you’ll know which 2023 email trends matter for your campaign performance, which of those Mailchimp already supports well, where it lags, and what practical workarounds or alternatives to consider.

Why this matters now: email is not dead. It’s evolving. Faster personalization, tighter privacy rules, new inbox experiences, and the pressure to unify data across channels mean the tools you pick today determine how competitive your marketing will be tomorrow.

Start here. Decide fast. Move confidently.

Quick snapshot: The top email trends of 2023 (in plain language)

AI-powered personalization and predictive segmentation - smarter messages that feel one-to-one.
Privacy-first tracking & cookieless strategies - less behavioral data, more consent/first-party signals.
Omnichannel orchestration (email + SMS + push + ads) - cohesive customer journeys, not siloed sends.
Interactivity & dynamic content inside the inbox - live menus, carousels, polls, and contextual content.
Deliverability & inbox placement focus - reputation, authentication, and engagement matter more than raw list size.
Accessibility, dark mode and mobile-first rendering - messages must work for everyone and everywhere.
CDPs and zero-/first-party data strategies - unify identity and collect explicit customer intent.

Each trend changes how you collect, segment, design and measure. Below: how Mailchimp stacks up against each trend - with practical recommendations.

1) AI-powered personalization and predictive segmentation

Why it matters: personalization increases relevance and revenue. In 2023, AI helps scale personalization without manual rules.

How Mailchimp performs:

Strengths - Mailchimp offers AI-assisted creative tools (Creative Assistant), predicted demographics and recommendations, and predictive segments like “predicted to purchase” in some plans. These speed up subject-line testing and basic content personalization.
- See Mailchimp features and AI tools: https://mailchimp.com/features/
Limits - Mailchimp’s predictive/AI features are useful for small-to-mid businesses but are not as granular as dedicated CDP-driven models or custom ML pipelines. Advanced predictive scoring, multi-touch attribution-informed insights, or full customer-lifetime-value models typically require external tools or integrations.

Practical tips:

Use Mailchimp’s predictions and product recommendations for broad personalization (browse or cart recovery, individualized product blocks).
For enterprise-grade prediction, feed Mailchimp with enriched segments from a CDP (e.g., Segment, Rudderstack) and use Mailchimp only as the delivery engine.

References: Mailchimp AI and predictions overview: https://mailchimp.com/features/predictions/ and AI marketing trend context: https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/email-marketing-trends

2) Privacy-first tracking & cookieless measurement

Why it matters: Apple Mail Privacy Protection, tighter GDPR/CCPA enforcement, and a cookieless ad ecosystem make third-party behavioral signals less reliable.

How Mailchimp performs:

Strengths - Mailchimp provides built-in GDPR tools, opt-in workflows, and options to manage consent. It supports email authentication (SPF, DKIM) that help deliverability even as tracking signals change. Mailchimp has docs on compliance and data handling.
- Mailchimp privacy resources: https://mailchimp.com/privacy/
Limits - Like other ESPs, Mailchimp’s open- and click-based engagement metrics are affected by MPP and other privacy features. Cross-channel identity resolution and server-side tracking needs are better handled by purpose-built analytics or CDPs.

Practical tips:

Shift toward first- and zero-party signals - preference centers, preference clicks, and on-site intent capture. Push those signals into Mailchimp as tags/attributes.
Use server-side event collection (via a CDP or analytics pipeline) for attribution and to feed segments back into Mailchimp.
Treat opens as a noisy metric; rely more on clicks, downstream conversions, and revenue per recipient.

Context on privacy shifts: Apple Mail Privacy Protection details: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT212614

3) Omnichannel orchestration: Email + SMS + Push + Ads

Why it matters: customers expect consistent journeys. Email alone is losing ground if it’s not coordinated with SMS, in-app, and ad touchpoints.

How Mailchimp performs:

Strengths - Mailchimp has expanded beyond email - adding landing pages, basic ads, social posting and a built-in CRM that helps coordinate messaging. For many small businesses this is enough for a multi-touch approach.
Limits - Mailchimp’s native SMS and push capabilities are less extensive than specialist platforms (SMS aggregators, mobile engagement suites). True omnichannel orchestration at scale often requires a CDP or marketing automation platform that natively supports dozens of channels with granular throttling.

Practical tips:

Use Mailchimp for the core email flows and basic omnichannel touches (ads, postcards, landing pages).
For advanced SMS or programmatic push, integrate a specialist (Twilio, Postscript, Braze) and sync audiences via API or a CDP.

