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Email and newsletters from first principles

The only channel you own outright — and the one with the strictest rules. Deliverability, authentication, list health and newsletter economics, in the order they matter.

8 modules · about 61 minutes end to end · free, no signup

Before you start

Written for someone sending email to a list they are responsible for, whether that is a product lifecycle programme or a newsletter. No assumptions about technical background; the DNS parts are explained from scratch.

Foundations

How the system actually works, before any tactics.

  1. 01Why email is differentWhat do you get from email that no platform channel can give you?
  2. 02How email actually gets deliveredWhat happens between pressing send and landing in an inbox?

Core mechanics

The levers you will actually pull, and what each one moves.

  1. 03Authentication: SPF, DKIM and DMARCWhat are these three records, and what breaks when they are wrong?
  2. 04Building a list you are allowed to mailWhere does a good list come from, and what makes one legally and practically bad?
  3. 05Lifecycle and segmentationWho should get this, and when?
  4. 06Writing a newsletter people openWhat makes someone open the next one?

Working like a practitioner

Diagnosis: what to do when the numbers move and nobody knows why.

  1. 07Diagnosing a deliverability problemOpens fell off a cliff. What do you check, and in what order?

The frontier

What is changing now — the part the daily feed keeps updating.

  1. 08Privacy, AI and the inboxWhat is changing about measurement and about the inbox itself?