Email and newsletter marketing without the guesswork

A newsletter is quickly written. More difficult are three questions that almost every company, every club and every self-employed person asks sooner or later:

1. May I send this?

Section 7 of the German Act against Unfair Competition (Gesetz gegen den unlauteren Wettbewerb, UWG) deals with unacceptable nuisances. It states that an unacceptable nuisance is “always to be assumed […] in the case of advertising using […] electronic mail without the prior express consent of the addressee” (Section 7(2) no. 2 UWG, our translation; only the German wording is authoritative). Subsection 3 sets out an exception for customers; wording: Advertising to existing customers. Both wordings in full, and what the GDPR and the German data protection authorities say about consent: Law in email marketing and Consent and double opt-in.

2. Will it arrive?

Large mailbox providers check whether an email really comes from the stated sender. Since 1 February 2024, for example, Gmail has required senders who send 5,000 or more messages a day to Gmail accounts to use, among other things, SPF, DKIM, DMARC and one-click unsubscribe. What lies behind these abbreviations is explained under Deliverability.

3. Does it work?

Open, click and unsubscribe rates show whether a newsletter is getting through. But not every figure means what it seems to mean. The page Metrics explains how they are calculated and where their limits lie.

Tools

Metrics calculator, DMARC builder and checklists – they run only in your browser: Tools.

Basics and glossary

If you are new to the subject, start with the basics of newsletter marketing and the guide Create a newsletter: step by step. Terms from “unsubscribe link” to “delivery rate” are explained in the Glossary.

What this website is not

• Not legal advice. We reproduce legal matters only as verbatim quotations from laws, court rulings or authority papers – German and EU law –, with the source, and do not interpret them ourselves. For your individual case, please ask a lawyer.
• Not a provider comparison. Our explanations and tools are provider-neutral. If you are looking for a sending platform, you will find a neutral checklist under Choose a newsletter tool.
• No newsletter of our own. This website does not send any emails and has no sign-up form.

How we create and check content is explained under How we work.