Email marketing
Email marketing is a form of direct marketing in which companies communicate deliberately with prospects and customers through emails and newsletters. It is among the oldest but still most effective channels in online marketing, because it creates a direct connection to the audience that the owner controls, independent of social networks' algorithms. The aim is to build relationships, deliver content, communicate offers and accompany recipients along the customer journey. Typical formats are newsletters, welcome sequences, transactional emails, reactivation campaigns and automated trigger emails. The great advantage lies in measurability: opens, clicks, unsubscribes and conversions can be analysed precisely and related to the revenue achieved. Email marketing is therefore one of the channels with the most consistently high return on investment in the whole online marketing mix.
Also known as: newsletter marketing, email campaigns, email marketing
The legal framework: GDPR and double opt-in
In Germany and the EU, email marketing is strictly regulated. Promotional emails may in principle only be sent to recipients who have expressly consented beforehand. That consent has to be provable, which is why the double opt-in procedure has become the standard: after signing up, the prospect receives a confirmation email and has to verify their address actively through a link.
The GDPR also demands transparency about the data processing, an easy way to unsubscribe in every email and a legal notice. Anyone disregarding these requirements risks warning letters and fines. Clean consent is not merely a duty, though: it also improves deliverability, because interested recipients mark messages as spam less often.
A documented double opt-in process protects you legally and makes for a high-quality recipient list. Better a smaller list of genuinely interested people than many inactive addresses distorting the metrics and damaging the sender reputation. The sign-up form itself should be transparent too and state clearly what content the subscriber can expect and how often.
Key metrics and benchmarks
Email marketing success is steered through clearly defined metrics. Across industries, the open rate is often between 20 and 35 per cent, the Click-through rate (CTR) often in the low single-digit percentages, typically between 2 and 5 per cent. Also important are bounce rate, unsubscribe rate and the conversion rate, that is, the share of recipients who take a desired action.
These benchmarks vary widely by industry, list quality and Segmentation. Rather than absolute comparisons, what counts above all is continuously improving your own figures through A/B tests of subject lines, send times and content. Since reliable open measurement fell away with Apple Mail Privacy Protection, the click rate matters more as the more robust indicator.
For analysis, it is worth combining the sending tool's statistics with Web analytics. Over UTM parameters campaigns can be Google Analytics 4 track and in Marketing dashboards together, so each email's contribution to revenue and goals becomes visible.
Tools and automation
Numerous tools are available for sending and managing. Mailchimp is widespread internationally and offers templates, automation and reporting. Brevo (formerly Sendinblue) is popular in Europe, is considered GDPR-friendly and combines email with SMS and CRMfeatures. Other solutions such as CleverReach, rapidmail or ActiveCampaign cover different needs.
Marketing automation offers the greatest leverage. Automated sequences send mail based on behaviour or timing — a welcome series after sign-up or a cart abandonment reminder in e-commerce for instance. Relevant messages thus arrive at the right moment without every mail being sent by hand.
Personalisation and segmentation are decisive for performance. Anyone who sorts recipients by interest, purchase history or stage in the Customer journey segmented, and content as well as Landing pages accordingly achieves far higher open and click rates than a blanket mass send.
Email marketing in the online marketing mix
Email marketing shows its full effect together with other channels. Content and traffic from SEO, social media or paid ads bring prospects to landing pages where they sign up for the newsletter. Anonymous visitors thus become contactable leads developed into customers through email sequences.
The particular value lies in owning the channel: the recipient list belongs to the company and does not depend on reach restrictions. Email is therefore a reliable revenue channel that can be planned and scaled well and contributes to loyalty in almost every industry.
For sound steering, email metrics should feed into central marketing dashboards and be viewed together with web and campaign data. The channel is then not isolated but an integral part of a data-driven Online marketingstrategy led.
Deliverability and list hygiene
A technically clean setup decides whether emails reach the inbox at all. Authentication methods such as SPF, DKIM and DMARC identify the sending service as a legitimate sender and protect the domain from misuse. Without those records, messages quickly land in the spam folder or are not delivered at all, however good the content is.
Maintaining the recipient list continuously is just as important. Inactive addresses, hard bounces and spam complaints burden the sender reputation and worsen deliverability for every recipient. Cleaning the list regularly and running targeted reactivation campaigns for inactive contacts keeps the data healthy and the metrics meaningful.
Keeping an eye on send frequency and content relevance also avoids fatigue among recipients. Emails that are too frequent or not relevant lead to unsubscribes and spam complaints. Deliberate frequency control and consistent segmentation are therefore not a detail but the core of sustainable email marketing.
Frequently asked questions
What is email marketing, simply explained?
Email marketing is the deliberate sending of emails and newsletters to prospects and customers, to build relationships, inform and generate revenue. It is a direct, easily measured channel that can be planned along the customer journey.
Is email marketing allowed in Germany?
Yes, provided the recipient has expressly consented beforehand. In practice this is done through the double opt-in procedure. Every promotional email also needs a simple way to unsubscribe and a legal notice to be GDPR-compliant.
What is double opt-in?
In double opt-in, a new subscriber confirms their sign-up through a link in a confirmation email. Only then are they on the list. The procedure proves consent in a legally sound way and ensures high-quality recipient addresses.
What open rate is good?
Across industries, open rates between 20 and 35 per cent count as solid. More important than absolute figures, though, is improving your own numbers. Since Apple's Mail Privacy Protection, the click rate is considered the more reliable indicator of success.
Which tools are good for email marketing?
Mailchimp, Brevo, CleverReach, rapidmail and ActiveCampaign are widespread. Brevo is considered particularly GDPR-friendly. The choice depends on list size, the automations you want and integration with CRM or shop.
How do I measure the success of email campaigns?
Through metrics such as open, click and conversion rate and through UTM parameters that make campaigns traceable in Google Analytics 4. Bringing these together in marketing dashboards shows the concrete contribution to revenue and goals.
Related terms
Software-driven automation of marketing processes such as email sequences and lead nurturing.
The process of winning qualified prospects, along with their contact details, for marketing and sales.
A metric that relates the profit from a marketing activity to the cost invested in it.
The share of visitors who complete a desired action — the central metric in online marketing.
A customer's entire journey across every touchpoint and channel.
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