Email newsletters: what they are, how they work, and how to send your first one

How email marketing differs from a one-off newsletter

A one-off newsletter is a single message sent to the whole list or part of it, without a built-out process: you gather addresses, write the copy, send it. Email marketing is newsletters as an ongoing practice: the list is split into segments, each segment and stage of the relationship with the company has its own emails set up, and the result is regularly measured against metrics (opens, clicks, unsubscribes) and used to adjust content and frequency.

In other words, a one-off newsletter is an action, and email marketing is the process that action is built into. For a business that hasn’t sent emails before, it makes sense to start with a one-off newsletter and, if it proves worthwhile, build a process around it later.

What types of email newsletters exist

By purpose, and by who triggers the send, newsletters fall into several types:

• Informational — company news, product updates, editorial emails; they don’t sell directly, they keep in touch with the audience.
• Promotional — offers, discounts, sale announcements; this is the type the advertising law’s requirements apply to — more in the legal requirements section below.
• Transactional and triggered — emails sent automatically in response to a user’s action: an order confirmation, a payment notice, an abandoned-cart reminder, a password reset. This is a separate category of message, not promotional by nature — it serves an interaction that’s already underway rather than offering something new.
• Welcome series — several greeting emails a new subscriber receives right after leaving their email address: they introduce the company and what will keep arriving in the newsletter.

What you need to start sending newsletters

Sending your first newsletter takes a few steps — from a subscriber list to sending and checking the result.

1. Build a list of subscribers who gave consent. Only people who gave their own email and agreed to receive messages from you belong on the list — for example, through a sign-up form on your site with an explicit opt-in. Why this isn’t a formality but a legal requirement is covered in the legal requirements section below.
2. Choose a service for sending newsletters. This is the technical tool that stores the subscriber list, assembles the email from a template, sends it, and shows open and click statistics. The specific service is chosen based on your own needs and budget; this article doesn’t name or compare specific services.
3. Split the list into segments. Groups of subscribers by interest, stage of the relationship with the company, or behavior (did they open previous emails or not) make each email’s content more relevant to a specific recipient.
4. Prepare the email. A subject line, a preheader (a short piece of text after the subject — covered separately below), the body copy, and one clear call to action. The fewer competing calls to action in the email, the easier it is for the recipient to understand what’s expected of them.
5. Set up the technical side of your mail. On the domain the emails are sent from, you set up technical records — for example, SPF: it helps reduce the risk that an email sent from an address on your domain lands in the recipient’s spam folder. For the same purpose, business email services also let you set up a DKIM signature and a DMARC policy — separate technical records on the domain.
6. Send the newsletter and track metrics. After sending, you look at opens, clicks on links in the email, and unsubscribes. What counts as a conversion in marketing generally, and how it’s calculated, is covered separately in the article on conversion rate — useful for evaluating clicks from the email to your site.

What a preheader is and how it works

A preheader is a short piece of text visible in the inbox list right after the subject line, before the recipient opens the email. It’s part of the email client’s interface, not part of the email itself in the usual sense: a preheader is usually either the email’s first line of text or a separate phrase prepared specifically for it and hidden from the email’s visible layout once it’s opened.

A preheader works together with the subject line: the subject grabs attention, and the preheader gives extra context that helps the recipient decide whether to open the email now or later. If no preheader is set separately, the recipient sees the email’s first words instead — for example, a boilerplate phrase like «View in browser,» which doesn’t help either the subject or the email as a whole.

Legal requirements for promotional email in Russia

Sending promotional email requires the recipient’s prior consent and compliance with the rules on processing their personal data. This isn’t a formality — it’s a requirement under two federal laws.

Requirement	What it means	Source
Prior consent for advertising	Distributing advertising over telecom networks, including email, is allowed only with the subscriber’s or addressee’s prior consent to receive it. Advertising is considered distributed without consent unless the distributor proves consent was obtained	38-FZ, «On Advertising,» Art. 18, Part 1
Email as personal data	Personal data is any information relating to a directly or indirectly identified or identifiable individual. A subscriber’s email address, in most cases, falls under this definition, so processing it (collecting, storing, using it to send emails) is subject to the personal-data law’s requirements	152-FZ, «On Personal Data,» Art. 3
Consent as a basis for processing data	Among the grounds on which processing personal data is allowed, the law explicitly names the consent of the data subject to the processing of their personal data	152-FZ, Art. 6, Part 1, Item 1
The right to opt out	The advertising distributor is required to stop sending immediately to a person who asks them to — meaning a simple, working unsubscribe must be available in every promotional email	38-FZ, Art. 18, Part 1

Two practical conclusions follow from this. First, a ready-made list of email addresses — bought or scraped from open sources without these specific people’s consent to receive email from you — can’t count as a lawful way to start a newsletter: you don’t have their formal consent and can’t prove it under review. Second, every promotional email needs a simple, actually working way to unsubscribe — a direct consequence of the recipient’s right to demand that the sends stop.

Transactional and triggered emails are a different category of message: they don’t offer something new, they serve an action the recipient already started (for example, confirming their own order). But we can’t say with certainty, across every case and without a separate legal consultation on the specific situation, that the prior-consent requirement never applies to them at all: the law’s wording concerns advertising information, and the actual classification of an email depends on its content.

How newsletters help businesses retain customers

Business newsletters are, above all, a way to stay in touch with people who already know the company: customers, subscribers, loyalty-program members. A regular email with news, a reminder, or a relevant offer keeps the contact alive between purchases, not just at the moment someone happens to remember the company on their own.

This is a general principle, not a guarantee of a specific effect for your business: the result depends on your audience, frequency, and content, and it plays out differently for every company.

Frequently asked questions

How does an email newsletter differ from spam?

The key difference is consent. A promotional newsletter can only be sent to someone who agreed in advance to receive it, and the recipient must have a simple way to unsubscribe at any time. If emails arrive without consent and without a working unsubscribe, that’s a sign of spam, not a legitimate newsletter.

Do you need consent for every email newsletter, or only for promotional ones?

By the letter of the law, the prior-consent requirement applies specifically to advertising information. Transactional emails — an order confirmation, for example — fall into a different category, but we can’t say with certainty that consent is never required for them in any situation: it depends on the specific content of the email.

What is a preheader, and why write one?

A preheader is a short piece of text visible in the inbox right after the subject line, before the email is opened. It supports the subject and helps the recipient understand the email’s content without opening it — more in the «What a preheader is and how it works» section above.

Can you buy a ready-made list of email addresses for a newsletter?

No. People on such a list haven’t consented to receive email specifically from you, and the law requires the subscriber’s or addressee’s prior consent to receive advertising. Sending to a purchased list is a violation of that requirement, not a legitimate shortcut to building an audience quickly.

How often can you send newsletters without ending up in spam?

We didn’t find a precise frequency standard set by law or by email services, so we don’t give a number. In practice, a frequency that feels pushy to the recipient raises unsubscribe and spam-complaint rates — it makes sense to tune it to your own audience’s reaction rather than copying someone else’s example.