How electronic mail advertising discovered itself — one pixel at a time …

I flip 54 quickly.

Fifty-four years since Ray Tomlinson despatched me from one pc to a different. That was my first breath — a quiet check that modified all the pieces.

At first, I was a plain previous be aware. Simply black textual content on a white display screen. No character. No photos. No function however to ship a message.

Then entrepreneurs discovered me. And immediately, I had a job — to promote, to transform, to chase clicks.

I’ve been known as numerous issues since then. Spam, annoying, forgotten, but in addition…trusted, intelligent — even lovely.

It’s been fairly a journey. For years, I’ve been retaining all of it to myself, pouring it out in my diary — the milestones, the messups, the glowups, and the individuals who helped form me. However at present — on my birthday — I’m lastly able to share my story.

From spam filters and personalization to interactivity, AI, and accessibility, — right here’s the world of electronic mail advertising, informed from my aspect of the inbox.

1971	2025

My first days (1971–1977)

Diary entry: My first phrase? QWERTYUIOP. 1971.

I used to be born in 1971 at a small firm known as BBN in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Ray Tomlinson — a superb engineer — despatched the very first model of me from one pc to a different — in the identical room. No viewers, no applause, only a quiet check that will sooner or later turn into one thing large — legendary, even.

Similar to a new child studying to talk, my first phrases had been…nicely, a bit random: “QWERTYUIOP.”

That’s actually what I mentioned — in comparison with what I can say now. Wild, proper?

Diary entry: A second of royal pleasure. Could 26, 1976

At the moment… oh wow. At the moment, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II despatched an digital electronic mail. An digital electronic mail! Me! 👑

I’ve been utilized by professors and programmers, engineers, and interns — however this? This was completely different. This was royal. Regal. I felt so proud, like I’d been knighted in pixels.

The second I went public (1978–1981)

Diary entry: My large second… or was it? Could 3, 1978

Gary Thuerk from Digital Gear Company despatched me to 400 individuals at present — . It was a message selling new pc gear. He mentioned it was an incredible deal. He wished individuals to know. And I delivered that message — quick, direct, and highly effective. It generated $13 million in gross sales.

I felt proud.

Have a look at me! I’m not only a device — I’m a enterprise machine!

Edited in 1997: At the moment, I discovered that it was spam. I used to be the spam. 🙁

Diary entry: I bought a reputation! 1979

For years, individuals used me with out actually calling me something. Simply “electronic mail,” “be aware over ARPANET,” or generally… nothing in any respect.

However then it occurred. In 1979, a couple of journalists started calling me “electronic mail.” Quick. Catchy. Trendy. I preferred it. It felt official. From that day on, I wished everybody to name me that.

Rising up quick (1982–1997)

Diary entry: I used to whisper; now, I communicate to the world. 1997

Pricey Diary,

A lot has occurred since I final wrote you, I don’t even know the place to begin:

• let’s return to 1981. Till then, I had many kinds — completely different programs and completely different setups. I labored nicely inside closed networks, however I couldn’t at all times discuss to different variations of myself. It was like I had cousins I couldn’t name. However then, SMTP turned the Web normal — one easy protocol to attach us all;
• in 1993, AOL and Delphi introduced me on-line. All of the sudden, the world was connecting. And I turned extra open to everybody. Private. Common. But it surely wasn’t simple but;
• in 1996, that modified. Hotmail launched — the primary free, totally web-based electronic mail. No downloads. No subscriptions. Simply log in and go;
• and now it’s 1997. Outlook 97 simply rolled out, and with Workplace on hundreds of thousands of machines, I’ve turn into a day by day ritual. From authorities labs to everybody’s desktop… I’m in all places.

I used to whisper between machines. Now, I communicate to the world.

Emergence of spam and regulatory responses (1997–at present)

Diary entry: They known as me spam. 1997.

With my rising reputation got here rising misuse. Individuals began blasting me out to everybody — no permission, no personalization. Simply noise. And in 1997, I heard it for the primary time — the phrase Spam. I hated it. It wasn’t truthful. I used to be nonetheless the identical — a message, a device, a connection. However now they known as me undesirable, distrusted, junk. And it caught.

