Service

Email, SMS and WhatsApp marketing

The channels you own outright — where the list is yours, delivery is not rented from an algorithm, and automation does the follow-up nobody has time for.

Discuss this work All services

Email, SMS and WhatsApp share one property that makes them structurally different from every paid channel: you own the audience. Nobody can change an algorithm and halve your reach overnight. That makes them the highest-return channels most businesses have, and also the ones most likely to be run casually — a newsletter when someone remembers, no segmentation, no automation, and a list slowly decaying.

The work here is mostly systems rather than copy. Sequences that trigger on behaviour, segmentation that reflects where someone actually is, and deliverability infrastructure that keeps messages out of spam.

Why this is worth doing properly

Deliverability has become the binding constraint. Google and Yahoo now enforce authentication requirements for bulk senders — SPF, DKIM, DMARC, one-click unsubscribe and a complaint rate held below a defined threshold — and a domain that fails them does not get warned, it gets filtered. A great many businesses have a technically broken sending setup and interpret the resulting silence as poor content.

The second change is regulatory divergence. Consent for commercial email is opt-in in the EU and in Canada, opt-out in most of the United States, and the penalties differ by orders of magnitude. Running one list under one set of assumptions across all three is the most common compliance exposure we find in marketing stacks.

WhatsApp has become a genuine commercial channel rather than a novelty, particularly in the Gulf and parts of southern Europe, but it operates on a template-approval and conversation-pricing model that is nothing like email. Treating it as SMS with pictures produces rejected templates and unexpected bills.

Where this work usually goes wrong

Sending from an unauthenticated domain

Missing or misconfigured SPF, DKIM and DMARC is the single most common cause of poor email performance, and it presents as low open rates rather than as an error. It is also, unusually, a problem that can be fully fixed in an afternoon.

Broadcasting to everyone

One message to the whole list produces complaints from the people it did not apply to, and complaint rate directly determines whether future messages reach the inbox. Segmentation is a deliverability control, not just a relevance nicety.

Never cleaning the list

Continuing to mail people who have not opened in a year suppresses delivery for everyone else. Removing them feels like shrinking the asset and usually increases the number of humans who actually see your messages.

Automation with no exit

A nurture sequence that keeps sending after someone has replied, bought or asked to stop is the fastest way to make a brand feel automated in the worst sense. Every sequence needs suppression rules written before it goes live.

Applying one consent standard globally

A list built under United States opt-out norms cannot lawfully be mailed into Canada under CASL or into the EU under the GDPR. Consent provenance has to be recorded per contact, not assumed for the list.

What this covers

Email marketing strategy: Which programmes to run, to which segments, at what cadence, and what each is meant to produce.
Newsletter creation: A recurring publication with a reason to exist beyond staying in touch.
Email campaign management: Build, test, send and report on one-off campaigns and launches.
Automated email sequences: Behaviour-triggered flows with entry conditions, exit conditions and suppression rules defined up front.
Lead-nurturing campaigns: Long-cycle sequences that stay useful across a B2B buying process rather than pushing for a meeting weekly.
Customer onboarding sequences: The messages that decide whether a new customer reaches value before they lose interest.
Abandoned-cart automation: Recovery flows with the timing and incentive structure tested rather than copied from a template.
Customer reactivation campaigns: Win-back programmes for lapsed customers, including the decision to stop mailing those who do not respond.
SMS campaigns: Short, time-sensitive messaging where the cost per message justifies the immediacy.
WhatsApp Business automation: Template messages, session handling and conversation routing through the official Business API.
Automated reminders: Appointment, renewal and payment reminders, which are frequently the highest-return automation a business can build.
Promotions and follow-up messages: Offer campaigns with the margin arithmetic checked before they run.
Audience segmentation: Segments based on behaviour and lifecycle stage rather than on whatever fields happen to exist.
Personalised customer communication: Personalisation driven by real CRM data, used where it changes relevance rather than to insert a first name.
Campaign analytics: Delivery, engagement and revenue per programme, with deliverability health tracked as a first-class metric.

How the work runs

The delivery sequence for email, sms & whatsapp marketing, in order. Each phase is described below.

