Walk into a shopping center in 2025 and the difference is unmistakable. Malls are no longer just retail spaces; they’ve become cultural anchors for their communities. Seasonal festivals, art installations, immersive activations, and pop-ups fill the calendar, drawing in visitors for more than shopping. Behind the scenes, a specialized kind of marketer is orchestrating this transformation – and their most consistent tool remains email. 

Built environment marketers – those responsible for driving visitation and engagement across malls, lifestyle centers, mixed-use districts, and even airports, face unique challenges. Unlike ecommerce brands, they manage multi-tenant properties where success is measured in foot traffic, dwell time, and tenant sales. Their campaigns are hyperlocal, event-heavy, and community-driven. 

Why We Undertook This Project 

Email remains one of the most visible and measurable tools malls use to engage audiences. Yet, unlike ecommerce, where benchmarks for email frequency, subject lines, and content styles are well established, very little public benchmarking exists for multi-tenant properties like malls. That gap inspired us to launch this project. 

At Aislelabs, we undertook this research to better understand how malls and shopping centers use email as a marketing channel. Our goal is to create an industry benchmark that mall marketers can rely on for insights, inspiration, and best practices. By analyzing real-world campaigns, we aim to highlight what’s working, where gaps exist, and how properties can elevate their communication strategies. 

Every email in this analysis comes from public mailing lists that any consumer can subscribe to. We emphasize this point: no private or proprietary data has been used. Our dataset reflects only what lands in consumer inboxes, not internal communications, CRM records, or tenant-only messages. This ensures transparency and replicability for anyone seeking to learn from the industry’s collective activity. 

Key Stats at a Glance 

Our review of mall marketing emails reveals a strong orientation toward events, compliance maturity, and a cautious approach to promotions: 

• Events dominate: 56% of all emails focused on events, representing more than 430 campaigns across the dataset. 

• Experiential is everywhere: 94.7% of properties referenced experiential activations; pop-ups alone accounted for 32% of tagged experiences. 

• Promotions are minimal: Fewer than 3% of emails were transactional, underscoring that malls are prioritizing visit-driving experiences over discounts. 

• Loyalty is under-leveraged: Only 41% of emails mentioned loyalty programs, leaving nearly 6 in 10 campaigns without reinforcement of repeat engagement. 

• Compliance is strong: 95% included unsubscribe links and 84% had contact details, setting a high industry baseline. 

• Subject lines stay sharp: Average length was 40 characters (median 38), with 36% using exclamation points, 13% including numbers, and only 1.2% featuring a “%” discount. 

Note on Scope: These findings reflect patterns in our dataset of publicly available mall emails. We recognize that not every property or region will follow the same cadence or style. The results should be seen as directional benchmarks, not rigid rules, a way to understand prevailing trends and spark inspiration for your own campaigns.

What We Learned 

1. Events and Experiential Activations: The Heartbeat of Malls 

With 56% of emails dedicated to events, shopping centers are clearly programming themselves as cultural calendars. Seasonal festivals, back-to-school weekends, family days, and live performances are becoming the core content, transforming malls into destinations for experiences, not just purchases. In fact, nearly 95% of properties incorporated experiential activations, with pop-ups alone accounting for 32% of these mentions. This shift highlights how malls are positioning themselves as vibrant, experience-driven spaces rather than merely transactional ones. 

2. Loyalty is still inconsistent 

Only 41% of emails mentioned loyalty programs, meaning that nearly 6 out of 10 missed the opportunity to reinforce repeat visitation. Given the proven impact of loyalty on frequency of visits, this remains an under-utilized lever. 

3. Promotions take a backseat 

Just 2.2% of emails were transactional in nature. Unlike ecommerce, where promotional offers dominate inboxes, malls rely heavily on eventization and lifestyle-driven messaging. 

4. Timing reflects visitation intent 

The busiest send slot was Thursday, aligning with weekend planning behaviors. This suggests malls are deliberately shaping Friday–Sunday visitation, with Thursdays accounting for the largest single-day share of sends. 

5. Subject lines: short and urgent 

The average subject line was 40 characters long. 36% used exclamation points, 13% included numbers, and just 1.2% referenced discounts with “%.” This balance reflects the mobile-first reality of inbox engagement: concise, urgent, and experience-led rather than discount-heavy. 

Opportunities and Gaps 

While malls are effectively using email as an engagement driver, our analysis surfaces five clear areas for improvement: 

• Personalization remains absent. Very few campaigns included first-name personalization or localized tailoring. Even simple touches like “This weekend in [City]” could increase relevance. 

• Loyalty must become always-on. With fewer than half of emails mentioning loyalty, malls are leaving repeat visits on the table. Loyalty prompts should become a consistent, secondary CTA in every campaign. 

• Community storytelling is thin. Despite malls acting as civic anchors, almost no campaigns spotlighted school tie-ins, fundraisers, or local partnerships. This is a missed chance to deepen emotional connections. 

• Seasonal campaigns are underutilized. Few campaigns leaned into natural seasonal hooks like back-to-school or holidays. Anchoring emails to cultural rhythms could add urgency and boost engagement. 

• Experimentation lags design norms. Interactive features such as RSVP buttons, add-to-calendar links, or event carousels remain rare. These lightweight enhancements could modernize engagement and align perfectly with event-driven content. 

Recommendations for Mall Marketers 

Together, these insights form a benchmark for mall email marketing, a resource that marketers can use to calibrate cadence, inspire campaigns, and identify growth levers. 

1. Anchor around events: With 56% of emails already event-driven, plan your email calendar like a festival lineup. 

2. Optimize timing: Own Thursday for weekend planning, but A/B test Friday mornings for late planners. 

3. Make loyalty consistent: Lift mentions above 41% by weaving program benefits into every campaign stream. 

4. Personalize lightly, start small: Even city names or family/young adult segmentation can lift relevance. 

5. Tell the community story: Feature partnerships and local initiatives to position malls as civic hubs, not just retail destinations. 

6. Experiment with design: Add interactivity, even simple RSVP buttons, to modernize the experience. 

Why This Matters 

Mall email marketing is fundamentally different from ecommerce. It’s not about driving clicks to a cart; it’s about shaping cultural calendars, increasing dwell time, driving return visits, and strengthening the role of physical spaces in community life. 

By analyzing publicly available mall marketing emails, we now have a clear view of how the industry communicates – and where it must evolve. The data shows a strong reliance on events and experiential activations, but also reveals gaps in loyalty, personalization, and storytelling. 

The bottom line: Email is not just a broadcast tool for malls – it’s a cultural amplifier. The marketers who move from generic event reminders to personalized, loyalty-driven, and interactive campaigns will be the ones who define the next era of built environment marketing.