It’s Not Your Imagination, You Are Getting More Emails Than Ever from Stores. Here’s How You Can Put an End to Them for Good

Everyone who uses email has to deal with inbox clutter at some point. But if you’ve noticed an increase in marketing spam lately, you’re not alone. Retailers and advertisers rely heavily on email marketing nowadays, and it ramps up around the holiday shopping season. At some point, we’ve all added something to an online shopping cart without buying it, only to find that we’ve been added to the retailer’s mailing list and are now receiving unwanted marketing emails and annoying “cart reminders.”

Modern inbox clutter isn’t just a nuisance that makes you waste time deleting emails, unsubscribing from mailing lists (which you probably didn’t sign up for in the first place) or flagging certain senders as spam. It can also make it harder to find actually important messages, such as bills or account notices. But you don’t have to resign yourself to a chaotic inbox.

Proton, a company perhaps best known for their privacy-forward Proton Mail email service, just published their Spam Watch 2025 report, and retailers are definitely upping their efforts. Thankfully, we have some handy tech tips that can help you keep your inbox clear of this annoying marketing spam, so keep reading.

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How pervasive have marketing emails gotten?

If it seems like retailers are bombarding your inbox with more marketing spam than usual, it’s not your imagination. Proton’s 2025 report shows that the top 50 retailers in the United States sent more than 40 billion marketing emails from Nov. 4 to Dec. 1, the year’s peak holiday shopping season. A quarter of those emails (more than 10 billion) were sent out during Black Friday and Cyber Monday weekend alone.

That’s an increase of more than 90% compared with previous seasonal shopping periods. But that marketing spam doesn’t just jam up your inbox: Proton’s report also reveals that 80% of those retail brands deploy trackers in their emails. That means that the marketing spam also harvests data, showing retailers when you click on these links, and shares information about the devices you’re using.

Who are some of the worst offenders?

Some retailers are noticeably more aggressive than others when it comes to email marketing spam. A handful of the worst culprits include Anthropologie, Victoria’s Secret and Crate & Barrel. Other notable offenders include Pottery Barn, Dick’s Sporting Goods, Urban Outfitters, Macy’s, Neiman Marcus, Ulta Beauty, J. Crew and Lowe’s.

However, Proton’s Spam Watch 2025 doesn’t just highlight the worst offenders when it comes to email volume. It also analyzes which brands most commonly deploy email trackers, such as tracking pixels and tracking links, to collect usage data on their customers. Crate & Barrel’s sister brand, CB2, topped the list with a combination of high-volume marketing spam and heavy tracking, sending an average of 2.11 emails per day with an average of 13 trackers per message. Anthropologie came in second place, with averages just below those numbers.

These email marketing tactics constitute an understandable privacy concern for many online shoppers. On the bright side, some retailers, including H&M, Bass Pro Shops, New Balance, TJ Maxx and Burlington didn’t use email trackers at all.

How was the research conducted?

To compile this marketing and surveillance report, Proton set up a dedicated inbox and subscribed to the email lists of the 50 largest U.S. online retailers. As you can imagine, it didn’t take long before the marketing spam started flooding in. For each email, Proton analyzed and recorded the sender, subject line, time received and number of trackers (pixels or tracking links) embedded in the message. The researchers also tracked daily and weekly sending patterns.

The research team used Proton’s own privacy tools to detect email trackers. This allowed them to identify all the tracking tactics used by each retailer, as well as the frequency of trackers per email. The data, collected between Nov. 4 and Dec. 1, focused heavily on pre-Black Friday sales and Black Friday weekend. Proton researchers then measured against the entire period to analyze the “spike volume” of marketing against the seasonal baseline.

What are email trackers?

Email trackers are a sneaky way for retailers (or anyone else spamming your inbox) to collect data on how you interact with their messages. Links in these emails, such as those that lead to the retailer’s website, can report back to the sender when you’ve clicked on them, what device you used and even your geographic location and/or IP address.

Tracking pixels are even more insidious and hard to detect. These are small (usually the size of a single pixel, hence the name), often invisible images that perform the same function as tracking links: reporting your usage information back to the sender. Unlike links, however, tracking pixels don’t require you to interact with them. All you have to do is open the email, and the tracking pixels do their thing.

Companies use trackers to see when users engage with their content. With this information, advertisers can identify the best times to send emails and how frequently. While this isn’t as dangerous as something like spyware and certainly isn’t anything as serious as identity theft, many people still consider this sort of data collection a violation of their privacy (to say nothing of how annoying the email spam itself can be, even without tracking).

Can you turn off email trackers?

You have some options for blocking email trackers, but it largely boils down to which email service you use. Security-conscious email providers, including Proton, either provide tools for blocking intrusive trackers and other privacy violations or simply block them by default. For example, Proton Mail does this by loading remote content in email messages through their own proxy service, so the trackers aren’t reporting any of your data back to the sender.

Many email providers and inbox apps also allow you to disable remote content completely. This means that things like images won’t automatically load when you open an email, neutralizing pixel trackers. Browser extensions like PixelBlock or Ugly Email (both available for Gmail) can block email trackers when you’re accessing your inbox in a web interface.

Finally, virtual private networks (VPNs) can mask your IP address, making tracking data less useful to email marketers. A paid VPN is great for online anonymity, especially when traveling, but it might be overkill for simply blocking email trackers. A privacy-focused email service or web browser is a simpler option for most users.

How can you stop spam emails?

There are also some ways you can cut down on the marketing spam, although if you shop online, it’s hard to eliminate these emails completely. The easiest way is to simply unsubscribe from the retailer’s mailing list. At the bottom of the marketing email, there will be a link you can click to unsubscribe. Just know that you’ll likely have to redo this whenever you order something, as retailers love to automatically sign you up for marketing emails when you buy something from them.

Only click on these “unsubscribe” links from legitimate retailers, though. If you’re receiving spam from an unknown or sketchy source, don’t click on any links. Even the unsubscribe link might be a tracking link itself, letting the spammer know that your email address is tied to an active inbox. That will only invite more spam (or worse). Clicking on links from shady sources can also put you at risk for malware, such as spyware or viruses, to be installed on your device.

For these senders, it’s best to simply flag the message as spam and let your provider send their emails directly to your junk folder. Some providers, such as Proton Mail, allow you to block spammers altogether. That’s a useful tool for particularly persistent advertisers. Another tactic is to simply use a different email for shopping so your personal inbox doesn’t get cluttered with marketing junk.

Why trust us

Reader’s Digest has published hundreds of articles on personal technology, arming readers with the knowledge to protect themselves against cybersecurity threats and internet scams as well as revealing the best tips, tricks and shortcuts for computers, cellphones, apps, texting, social media and more. For this piece, Lucas Coll tapped his experience as a tech journalist to ensure that all information is accurate and offers the best possible advice to readers. We rely on credentialed experts with personal experience and know-how as well as primary sources including tech companies, professional organizations and academic institutions. We verify all facts and data and revisit them over time to ensure they remain accurate and up to date. Read more about our team, our contributors and our editorial policies.

Sources:

Proton: “Spam Watch 2025: The hidden trackers and inbox overload behind holiday marketing”
Proton: “What is pixel tracking? How to tell when emails are tracking you”

Your Boss Has a New Way of Spying on You

This Home Device Is Recording Everything

The Privacy Setting You Need to Disable

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