Fix deliverability first
SPF, DKIM and DMARC verified, a dedicated sending subdomain configured, one-click unsubscribe implemented, and complaint and bounce rates checked against the thresholds the major inbox providers enforce. There is no point writing better emails into a filtered channel.
Audit consent and provenance
How each contact joined the list, when, and under which jurisdiction’s rules. Contacts without defensible consent are separated rather than quietly mailed.
Clean and segment
Suppress the disengaged, define segments by behaviour and lifecycle stage, and connect segmentation to CRM data so it stays current without manual work.
Build the automated programmes
Onboarding, nurture, reactivation and reminders, each with entry and exit conditions, suppression rules and a defined success measure. Automation is built before broadcast campaigns because it runs indefinitely without further cost.
Layer SMS and WhatsApp deliberately
Added only where immediacy justifies the cost and the intrusion, with separate consent captured for each channel rather than inherited from an email opt-in.
Report and prune
Programme-level reporting on revenue and deliverability health, with underperforming sequences switched off rather than left running.

What you receive

Deliverability audit and authentication configuration
Consent and provenance audit
List cleaning and segmentation model
Automated sequences with suppression rules
Campaign templates in your brand system
WhatsApp template set submitted and approved
CRM integration and field mapping
Programme-level reporting with deliverability health

You probably need this if

Open rates fell and nobody knows why.
You have a list of thousands and mail it three times a year.
There is no automated follow-up after a form fill.
You are mailing EU or Canadian contacts collected under US assumptions.
Nobody can say which sequence produced which revenue.

What we build and work with

Platform choice matters less than the plumbing around it. We work with what you have unless it genuinely cannot do the job.

SPF, DKIM and DMARC: Authentication configured and monitored, with DMARC moved to enforcement once reporting confirms it is safe.
Dedicated sending subdomain: Marketing mail sent from a subdomain so a reputation problem cannot take your transactional and corporate email down with it.
Klaviyo, Brevo or HubSpot: Chosen against your actual requirements — e-commerce behavioural data, B2B CRM integration, or cost at volume — rather than by default.
WhatsApp Business API: Official API access through a business solution provider, with template submission and conversation-based pricing understood before launch.
SMS gateway: A provider with proper sender registration for each destination country, since unregistered sender IDs are filtered in many markets.
CRM integration: Two-way sync so segmentation reflects pipeline reality and replies are visible to sales.
Deliverability monitoring: Inbox placement, complaint rate and bounce monitoring tracked continuously, not investigated after a drop.

What changes once this is in place

Messages reach the inbox: Authentication and list hygiene fixed, which for most businesses is a larger improvement than any change to the writing.
Follow-up happens without anyone remembering: Automated sequences handle the nurture and reminder work that otherwise depends on someone having a spare afternoon.
Consent is defensible per contact: Provenance recorded against each record, so mailing into the EU, Canada or the Gulf is a decision rather than a gamble.
Fewer, better-targeted sends: Segmentation reduces volume and raises response, while lowering the complaint rate that governs future delivery.
Revenue attributable per programme: Each sequence reports its own contribution, so unproductive automation gets switched off rather than accumulating.

How this differs by market

The work is the same craft everywhere. What changes is the law, the language and the buying culture — and those change enough to matter.

European Union

The GDPR and the ePrivacy rules require prior opt-in for marketing email to individuals, with a narrow soft opt-in for existing customers on similar products. Consent must be recorded with a timestamp and the wording shown, and pre-ticked boxes are not consent. Withdrawal has to be as easy as giving it.

Nordics

National implementations add local detail on top of the EU baseline, and marketing authorities in Norway and Denmark have been willing to enforce. Business-to-business email is treated more permissively than consumer email in several Nordic markets, but the distinction is narrower than most senders assume and should be checked rather than relied on.

United States and Canada

CAN-SPAM in the United States is opt-out: you may send until someone unsubscribes, provided the message is honestly headed and carries a physical address. Canada’s CASL is the opposite and among the strictest regimes anywhere, requiring express or clearly documented implied consent, with substantial penalties. SMS in the United States is governed by the TCPA, which requires express written consent and has produced significant class-action exposure.