Reference: Mailchimp product features: https://mailchimp.com/features/

4) Interactivity and dynamic content inside the inbox

Why it matters: interactive elements keep users engaged without additional clicks. AMP for Email and dynamic content let you show real-time options or collect responses in the email itself.

How Mailchimp performs:

Strengths - Mailchimp’s templates and merge tags support conditional content and personalization blocks - useful for showing different offers to different segments.
Limits - Full AMP for Email support is limited across many ESPs due to complexity and inbox compatibility. Mailchimp does not broadly advertise turnkey AMP authoring and delivery like some specialized platforms.

Practical tips:

Use dynamic merge tags and conditional content to simulate personalization that works across inboxes.
For true AMP-style interactivity, evaluate a specialized provider or carefully test HTML fallback experiences for non-AMP clients.

Learn more about AMP for Email: https://amp.dev/documentation/guides-and-tutorials/learn/email/

5) Deliverability, authentication and inbox placement

Why it matters: better inbox placement = more opens, clicks and conversions. Reputation, authentication, list hygiene and engagement are king.

How Mailchimp performs:

Strengths - Mailchimp provides tools for SPF/DKIM/DMARC configuration, domain verification, and guidance for list hygiene and engagement management. They also surface basic deliverability diagnostics.
- Setup guides: https://mailchimp.com/help/set-up-email-authentication-dkim/
Limits - Deliverability is partly platform-dependent but largely driven by sender behavior. High-volume senders often need dedicated IPs and tailor-made sending strategies; these can be expensive and sometimes outside the easiest tiers of Mailchimp.

Practical tips:

Authenticate your sending domain and establish consistent sending cadence.
Prune inactive subscribers and build re-engagement flows.
Consider a dedicated IP or a deliverability specialist if you send at scale or to sensitive segments.

6) Accessibility, dark mode and mobile-first rendering

Why it matters: emails must be readable on phones, in dark mode, and accessible to people with disabilities - failing here is both a revenue and compliance risk.

How Mailchimp performs:

Strengths - Mailchimp’s template editor provides mobile-responsive templates and accessibility guidance. They emphasize clean, responsive templates in their content studio.
Limits - No ESP can fully control how every email client renders dark mode or accessibility features. Designers still need to test and build resilient templates.

Practical tips:

Test extensively with tools like Litmus or Email on Acid before sending major campaigns.
Prefer semantic HTML, alt text, clear hierarchy, and contrast testing.

Reference: Litmus State of Email resources: https://www.litmus.com/state-of-email/

Practical checklist: If you’re using Mailchimp in 2023

Turn on DKIM/SPF/DMARC and verify sending domains.
Build a preference center to capture zero-party data. Feed this into Mailchimp as custom fields.
Use Mailchimp’s predictive segments for quick personalization but validate with your own revenue metrics.
Add a CDP or analytics layer if you need cross-channel identity resolution and advanced attribution.
Use conditional merge tags for dynamic content. Test fallbacks in non-supporting clients.
Review deliverability monthly - complaints, bounces, engagement decays.
If you rely heavily on SMS or mobile push, plan an integration with a specialist and keep Mailchimp focused on email send orchestration.

Final verdict: When Mailchimp is the right choice - and when to look elsewhere

Choose Mailchimp if:

You’re a small-to-mid business that needs an easy-to-use, integrated marketing hub for email, landing pages, basic ads, and CRM features.
You want quick wins from AI-powered content helpers and predictions without building a data science team.
You value a single tool to manage templates, automation, basic omnichannel touches and reporting.

Consider alternatives or add-ons if:

You require enterprise-grade personalization, advanced predictive models, or deep omnichannel orchestration (consider Braze, Iterable, Customer.io, or a CDP plus an ESP).
You need full AMP for Email interoperability or highly interactive inbox experiences.
You send at very high volume and need advanced deliverability or dedicated infrastructure that goes beyond Mailchimp’s tiers.

Actionable next steps:

Audit your current campaigns against the checklist above.
Map the customer data you need for personalization. If it exceeds Mailchimp attributes, add a CDP.
Run a 30–60 day experiment - use Mailchimp predictions and measure incremental revenue lift.
If SMS or advanced interactivity matters, pilot a specialist integration.

Email marketing in 2023 is a balance: use accessible automation and AI where it accelerates results, but treat data, privacy, and deliverability as first-class problems. Mailchimp covers a wide swath of modern needs comfortably. For specialized scale, pair it with focused tools.

References & further reading