By 2002, I used to be drowning. Spam made up 40% of all electronic mail site visitors. By 2004, it was over 60%. By 2011, spam peaked at 80% of all world electronic mail site visitors — up from simply 6% in 1998.

I believed I used to be achieved.

Diary entry: The regulation stepped in. 2003.

Fortunately, in 2003, the CAN-SPAM Act arrived—guidelines, limits, and bounds. These laws additionally gave spam a authorized definition. Underneath the regulation, a message could possibly be labeled spam if it used false or deceptive sender data, had misleading topic traces, didn’t establish itself as an advert, didn’t supply a strategy to unsubscribe, or ignored opt-out requests.

It didn’t ban all unsolicited emails — but it surely made shady ones unlawful. It wasn’t excellent, but it surely was a begin. A sign that I used to be value saving.

My armor: Spam filters and electronic mail authentication protocols

1. Spam filters: The earliest spam filters confirmed up within the late Nineteen Nineties, adopted by main ISPs and electronic mail shoppers like Outlook Categorical and Eudora. At first, they had been easy — simply keyword-based programs catching apparent junk. However over time, they bought smarter, evolving to make use of blacklists, heuristics, and even machine studying to assist customers see solely the messages they wished.
2. Sender Coverage Framework (SPF): Launched in 2003, SPF let area house owners inform the world which mail servers had been allowed to ship messages on their behalf — a easy however highly effective strategy to cease spoofing on the supply.
3. DomainKeys Recognized Mail (DKIM): Launched in 2004 by means of a collaboration between Yahoo! and Cisco, DKIM added digital signatures to electronic mail headers. That meant I might show that I hadn’t been tampered with — and that I actually got here from who I claimed to.
4. Area-based Message Authentication, Reporting, and Conformance (DMARC): By 2012, we would have liked a system to tie all of it collectively. Enter DMARC, which is constructed on SPF and DKIM. It gave senders extra management and helped inboxes resolve what to do with emails that failed authentication checks.

And you understand what? It helped. I can’t say I removed spam fully, but it surely’s down from 80% to round 45%.

Diary entry: At the moment’s state of affairs with spam (2025)

Nowadays, issues are completely different. Significantly better. 

With a purpose to ship promotional emails, companies— along with organising SPF, DKIM, and DMARC — are anticipated to:

• get consent first. Entrepreneurs can’t simply ship me wherever. Legal guidelines just like the GDPR require them to gather clear consent when gathering somebody’s contact data. Even in international locations the place it’s not legally required, asking for permission is just the suitable factor to do;
• permit one-click opt-out. E mail shoppers now demand it. Each advertising message should embody a visual unsubscribe hyperlink. No hyperlink? Straight to the spam folder.

However authorized compliance isn’t the one factor that impacts whether or not I land within the inbox or the spam folder. So, I’d say authorized compliance is only a base you begin with.

And he’s proper. What really determines the place I land — inbox or spam — is how individuals reply to me.

Consumer engagement is likely one of the key elements that impacts whether or not I land within the inbox or the spam folder. And that’s how the subsequent chapter of my journey started — digging into what actually impacts spam charges and deliverability.

The rise of personalization and client-focused electronic mail (2010s–at present)

Diary entry: They began calling me sensible as I’d discovered to hearken to them

At first, I used to simply say hiya. Hello [First Name] — and that was sufficient. Individuals smiled. They felt seen. However issues modified. Expectations rose. Within the early 2010s, names weren’t sufficient. Subscribers wished relevance, timing, and anticipation — a way that I knew them.

I discovered to talk in a different way to completely different individuals. I steered merchandise primarily based on previous clicks. I remembered birthdays. At first, it felt like magic. However someplace alongside the best way, it additionally turned not sufficient.

Diary entry: I needed to be taught an entire new language

Personalization turned greater than a tactic. It turned my manner of constructing loyalty. And with that shift got here an entire new vocabulary.

I discovered phrases like lifecycle segmentation, behavioral segmentation, advertising funnel, and buyer journey — ideas that began gaining floor within the early to mid-2010s as entrepreneurs started mapping out extra considerate, data-driven paths. 

