With WhatsApp marketing increasingly regulated and SMS dead, email is the highest-ROI channel for Indian D2C brands.

WhatsApp marketing in India is increasingly regulated and template-restricted. SMS open rates are below 5%. Indian D2C brands that built serious email programs are quietly running the highest-ROI marketing channel in their stack — often 30-40% of total revenue from email. The trick is doing it well: a clean welcome series, segmented campaigns by behaviour, and abandoned-cart automation. The Indian inbox is not as crowded as the American one, and a brand that sends well-written email weekly stands out. The deliverability work matters — Gmail and Outlook have specific rules and Indian senders often miss them.