A promotional email is a message sent to promote your products, services, offers or brand, such as a sale announcement, a new product launch or a newsletter featuring things to buy. It is marketing, as opposed to a transactional or service email such as an order confirmation or a password reset.
How promotional emails work
Promotional emails are sent from your email service provider either as campaigns, one-off sends to all or part of your list, or as automated messages triggered by behaviour, such as an abandoned basket reminder. A typical campaign has a clear offer or story, a subject line and preview text that set it up, one main call to action, and a footer with your business details and an unsubscribe link.
The line between promotional and transactional is about purpose, not format. An order confirmation that also pushes a discount on other products has a promotional element. A “we miss you” email is promotional even with no offer in it, because its aim is to bring someone back to buy.
Why it matters
For UK businesses, two sets of rules apply. PECR treats promotional email as direct marketing. To send it to individuals, including sole traders and some partnerships, you need their consent, or you must meet the soft opt-in conditions for existing customers. Every message must identify you and include a working way to opt out. Staff addresses at limited companies are treated more leniently, but the identification and opt-out rules still apply.
The content falls under the CAP Code, which the Advertising Standards Authority enforces. Prices must be accurate and, when you sell to consumers, include VAT; savings claims need a genuine basis; and “ends tonight” must be true. Consumer protection law, enforced by the CMA and Trading Standards, adds rules against misleading pricing and false urgency, such as countdown timers that quietly reset.
Commercially, promotional email is one of the few channels you own outright. You do not pay per click, and you are not at the mercy of a social platform’s feed. But every send spends a little goodwill, so frequency and relevance decide whether the list keeps working.
Common mistakes
- Sending promotions to customers who only agreed to service emails, or who opted out at checkout.
- Mailing the whole list with every offer instead of using email segmentation to send each group what it is likely to want.
- Prices shown to consumers without VAT, or a “was” price the product was never genuinely sold at.
- Subject lines that overstate the offer, with the catch hidden in small print.
- An email built as one large image, which is hard to read on a phone, invisible when images are blocked and poor for accessibility.
How to act on it
Check who is on your marketing list and on what basis: consent or soft opt-in. Keep service-only contacts out of promotional sends. Then plan a sending calendar that matches how often your customers actually buy, rather than how often you would like them to.
Before each send, check every claim: prices, dates, stock and terms. Keep promotional content out of your transactional emails unless the recipient can receive marketing. Measure results by clicks, sales and unsubscribes per send rather than opens alone. Planning a promotional calendar and the measurement behind it is part of my digital marketing strategy and consulting work.