Email is the one audience you own. No algorithm decides who sees it. That advantage disappears the moment you buy a list, skip consent, or send often enough that people stop opening.
What we set up
- consent capture that meets German requirements
- welcome and follow-up sequences
- newsletters with a reason to exist
- deliverability configuration: SPF, DKIM, DMARC
- segmentation so people get relevant messages
Consent is not optional here
Germany requires prior consent for commercial email, and double opt-in is the practical standard because it is what you can evidence if challenged.
Bought lists are unlawful and destroy your sending reputation at the same time. There is no version of this where it works out.
Deliverability
The best campaign fails if it lands in spam. Authentication has to be correct: SPF listing your sender, DKIM signing, and DMARC published so receivers know what to do with failures.
This site's own domain is a worked example. Mail goes through an authenticated SMTP connection to a mailbox on a German server, with SPF and DKIM aligned. The one gap we found and flagged was a missing DMARC record — worth fixing before any volume sending.
Sending frequency
The right frequency is the one people tolerate. Unsubscribes and complaints tell you when you have exceeded it, and complaints damage deliverability for everyone on your list.
Fewer, better emails outperform frequent filler. This is consistently true and consistently ignored.
Automation that helps
A welcome sequence that arrives when interest is highest, a follow-up after an enquiry, a reminder for an abandoned cart. Useful because it is timely.
Automation becomes harassment when it ignores what the person already did — like chasing someone about a product they bought three days ago.
Measurement
Opens have become unreliable since mail clients started prefetching images. Clicks and resulting enquiries are the honest metrics.
FAQ
Which platform should we use?
Whichever fits your list size and integrates with your site. We will recommend rather than resell.
Can we email past customers?
Existing customer relationships have some latitude under German law, but the boundaries are narrow. Worth checking rather than assuming.
How big should a list be?
A small engaged list beats a large indifferent one on every metric that matters.