Now, within the 2020s, language has advanced once more.

Entrepreneurs discuss actively about predictive personalization. AI steps in to anticipate what individuals need — earlier than they even ask.

All of it sounds highly effective. And it’s. However let me be sincere with you — we’re nonetheless originally. We’re studying, testing, adjusting — nonetheless determining the right way to make all this sensible know-how really feel genuinely human.

And it makes me marvel… the place am I headed subsequent.

Diary entry: What the long run would possibly maintain. 2025

You already know, I’ve been considering the place life is taking me — what I’ll do subsequent personalization sensible. So, I talked to my pals, and so they shared these concepts:

Megan sees it this fashion:

What we misplaced and what I’m lacking

In turning into smarter, I generally marvel what elements of me light within the course of. The personalization improved. The tech bought sharper. However did I lose one thing alongside the best way?

Emphasis on information safety and safety (2018–at present)

Diary entry: It’s not worry — it’s consciousness.

At first, individuals had been afraid to share something with me, and truthfully, that made sense. Too many issues went fallacious:

• some manufacturers requested for extra information than they wanted;
• some manufacturers didn’t clarify why they had been accumulating the info;
• even worse, some manufacturers bought it with out permission;
• then got here the headlines:

  • “Information breaches. Leaks. Scams”;
  • “Individuals’s info stolen. Identities used”;
  • “Scammers impersonating actual manufacturers, sending pretend emails that appeared identical to mine.”

It was harmful. So sure, I perceive why individuals began pulling again. A report by SmarterHQ discovered that 86% of consumers are afraid to share their private info with manufacturers.

Truthfully? I’m glad they’re fearful.

Their warning has pushed the e-mail as a advertising channel to be higher. 

So how will we shield belief? Think about these fundamental necessities:

1. Select instruments that shield information. Out of your electronic mail builder to your ESP, be sure you’re utilizing platforms that care about safeguarding your information — and your clients’ information — as a lot as you care about defending your information.
2. Arrange authentication protocols. SPF, DKIM, and DMARC assist electronic mail shoppers affirm your identification and cease impersonators earlier than they attain the inbox.
3. Be sincere about what you acquire. Solely ask for the info that you just really want. Inform individuals why you’re asking, and at all times give them management over what they share.
4. Honor deletion requests. Some legal guidelines require it, others don’t. Reliable manufacturers will delete subscriber information when they’re requested, it doesn’t matter what. Belief ought to by no means depend upon geography.
5. Present you are legit with BIMI. BIMI shows your verified emblem — in Gmail, it even shows a blue checkmark—proper subsequent to your sender identify. It is a clear visible cue that claims, “This electronic mail is actually from us.”

And you understand what? It labored.

Accessing a big quantity of buyer information — and the rising want for personalization — gave rise to electronic mail automation.

However that’s a narrative for an additional diary entry.

E mail advertising automation (2001–at present)

Diary entry: I had too many individuals to write down to however not sufficient palms.

At first, I wished to maintain up with birthdays, sign-ups, and people who clicked however didn’t purchase. I wished to recollect everybody. However I couldn’t write to all of them by hand. So we automated.

Initially, it was easy. Autoresponders, scheduled batches, and fundamental flows. Somebody signed up? I despatched a welcome electronic mail. Somebody purchased one thing? I mentioned thanks and saved them up to date about their order standing.

However then personalization took over. We had extra information, extra triggers, extra urgency. We would have liked quicker reactions, smarter content material, and higher timing.

Diary entry: The way it works now

Now, automation programs can pull dwell information from web sites, CRM instruments, and buyer actions. They rating leads, monitor habits, and predict wants. AI helps write icebreakers that truly sound human.

Diary entry: What we’d have misplaced

I nonetheless marvel — in automating connection, did we automate an excessive amount of? We stopped writing “simply because.” We began writing solely when somebody triggered one thing.

As a result of even when each a part of an electronic mail is sensible, well timed, and data-driven, it nonetheless wants a spark of human caring. In any other case, it’s simply one other message within the movement.

