UK marketers are walking an increasingly fine line, with Brits leading the world in subscribing to email marketing and text messaging yet also more likely to hit the unsubscribe button, too, due to irrelevant content or feeling bombarded.
That is according to a new global Intuit Mailchimp report, “The Art of the Opt-In”, which quizzed 6,192 consumers and 2,057 marketers across the UK, US, Canada, and Australia/New Zealand, outlining practical guidance to close the gap between consumer expectations and marketing execution at opt-in and beyond.
It reveals that 69% of UK consumers have opted into email communications, the highest among all countries surveyed, and 51% to text. Similarly, 88% are comfortable with a two-step opt-in process at sign-up, and 34% have completed pop-up forms, suggesting UK consumers are very willing to opt-into different forms of email and text marketing.
However, Brits are also the most sceptical; 40% don’t trust brands with their personal data, 55% will unsubscribe due to irrelevant content and 51% fear they will receive too many emails or texts after opting into brand communications.
The data shows UK consumers will opt in, but only if their expectations are met around message volume, clarity, and how their personal data will be used.
This scepticism is being felt by UK marketers; 41% cite getting visitors to complete sign-ups as a key hurdle, while 32% think the volume of information to collect is a concern.
The Art of the Opt-In report found that nearly all marketers maintain email and SMS lists, but less than one-third consider their lists to be “very high quality,” and only 8% see conversion rates above 20%.
Lack of sophisticated tools may be a factor; only 1 in 5 brands (21%) have fully automated their email and text campaigns, and only a third feel very confident that they can track which channels drive sign-ups.
Meanwhile, most consumers have noticed an uptick in marketing emails and texts, but only 40% say they are paying more attention, and about a quarter admit they are tuning out these channels more than they did a year ago.
Those who stay subscribed say they want content that actually adds value (56%) and messages at a frequency that doesn’t feel like spam (40%).
But many opt-in strategies misjudge customer trust from the start: 65% of brands ask for a phone number in their popup forms, yet only 28% of consumers are willing to hand it over, suggesting that brands are overstepping consumer trust by asking for high-friction data too early.
Trust varies sharply by age: 39% of Gen Z assume brands will follow privacy laws, a figure that plummets to just 19% among Baby Boomers. For Gen Z, trust is visual and immediate: 43% say a clean, simple design makes them feel more comfortable completing an opt-in form, compared with 29% of Boomers+.
The report highlights that the future of list growth is automation. Brands that consider their contact list quality to be best-in-class (“list quality leaders”) are three times more likely than others to have full automation across their email and SMS marketing. They’re also more likely to leverage welcome series (64% compared to 53% of all others) and cross-sell or upsell flows (45% versus 36%).
The report maintains that when messaging and timing are orchestrated across channels, every channel becomes a stronger conversion driver.
Brands with highly aligned omnichannel messaging and timing are significantly more likely to report high value from nearly every channel, including organic social (62% vs 43%), paid social (56% vs 40%), and even emerging channels like Generative Engines (10% vs 5%).
Marketers struggle less with access to data than with turning it into value. Only 30% use preference or frequency data, and just 29% use browsing behaviour – despite these being among the strongest drivers of relevance.
Intuit Mailchimp vice-president of product Diana Williams said: “This research reinforces what marketers are feeling every day: relevance comes from clarity, not volume.
“When data is fragmented, even the best intentions fall short. Marketers need to remove that friction – bringing behaviour signals, automations, and omnichannel insights together so marketers can confidently turn every interaction into a chance to build trust and long-term growth.”
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