Types of Marketing Emails: Why One Mailing Is Not Enough
Marketing emails come in four types, each with its own job. See what each type does and why a mailing built on one type leaves tasks unsolved.
EMAIL MARKETING
10/15/20261 min read
Many companies run one kind of mailing: an email with news or promotions on a schedule. One email takes on all the tasks at once and copes badly with each.
In email marketing there are four types of marketing emails, and each has its own task.
The Four Types of Marketing Emails
A regular informational mailing comes out on a schedule and gives the subscriber useful or interesting information. Its tasks: to retain subscribers, to build loyalty, to announce offers, products and services.
Event emails are tied to an occasion, for example to the subscriber’s birthday or to the opening of a new direction. Their tasks: loyalty and advertising.
Service emails are sent in response to a person’s action: an order confirmation, a link to a requested material. They pass on information the person asked for himself, and at the same time leave room for advertising.
Promotional emails make a direct offer: a promotion or a sale. Their only task, advertising.
Advertising is present in all four types, simply in different forms. In explicit form it is present only in promotional emails.
Why One Type Is Not Enough
Event and service emails usually go out automatically, on a person’s action or on a date. Omnisend analyzed data from 150 thousand online stores for 2025: automated emails made up 2% of sends but brought 30% of email revenue. Per send they earned 16 times more than scheduled emails.
This example shows what is bad about a mailing made of one type of email. A subscriber who receives only scheduled emails does not receive emails that arrive at the moment when he has already shown interest. Such emails are read more willingly.
How to Check Your Own Mailing
Check your mailing: how many of the four types of marketing emails does it have? Every missing type means a task that your mailing has nothing to solve with. This article lists the four types. Building each one is a separate topic.
Sources
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Email marketing strategy and deliverability consulting.