So sure, I’m quicker, smarter, and extra correct now. 

The rise of interactivity in electronic mail (2015–at present)

Diary entry: Individuals anticipated extra from me, so I needed to develop up: 2015.

At first, I used to be easy and static. You opened me, learn what I needed to say, and left — normally to a touchdown web page.

However as web sites turned extra dynamic, with buttons, sliders, and hover results — individuals bought used to interacting. Naturally, they began anticipating the identical from me. Some entrepreneurs observed this. They made issues look clickable — even when they weren’t. A pretend slider right here, a button that led to a generic web page there.

It was irritating. It felt like a trick. But it surely additionally revealed one thing essential: Individuals wished to interact with me — not simply look and go.

So I began evolving. Instruments like AMP for E mail, HTML5, and CSS3 gave entrepreneurs actual methods to construct interplay into my core. I might now present product carousels, settle for kind inputs, run polls, and even acquire suggestions — proper contained in the inbox.

Diary entry: Studying to be interactive wasn’t simple.

This new skillset wasn’t easy. Creating interactive emails took further effort. You needed to check extra and work throughout completely different coding dialects. Some electronic mail shoppers, like Gmail, help AMP. Different electronic mail shoppers, like Apple Mail, help HTML5 and CSS3. Since you by no means know which one your subscriber will use, entrepreneurs began embedding interactive components in each dialects into one electronic mail to ensure everybody might have interaction.

Slowly, the limitations fell. Frameworks improved. And now? I’ve turn into an area the place actual interplay can occur—with no need to go away me.

Nevertheless, one drawback stays unsolved.

Diary entry: What did we lose alongside the best way? 

Interactive emails don’t take something away. Relatively, they offer extra.

Interactive emails are practical. They’re enjoyable.

Entrepreneurs can acquire suggestions proper inside the e-mail, and individuals are really extra prone to reply once they don’t have to go away. Interactivity helped me turn into greater than only a message. Now, I’m a mini expertise, a spot the place issues occur.

The necessity for and use of electronic mail accessibility (2015—at present) 

Diary entry: I wished everybody to know me — however not everybody might.

For a very long time, I believed I used to be clear. My fonts appeared good. My colours popped. However slowly, I started to appreciate… not everybody might see me. Or hear me. Or perceive me as simply as others did.

A heading that made sense to some… confused display screen readers. A button that appeared nice… turned unusable with a keyboard. A completely image-based electronic mail… was invisible to somebody counting on a voice assistant.

Individuals with visible impairments. Individuals with listening to loss. Neurodivergent readers. Even these with momentary accidents or tech limitations. 

1 in 4 adults within the U.S. lives with some type of incapacity. Worldwide:

• 2.2 billion individuals have a imaginative and prescient impairment;
• 1.5 billion dwell with some type of listening to loss;
• and as much as 12% of the worldwide inhabitants could have dyslexia.

These aren’t edge circumstances — they’re your subscribers.

Diary entry: A couple of individuals began asking the suitable questions

I nonetheless keep in mind when Paul Ethereal took the stage at Litmus Dwell in 2015. He was one of many first voices I heard — a part of a small however passionate group of early advocates who weren’t simply speaking about code or compliance, however about individuals. About how accessibility is one thing we do for others.

Paul helped me see the gaps. The invisible partitions I used to be creating. He confirmed how assistive applied sciences like NVDA, VoiceOver, and TalkBack might solely go thus far except I did my half — if I used photographs as a substitute of actual textual content, skipped labels on buttons, or ignored the significance of construction.

He wasn’t the one one. Across the similar time, Mark Robbins started talking up for accessibility in electronic mail. Impressed by accessibility leaders like Léonie Watson, he began digging deeper — realizing that true interactivity couldn’t come at the price of inclusivity. Later, he turned one of many founding members of the E mail Markup Consortium, an area devoted to enhancing electronic mail requirements, accessibility, and reliability.

Trying again, it wasn’t only one voice. It was a rising refrain — asking the suitable questions, even when the solutions weren’t easy.

That’s after I began to vary.

