How to Check Competitors’ Email Marketing: Mailcharts vs Similarweb for Competitor Email Research

Use Mailcharts when you want to see the actual competitor emails. Use Similarweb when you want to see how much email may be helping their traffic and sales funnel. That is the simple answer.

Why check competitor email marketing at all?

Email is sneaky. It is not public like ads on social media. It lands in inboxes, gets clicks, and quietly makes money.

So if you only check competitor websites, you miss a lot. You miss their welcome series. You miss discount timing. You miss their Black Friday warmups. You miss the “oops, forgot something?” cart email that may be printing cash.

Competitor email research helps you answer simple questions:

• How often do rivals send emails?
• What subject lines do they use?
• Do they push discounts or stories?
• When do they promote new products?
• Which brands seem to get traffic from email?
• What can you test without copying like a robot?

This is where Mailcharts and Similarweb come in. They are not the same tool. Not even close.

Mailcharts: the inbox spyglass

Mailcharts is built for email research. It tracks emails from brands. You can see campaigns, subject lines, creative layouts, send dates, and sometimes flows.

Think of it as a giant swipe file. But cleaner. And less annoying than signing up for 40 newsletters with a fake inbox.

Mailcharts is useful when you want to study the actual emails. Not just guesses. You can inspect a brand’s promo style, product angles, and frequency.

What Mailcharts is great at

• Viewing real email examples: You can see what competitors sent.
• Studying subject lines: Great for patterns and testing ideas.
• Tracking send cadence: See if a brand sends daily, weekly, or in bursts.
• Finding seasonal campaigns: Black Friday, Valentine’s Day, back to school, and more.
• Learning from flows: Welcome emails, abandoned cart emails, and win back campaigns.

It drives me crazy when a brand’s best email is hidden in a flow you cannot trigger easily. Mailcharts can save you from that mess. It gives you a cleaner place to start.

Where Mailcharts can fall short

• It may not have every brand you care about.
• It shows emails, but not full revenue data.
• It can inspire you too much if you are not careful.
• It may not explain whether an email actually worked.

That last point matters. A pretty email is not always a profitable email. A clever subject line may still flop. Mailcharts shows what happened. It does not always show how well it worked.

Similarweb: the traffic detective

Similarweb is not mainly an email research tool. It is a market and web traffic tool. It helps you see where traffic may come from. That can include search, social, referrals, paid ads, direct visits, and sometimes email as a channel.

So Similarweb will not show you the same rich email gallery that Mailcharts does. But it can help answer a bigger question:

Is email likely important for this competitor?

If a competitor gets a meaningful share of traffic from email, that is a signal. It means their list may be active. It means email may feed launches, promos, and repeat sales.

What Similarweb is great at

• Channel mix: See if email is part of a bigger growth plan.
• Traffic estimates: Compare site visits across competitors.
• Audience clues: Learn about customer interests and behavior.
• Referral research: See partners, publishers, or affiliates driving visits.
• Market comparison: Spot which competitors are growing faster.

The catch is that Similarweb can feel blunt for email. You may see that email matters, but not the exact email that caused the visit. That can be frustrating. It is like seeing footprints, not the shoes.

Mailcharts vs Similarweb: quick comparison

Need	Best Tool	Why
See competitor email designs	Mailcharts	It stores real email examples.
Track subject lines	Mailcharts	You can study wording, hooks, and offers.
Estimate email traffic impact	Similarweb	It shows channel-level traffic clues.
Compare total competitor traffic	Similarweb	It focuses on web traffic and market data.
Build a swipe file	Mailcharts	It is made for creative research.
Study market position	Similarweb	It gives broader competitor context.

Best workflow: use them together

If you can use both, do it. The combo is much stronger than either tool alone.

Here is a simple workflow:

1. Pick 5 competitors. Choose brands that sell to the same buyer.
2. Open Similarweb. Check traffic size and channel mix.
3. Flag email-heavy brands. Look for brands with notable email traffic.
4. Open Mailcharts. Study those brands’ actual emails.
5. Save patterns. Track offers, timing, subject lines, and creative angles.
6. Test your own version. Do not copy. Adapt the idea to your brand.

Example time. Say you sell skincare. Similarweb shows Brand A gets 11% of traffic from email. Brand B gets only 2%. Brand A also has higher repeat visits. Now check Brand A in Mailcharts. You see they send a strong welcome series with 5 emails over 10 days. They also use education before discounts. That is useful. Very useful.

What to look for in Mailcharts

Do not just stare at pretty designs. That wastes time.

Look for repeatable patterns:

• Subject line style: Short, funny, urgent, direct, or benefit based.
• Offer type: Percent off, free gift, bundle, free shipping, early access.
• Send frequency: Daily, weekly, weekend heavy, or launch based.
• Email length: Short promo or long story.
• Call to action: Shop now, learn more, claim offer, build your routine.
• Design style: Product grid, editorial, plain text, founder note.

Also watch timing. Some brands send soft teasers before sale day. Others smash the discount button right away. Neither is always better. Your audience decides.

What to look for in Similarweb

Similarweb is best used for signals. Not perfect truths.

Check these items:

• Email traffic share: Is email a real traffic source?
• Total visits: A small percentage can still mean huge volume.
• Visit duration: Are visitors engaged?
• Pages per visit: Do people browse after clicking?
• Traffic trend: Is the competitor growing or fading?
• Other channels: Does email support paid search, social, or direct traffic?

For example, 3% email traffic on a site with 2 million monthly visits may matter more than 15% on a tiny site. Always compare percentages with scale.

Which one should you choose?

Choose Mailcharts if your main question is: “What emails are competitors sending?”

Choose Similarweb if your main question is: “How important is email in their traffic mix?”

Choose both if you want a sharper answer. Mailcharts gives the creative proof. Similarweb gives the traffic clue.

Common mistakes to avoid

• Copying emails directly: Bad idea. Also lazy.
• Ignoring your customer: Your buyers may not react like theirs.
• Trusting one data point: Look for patterns over time.
• Only studying big brands: Smaller rivals may be more relevant.
• Forgetting mobile: Most emails are opened on phones.

Expect to waste time if you do not define your goal first. Are you researching welcome flows? Holiday promos? Subject lines? Cart recovery? Pick one. Then compare.

Final take

Mailcharts shows the email. Similarweb shows the market signal. That is the clean split.

If you are building better campaigns, start with Mailcharts. If you are deciding which competitors deserve attention, start with Similarweb. If email drives real money for your business, use both and build a simple tracking sheet.

Keep it practical. Track 5 brands. Review them once a month. Save the best ideas. Test one change at a time. That beats guessing, and it beats inbox chaos.