Email Marketers Hurt By GDPR Regulation

Email marketers are facing roadblocks due to a new regulation that requires consumers to opt in before additional emails can be sent to them. According to a report in CNBC, the rules are hurting the email marketing companies because consumers don’t even open the emails, let alone opt in.

According to the report, which cited Transparency Market Research, the email marketing industry is poised to be worth $22.16 billion by 2025 around the world. Of the companies in the market, 82 percent use email marketing.

“People are not opting back in,” said Michael Horn, the director of data science for digital marketing agency Huge. “It’s one thing for your customers who don’t have a relationship with the brand to decline and not respond, but you’re also losing a sales channel.” Huge found that roughly 38 percent of Americans ignore those emails and 23 percent have used them to unsubscribe.

Meanwhile, email marketing company PostUp estimated that only 25 to 30 percent of global recipients and only 15 to 20 percent of U.S. recipients are even opening the emails. “An email that says ‘privacy policy updates’ is never going to get opened,” said Keith Sibson, PostUp vice president of marketing and product. “You never read the terms and conditions when you sign up for some website. It depends a lot on how it’s being presented to the users and how important the sender is making it sound.”

Under GDPR, companies can send email to consumers who bought something from them, but when targeting non-consumers, they now have to ask permission before sending. Although the rules apply to European Union countries, EU citizens living abroad get the same coverage.