Email marketing is a form of direct marketing which uses electronic mail as a means of communicating commercial or fundraising messages to an audience. In its broadest sense, every email sent to a potential or current customer could be considered email marketing. However, the term is usually used to refer to:

    * Sending emails with the purpose of enhancing the relationship of a merchant with its current or old customers and to encourage customer loyalty and repeat business.
    * Sending emails with the purpose of acquiring new customers or convincing old customers to buy something immediately.
    * Adding advertisements in emails sent by other companies to their customers.
    * Emails that are being sent on the Internet (Email did and does exist outside the Internet, Network Email, FIDO etc.)

 Advantages

    * The advantage of a mailing list is clearly the ability to distribute information to a wide range of specific, potential customers at a relatively low cost.
    * Compared to other media investments such as direct mail or printed newsletters, it is less expensive.
    * An exact Return on investment can be tracked ("track to basket") and has proven to be high when done properly. Email marketing is often reported as second only to search marketing as the most effective online

marketing tactic

    * It is instant, as opposed to a mailed advertisement, an email arrives in a few seconds or minutes.
    * It lets the advertiser "push" the message to its audience, as opposed to a website that waits for customers to come in.
    * It is easy to track. An advertiser can track users via web bugs, bounce messages, un-subscribes, read-receipts, click-throughs, etc. These can be used to measure open rates, positive or negative responses, correlate sales with marketing
    * Advertisers generate repeat business affordably and automatically
    * Advertisers can reach substantial numbers of email subscribers who have opted in (consented) to receive email communications on subjects of interest to them
    * Over half of Internet users check or send email on a typical day.[3]
    * Specific types of interaction with messages can trigger other messages to be automatically delivered.
    * Specific types of interaction with messages can trigger other events such as updating the profile of the recipient to indicate a specific interest category.
    * Green - email marketing is paper-free

 CAN-SPAM compliance

Because the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 authorizes a USD 11,000 penalty per violation for spamming each individual recipient, many commercial email marketers within the United States utilize a service or special software that helps ensure compliance with the Act. A variety of older systems exist which do not ensure compliance with the

Act. To comply with the Act's regulation of commercial email, services typically: require users to authenticate their return address and include a valid physical address, provide a one-click unsubscribe feature, and prohibit importing lists of purchased addresses which may not have given valid permission.

In addition to satisfying legal requirements, service providers stepped in to help customers to set up and manage their own email marketing campaigns. The services provide email templates, automatically handle subscriptions and removals, and generate statistics on how many messages were received and opened, and whether the recipients clicked on any links within the messages.