Since 1999
We’ve been doing email marketingsince email marketing existed.
That’s not a slogan. It’s a timeline.
On the left, what happened to the channel. On the right, what happened to us. Both belong together – every rule, every filter and every Apple update has shaped how we work today.
The first marketing email
Gary Thuerk of Digital Equipment Corporation sends an ad for new computer systems across the ARPANET. Not systematic marketing – more like the first spam in history.
Email reaches ordinary people
The commercial internet, AOL and the first webmail services put email within reach of consumers at large.
From tool to channel
Companies start using email systematically for newsletters, retention and promotions. Email becomes measurable – and therefore interesting.
Permission Marketing
Seth Godin’s book popularises the idea of only writing to people who actually asked for it. The symbolic starting gun for modern email marketing.
First contact
On a consulting project at Detecon Marketing Consulting in Frankfurt I run into email marketing for the first time. I’m hooked on the spot.
The shortest job of my life
I become Head of New Business at one of Germany’s first email marketing startups – and quit five days later. The subject keeps me regardless.
rabbit Software AG
Founded with a few friends. I become a board member – that’s what one did back then – and dream of billion-dollar exits.
The circular becomes a channel
HTML newsletters take hold, the first sending platforms appear. Open, click and unsubscribe rates make email the most measurable marketing instrument of its day.
Runner-up in the n-tv start-up show
On an episode of n-tv’s start-up show I finish in second place and present email marketing to a very large audience – at a time when most still consider the channel a footnote.
The end of the New Economy
rabbit Software AG goes down with it. I take another look at the market, and it becomes increasingly clear: this isn’t primarily about software. It’s about communication strategy.
Opt-in becomes European law
The EU directive on privacy and electronic communications anchors opt-in for unsolicited commercial email. Europe takes a different road from the US.
rabbit eMarketing
I found Germany’s first agency specialising in email marketing.
CAN-SPAM
The US passes the CAN-SPAM Act in 2003, effective early 2004: no misleading senders or subject lines, a mandatory way to unsubscribe. Unlike Europe, it runs on opt-out.
Two of us
I bring a business partner on board. Together we build rabbit eMarketing into Germany’s leading email marketing agency.
Gmail
One gigabyte of storage, fast search, conversations instead of single messages. And spam filters you now have to get past. Sending is no longer enough.
SPF and DKIM
With RFC 4408 (2006) and RFC 4871 (2007), receiving systems can check whether a message is even allowed to be sent on a domain’s behalf. Deliverability becomes a discipline of its own.
The iPhone
Email moves into your pocket. Shorter subject lines, bigger buttons, less layout, faster images. And eventually: mobile first.
From newsletter to automation
Welcome series, cart abandonment, birthday mails, re-engagement. The sending calendar no longer drives communication – individual behaviour does.
Tabs and takeovers
Gmail pre-sorts the inbox into Primary, Social and Promotions. The predicted catastrophe never arrives – relevance and sender trust matter instead. Salesforce buys ExactTarget: email moves into the CRM.
Lifecycle, not watering can
Purchases, cart values, interests, propensity to buy. New customers, regulars and dead weight stop getting the same mail. Email becomes one of e-commerce’s biggest revenue channels.
DMARC
RFC 7489 builds on SPF and DKIM: domain owners set rules for unauthenticated messages and receive reports on abuse of their domain.
GDPR
Adopted in 2016, directly applicable from 25 May 2018. Consent must be provable, purposes named, deletion rights honoured. The end of bought lists – and the beginning of owned contacts.
Consultant, not agency
More and more companies run email marketing in-house. I think they’re right: a strategically important channel belongs in your own hands. Which leaves the question – do we still need agencies, or do we need consultants? I pick the latter, step down as managing director of rabbit eMarketing and found Meister Lampe und Freunde GmbH. “Meister Lampe” is the name the German fables give the hare. My heraldic animal comes along.
Content that assembles itself
Product feeds, prices, availability and recommendations get composed at open time. Google tries AMP for Email – and never quite lands it.
The pandemic
UNCTAD estimates put online’s share of retail up from 16 to 19 percent. Anyone without a direct customer relationship notices. The email list becomes a strategic asset.
Apple kills the open rate
iOS 15 brings Mail Privacy Protection: content loads in the background whether or not anyone opens the message. The open rate loses its meaning. What’s left is clicks, conversions, revenue – the numbers that mattered anyway.
The book
“Perfektes E-Mail-Marketing” comes out and enters Amazon’s business top 10.
Moving to Berlin
Meister Lampe leaves Frankfurt for the heart of Germany’s online and e-commerce business.
ChatGPT
Generative AI hits the mass market. First it writes subject lines and A/B variants. What comes after – analysis, segmentation, decisions – is the more interesting story.
Klaviyo
I’m fascinated by how this then-tiny platform makes proper 1:1 marketing broadly available to ordinary companies. We become partners – and move from silver to gold very quickly.
From personalisation to individualisation
Send-time optimisation, recommendations, churn probability: AI moves into the platforms. And as tracking outside your own systems erodes, first- and zero-party data become the currency.
Gmail and Yahoo get serious
From 5,000 messages a day: SPF, DKIM, DMARC, low complaint rates, one-click unsubscribe. Deliverability stops being a technical question and becomes one of reputation, list hygiene and genuine interest.
Platinum Partner
We become one of very few Klaviyo Platinum Partners in Germany.
The recipient takes over
Gmail gives users a central subscription manager: senders and frequencies at a glance, unsubscribe in two clicks. Anyone on your list only because leaving was a hassle is about to go. List quality finally beats list size.
Global Partner Advisory Council
Meister Lampe becomes one of 30 members worldwide. We help shape Klaviyo’s roadmap.
Finally multichannel
Email is by far the biggest and most successful online dialogue channel. After years of buzzword bingo, channels like WhatsApp finally become usable for ordinary companies. We host our first conference.
Klaviyo Champion
I become one of only 100 Klaviyo Champions worldwide. And the only one in the DACH region.
The agent phase
AI is no longer an add-on but part of the workflow: analysing data, proposing audiences, spotting anomalies, planning automations. And the easier production gets, the more it matters whether there’s a human with a point of view behind the mail.
Perfect email marketing for the AI era
The second, fully revised edition comes out – at exactly the right moment. Plenty of people use AI intensively, but as a toy rather than a strategic tool. That is changing right now. And it will reshape email marketing completely over the next few years.
Since 1999. One channel.
Platforms came and went, metrics were born and buried, the rules got stricter every couple of years. The basic principle never moved: trust, relevance, relationship. The rest is plumbing.
Die Aufzeichnung liegt noch nicht vor.
Die Highlights