United Arab Emirates

WhatsApp carries commercial weight in the UAE that it does not in northern Europe, and for many audiences it outperforms email outright. Sender registration and content rules apply to SMS, and marketing messages are subject to national telecommunications regulation. Arabic and English versions should be authored separately.

Not legal advice. Regulatory summaries on this site describe how we scope and build, and are current to our latest review. Verify the operative text with qualified counsel in the relevant jurisdiction before relying on it.

How we know it worked

We report revenue per programme, not open rate. Open tracking has been unreliable since Apple Mail Privacy Protection began pre-fetching images, and treating it as a primary metric produces confident conclusions from a corrupted signal. Clicks, replies and attributed revenue are what we manage against.

Deliverability health is reported alongside performance every period: complaint rate, bounce rate, authentication status and inbox placement where we can measure it. A rising complaint rate is the leading indicator of a channel about to stop working.

For automated sequences we report contribution over the period rather than at send time, because a nurture flow that produces a meeting in month four is doing its job even though the immediate click rate looked unremarkable.

Estimates are labelled as estimates. Any figure on this site that describes a range is a planning estimate with its assumptions stated, not a measured client outcome. We do not publish client results without the client's permission and a date.

Questions

Can you help us buy a list?

No. Purchased lists are unlawful to mail under the GDPR and CASL, destroy sender reputation, and produce complaint rates that damage delivery for the contacts who did opt in. We will help you build a list instead.

Why did our open rates drop off a cliff?

Most often either an authentication problem or Apple Mail Privacy Protection changing how opens are recorded. Both are diagnosable quickly, and the first is fixable. We would check authentication before touching the content.

What does it cost?

Quoted against the number of programmes, channels and markets in scope. Platform licence costs are yours and paid directly to the vendor; we do not resell software at a markup.

Do we need SMS and WhatsApp as well as email?

Only where immediacy earns the extra cost and intrusion — appointment reminders, delivery updates, time-limited offers. Adding them for the sake of channel coverage generally increases unsubscribes without increasing revenue.

How long until we see revenue?

Automated sequences typically show measurable contribution within four to eight weeks of going live, because they run continuously against new entrants. Deliverability repairs can improve results faster than that, sometimes within a single send cycle.

Who owns the list and the platform account?

You do. The account is registered to your organisation and the list is exportable at any time. We will not hold a client list in an agency account.

Related services

CRM & Sales Systems

The system of record for revenue: where leads land, how they are routed, what happens next, and whether anyone can see the truth of the pipeline.

Digital Marketing

The layer above the channels: what the funnel is, which campaigns run, what each is meant to produce, and whether it did.

Business Process Automation

Removing the manual steps between systems — the copying, re-typing, chasing and exporting that consumes hours nobody counts.

AI Voice & Customer Communication

Answering and making calls at volume, with a fast route to a human and a transcript of everything that was said.

Sectors where this is usually the lead engagement

These are the industries where this discipline is typically the first thing a client buys rather than something added later. The link goes to a page written for that sector specifically, with a paragraph on this service and on every other one.

Hospitality & Hotels — A sector where the OTAs supply the volume and take the margin, and where every system decision has to survive a season.
Travel & Tourism — Long research cycles, multilingual audiences, and package regulation that turns a bundled booking into a legal obligation.
Fitness & Wellness — A subscription business where churn decides everything and January decides the year.
Nonprofits & Associations — Retention economics identical to a subscription business, budgets that must be defended to a board, and systems that have to work for volunteers.
Restaurants & Food Service — Margins measured in single percentage points, delivery platforms taking a third, and allergen data that is a legal obligation rather than a menu detail.

It appears on all thirty sector pages, because every one of them carries a paragraph on all twenty-two services. This list names only the sectors where it tends to lead.

Where we deliver this

This service is delivered across the European Union, the Nordic countries, North America and the United Arab Emirates. The craft does not change; the law, the language and the buying culture do. Consent regimes, invoicing mandates and payment conventions differ enough between markets that a campaign or a system built for one frequently cannot be used unchanged in another.

Each country page sets out what actually differs there and what it means for scope — all 32 countries and 10 cities are listed here. A few of the markets we work in most:

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