Email marketing
Email sent to promote products or build the relationship with recipients, as opposed to transactional mail. It usually needs prior consent or an opt-out, depending on the law.
What it means
M3AAWG defines bulk or marketing messaging as messages sent to advertise or to build the relationship between the brand and the recipient, as opposed to transactional messages. Spamhaus notes that most companies hire an email service provider for it, often the same system used for transactional mail.
Marketing mail carries the extra obligations. Google and Yahoo require one-click unsubscribe for marketing and subscribed messages from bulk senders. CAN-SPAM applies to commercial messages, judged by their primary purpose, and EU law requires prior consent for email marketing to individuals, except for the soft opt-in to existing customers.
Keep marketing on its own mail stream, so its complaints do not affect receipts and password resets.
Related terms
On this site
Sources
What this definition rests on. The wording is ours; the facts are theirs.
- M3AAWG Sender Best Common Practices, version 4.0 (August 2026)m3aawg.org
- Spamhaus FAQ: Marketing emailspamhaus.org
- Google: Email sender guidelinessupport.google.com
- FTC: CAN-SPAM Act, a compliance guide for businessftc.gov
- EUR-Lex: Directive 2002/58/EC (ePrivacy), consolidated texteur-lex.europa.eu
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