Email marketing is 45—can it avoid a midlife crisis?

Juliette Aiken, global marketing director at Dotdigital, looks at what the future holds for email as it jostles with social media, SMS, live chats and AI and asks just what Gary Thuerk got right all those years ago. 

Email marketing has come a long way over the past 45 years, from the first unsolicited mass email sent by Gary Thuerk, known as the "father of spam," to the era of hyper-personalisation. As businesses adapt to changing consumer preferences, email marketing remains a crucial tool for lead generation, brand awareness, and customer retention. From Thuerk's groundbreaking approach to the latest advancements and future trends, email marketing continues to shape the digital advertising landscape.

The past 45 years of email

The email marketing journey began in 1971 with the first email sent by Ray Tomlinson and the development of the first email management system by Larry Roberts in 1972. However, it was in 1978 when Gary Thuerk, a marketing manager at Digital Equipment Corporation, sent the first email blast to 400 Arpanet advertising machines, resulting in an impressive $13 million in sales.

Over time, email communication transitioned from "electronic mail message" to the familiar term "email," while spam emerged in 1988 as unwanted and irrelevant messages flooded inboxes.

The introduction of Lotus Notes 1.0 in 1989, along with household names like Outlook and Hotmail, enhanced the aesthetics and accessibility of emails. The CAN-SPAM Act in 2003 standardised commercial email practices, and responsive emails in 2009 allowed for seamless content transfer across devices. Today, email marketing remains a top digital channel, with marketers recognising its potential for generating return on investment and leveraging features like segmentation, personalised campaigns, and automated email software.

Thuerk's legacy

While Gary Thuerk gained fame as the "father of spam," his accomplishment lies in being a pioneer of targeted email marketing. Unlike spam, which bombards uninterested recipients, email marketing focuses on delivering content to individuals genuinely interested in a business's products or services. Thuerk's successful email blast targeted the right people and generated $13 million in sales. This highlights the importance of effectively reaching specific audiences with personalised messaging, an aspect that remains crucial in email marketing today.

Personalisation done well

Many marketers often depend on distributing messages far and wide to try and maximise their results by reaching as many people as possible. Unfortunately, this is largely useless if the people that you’re reaching are not the right ones. Conversely, maybe you are reaching those interested in your products, but if you’re hitting them with the wrong messaging, you’re still unlikely to convert them into paying customers.

When personalisation is done correctly, it can be hugely beneficial. It can help businesses to build trust with their customers, which can ultimately lead to both brand equity and customer loyalty. This can assist businesses in trumping those competitors that are being aggressive with discounting policies.

On the flip side, when personalisation isn’t done correctly, or done at all, it can be catastrophic. Dotdigital’s Customer loyalty report found that 47% of customers chose to unsubscribe from a brand’s email marketing lists because the content they received is irrelevant.

Email personalisation comes in many different forms; from the context of the emails being sent, to the timing of them. Research by Dotdigital has found that personalising the whole customer journey—that is, delivering email marketing when customers are most engaged with your brand through marketing automation—results in 3.5 times higher click-through rates than marketing which isn’t personalised. What’s more, over the 2023 Black Friday sales period, there was a 47% increase in brands utilising cart abandonment emails. This subsequently led to revenue increases of 4.5%, demonstrating the monetary value of adopting timely, personalised email marketing.

Email marketing in 2024 and beyond

The email marketing landscape continues to evolve with new advancements and technologies. Brand Indicators for Message Identification reward senders with robust email authentication, while innovations like Apple's Mail Privacy Protection and ChatGPT from OpenAI transform the email drafting process. Looking ahead, personalisation holds the key to success.

Consumers demand relevant and tailored emails. Research from McKinsey shows that 71% of consumers expect companies to deliver personalised interactions, and 76% get frustrated when this doesn’t happen. This is forcing brands to invest in personalised marketing communications. Hyper-personalisation and moments-based marketing have emerged as powerful strategies to engage customers with timely and targeted content. An example of this would be a fashion retailer sending personalised product recommendations to customers who have recently browsed their website, based on their browsing history and preferences. Or it could be a software company delivering a series of educational emails to new subscribers, guiding them through the process of using their product and highlighting its key features.

As marketers continue to adapt to changing consumer preferences, email marketing's future remains bright. AI enhancements to email marketing and marketing automation platforms offer more opportunities for brands to improve their marketing results and connect and resonate with their audiences. 

Juliette Aiken is the global marketing director at Dotdigital.