At 55, Email Is Vital for Marketers

Email turned 55 this month. Despite its age, the messaging technology remains vital for ecommerce. It’s one of the few owned media channels a store has.

1971 was a notable year in technology. Intel introduced the first microprocessor. Bell Labs released the Unix operating system. IBM created the floppy disk.

And Ray Tomlinson, an American software engineer, invented email that year while working at BBN Technologies. He chose the now-familiar “@” symbol for addresses and sent the first message on April 23.

Fast forward to 2026, and email offers a direct connection between a business and its audience of customers.

Owned Media

That direct connection is especially important in an AI world. Many of the online channels sellers use to reach their prospects are changing. Ecommerce product discovery is shifting toward AI-driven search, AI recommendations, and agentic shopping.

At its most basic, “email is a way to connect party A to party B,” said Adam Rosen, CEO of the Email Outreach Company.

Advertising is a relationship by proxy. Algorithms decide visibility on social platforms and organic search results. Email lists, by contrast, are owned, providing control, consistency, and a reliable way to reach customers.

Rosen described the email newsletters his company operates as “direct” marketing, though it owns the subscribers. Nonetheless, email newsletters can attract an audience, keep it engaged, and convert it into sales.

The idea is to focus on a topic related to the products a store sells.

Get the Newsletter

Ecommerce marketers have three primary ways to build a newsletter audience.

• Start from scratch. Select an email service provider, develop content, and control every aspect of the newsletter — owned media, in other words.

• Build it, but with help. Rosen’s company and similar services can provide their own subscribers to help launch a newsletter.

• Buy an established newsletter. Several sites, such as LetterTrader, Flippa, and Acquire.com, offer newsletters for sale.

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Grow the Audience

Not surprisingly, the hardest part of developing an email sales channel is building the audience. Acquisition is not necessarily organic.

Rosen, for example, said much of his subscriber growth comes from advertising.

Common tactics include sponsoring other newsletters, running ads on Meta or LinkedIn, and using recommendation networks such as SparkLoop. There are even newsletter growth agencies, including GrowLetter, The Feed Media, and Boletin Growth.

Yet ecommerce companies already advertise to drive immediate sales. Why allocate budget to newsletter growth?

The choice comes down to revenue per subscriber. Marketers who choose subscriber growth bet that newsletters in the long haul will generate more profit.

Engagement is the key.

Newsletter content must match the audience’s interests and expectations. A golf newsletter should appeal to golfers. A travel newsletter should reflect how travelers think and plan. Formats can vary. Some audiences respond to short blurbs and images. Others prefer longer, text-driven analysis.

Regardless, each issue delivers content alongside links to products or offers. Over time, the pattern becomes familiar. Readers come to expect both useful information and relevant recommendations. Merchants sell more products more often.