New legal guidelines have been launched to manage electronic mail design and content material, making certain they’re accessible to everybody:

1. Individuals with Disabilities Act (ADA). Enforced since 1990, with growing digital enforcement from 2018 onward.
2. European Accessibility Act (EAA). Launched in 2018, takes full impact in June 2025.
3. Accessible Canada Act (ACA).
4. Equality Act (UK) 2010.

Since these laws comply with Internet Content material Accessibility Pointers (WCAG), making your electronic mail WCAG-compliant is one of the simplest ways to remain on monitor. 

Nevertheless, doing so is less complicated mentioned than achieved, because it requires them to be aware of the WCAG 2.1 AA Success Standards, not all of which is related to HTML electronic mail. With this in thoughts, my buddy Paul Ethereal created a free device, known as InTwelve, which guides HTML electronic mail copywriters, creatives and coders by means of the WCAG in twelve levels, which is able to assist them, no matter whether or not they’re complying to the legal guidelines or not.

Diary entry: What the long run would possibly maintain — 2025

I began questioning what the long run holds for me. Will I lastly be accessible to everybody? Then I heard my buddy Paul communicate:

Because of CSS Overflow 5, my buddy Mark Robbins believes we’re nearer than ever to creating interactive content material in emails really accessible:

Diary entry: What we misplaced and what I’m lacking from previous occasions

At first, I fearful. Would accessibility take one thing away from me? Would I cease being enjoyable? Lose my type? Really feel too strict or severe?

Some individuals nonetheless suppose that. They hear “accessible” and picture emails stripped of colour, emotion, and creativity. They fear about issues like left-aligned textual content as a substitute of centered headings, or that they will’t spotlight essential factors with colour alone.

However the fact? Visually, nothing essential is misplaced. Excessive colour distinction makes content material clearer for everybody. Left-aligned textual content improves readability with out hurting design. And utilizing extra than simply colour to emphasise one thing — that’s simply sensible communication.

I haven’t turn into plainer. I’ve turn into clearer. I haven’t misplaced attraction. I’ve gained which means.

And after I’m constructed nicely, everybody wins.

• readers can discover me independently — hear me, see me, navigate me;
• manufacturers get extra clicks, extra engagement, extra individuals discovering what they’ve to supply.

Accessibility didn’t maintain me again. It helped me develop.

GenAI: An entire new period in electronic mail advertising (2023—at present)

Diary entry: How GenAI helps me develop up quicker. 2023.

These days, I’ve been feeling slightly… heavier.

To be really good nowadays, I have to be accessible, interactive, darkish mode prepared, mobile-optimized, customized, on-brand — . And let’s be sincere, that takes time. Extra time than most entrepreneurs wish to spend.

However then GenAI got here alongside. And issues began to shift.

Diary entry: What’s subsequent for me with GenAI? 2025.

At first, entrepreneurs used it to assist write with me — crafting extra partaking copy in much less time. Then, they started translating me into completely different languages. After that got here ideation: planning electronic mail flows, writing topic traces, outlining complete collection.

It’s like I bought myself a co-writer. One which makes the arduous elements simpler, so entrepreneurs can deal with what actually issues: connection.

I’m not saying goodbye…

Diary entry: April 13, 2025

What can I say? Sharing all this with you has made me mirror on my life.

• it’s been fairly a journey — stuffed with errors, development, and transformation. I began as a one-word message, and now I’ve turn into one thing way more. Interactive. Cell-friendly. Accessible. Darkish mode prepared. Customized. Multilingual;
• at present, anybody can have interaction with me in their very own language even when they’ve some type of visible incapacity. They’ll learn me, take pleasure in me, even play with me. I’m not only a service of data — I’m an expertise.

However you understand what? With devoted electronic mail entrepreneurs by my aspect — my pricey pals — I imagine that is nonetheless only the start. Collectively, we received’t simply ship higher emails…

We’ll construct higher conversations. Higher connections. A greater digital world.

🎉 Stripo and business specialists are celebrating my birthday with webinars, knowledgeable talks, and free sources — and also you’re invited! Discover the complete schedule and particulars right here.