A special anniversary for the EMM
Posted: Thu Jan 30, 2025 8:48 am
We are celebrating a very special anniversary: exactly 20 years ago to the day – on July 7, 2000 – the first paid customer mailing was successfully sent using the AGNITAS E-Marketing Manager (EMM) . This not only made AGNITAS the first German email marketing provider in terms of its founding date, we were also the first to launch our email marketing software and can look back on 20 years of sending emails using the EMM.
Just under a year after Martin Aschoff founded the company in May 1999, the time had come - the software was fully functional and the first customer had already been found. At that time, email marketing was still completely new territory in Germany. It is therefore all the more remarkable that the first mailing sent using the EMM was sent to 384,722 recipients. The company addCom, which later became known as Tiscali, was an Internet service provider and therefore had a customer base that was particularly keen on email. Nevertheless, addCom was a pioneer in the field of sending emails for marketing purposes, because it was not foreseeable how customers would accept the new communication channel. The current success and importance of email as a medium is partly due to the pioneering spirit of the first customers.
We are therefore particularly pleased that our client at the time – Mr. Julian Riedlbauer, now partner and head of the global tech investment company GP Bullhound – was available for an interview with our board member Martin Aschoff and gave us a unique insight into his expectations and reasons for this decision.
Interview with our first customer
Conversation between Martin Aschoff and Julian Riedlbauer
Martin Aschoff:
Mr. Riedlbauer, exactly 20 years ago the first paid email was sent using our software and as a client you were a pioneer in email marketing. What prompted you to take this step and conquer “new territory”?
Julian Riedlbauer:
On the one hand, I have a great interest in electronic communication due to my own IT and technology background. On the other hand, I was interested in how our recipients would react to this form of advertising.
Since email marketing was still in its infancy in Germany at that time, I had reasonable hopes that our campaigns would receive the necessary attention.
Martin Aschoff:
Did you have any concerns at the time about how people would receive an email and how they might react to it?
What feelings did you associate with the decision?
Julian Riedlbauer:
No, I wasn't worried. The company I worked for at the time, addCom (later Tiscali), was an Internet service provider. So we expected that our customers would be very keen on emails.
We also sent emails in HTML format from the start, which was completely new at the time and which customers were pleasantly surprised by the visual aspect. I was primarily curious, especially since customer reactions such as openings, clicks and unsubscribes could be measured precisely. No other medium offered this.
Martin Aschoff:
What were your hopes for the email and were your expectations fulfilled?
Julian Riedlbauer:
The hope was to create a new, cost-effective and interactive communication channel with our customers and thereby establish more intensive contact. This has been confirmed.
The email newsletters sent to customers have contributed greatly to customer loyalty and retention. Even back then, we offered recipients the opportunity to individually compile the topics they wanted for the newsletter. Incidentally, today, 20 years later, this is still not standard practice for many providers!
Martin Aschoff:
Did you already suspect back then how successful dominican-republic number dataset email would be in marketing?
Julian Riedlbauer:
Absolutely. I entered the industry in 1991 selling high-speed modems and have since then witnessed the rise of email as a medium. It was clear to me that email was unstoppable.
Martin Aschoff:
At that time, AGNITAS was still a small startup and you were a representative of a successful company. How did you experience working with AGNITAS?
Julian Riedlbauer:
addCom was also a startup in 2000. Therefore, the cooperation was operationally on an equal footing and characterized by an extremely high speed of implementation.
Our ideas for features, such as the aforementioned individual compilation of newsletter content, were implemented by AGNITAS within days and we were able to put them into operation. This dynamic and the subsequent success were a great joy for both sides.
Martin Aschoff:
If you compare emails from back then with emails today, we think a lot has changed. Do you agree? Do you think the medium is already mature or do you think it has the potential to develop further?
Julian Riedlbauer:
Essentially, email has remained a channel through which I can reach practically anyone in the world. But of course there are many more emails, and their design is often much more complex. But some providers could put more work into the content, because although the appearance ensures that the recipient engages with the newsletter, the content decides whether he or she sticks with it or unsubscribes.
Therefore, I still see potential in individualizing email content for each recipient.
But there is still a lot that could be done on the technological side. The decisive factor here is that the manufacturers of email clients are willing to work together to develop and approve new standards. On the sender side, there is certainly a great deal of interest and willingness to integrate new options for more interactivity.
Just under a year after Martin Aschoff founded the company in May 1999, the time had come - the software was fully functional and the first customer had already been found. At that time, email marketing was still completely new territory in Germany. It is therefore all the more remarkable that the first mailing sent using the EMM was sent to 384,722 recipients. The company addCom, which later became known as Tiscali, was an Internet service provider and therefore had a customer base that was particularly keen on email. Nevertheless, addCom was a pioneer in the field of sending emails for marketing purposes, because it was not foreseeable how customers would accept the new communication channel. The current success and importance of email as a medium is partly due to the pioneering spirit of the first customers.
We are therefore particularly pleased that our client at the time – Mr. Julian Riedlbauer, now partner and head of the global tech investment company GP Bullhound – was available for an interview with our board member Martin Aschoff and gave us a unique insight into his expectations and reasons for this decision.
Interview with our first customer
Conversation between Martin Aschoff and Julian Riedlbauer
Martin Aschoff:
Mr. Riedlbauer, exactly 20 years ago the first paid email was sent using our software and as a client you were a pioneer in email marketing. What prompted you to take this step and conquer “new territory”?
Julian Riedlbauer:
On the one hand, I have a great interest in electronic communication due to my own IT and technology background. On the other hand, I was interested in how our recipients would react to this form of advertising.
Since email marketing was still in its infancy in Germany at that time, I had reasonable hopes that our campaigns would receive the necessary attention.
Martin Aschoff:
Did you have any concerns at the time about how people would receive an email and how they might react to it?
What feelings did you associate with the decision?
Julian Riedlbauer:
No, I wasn't worried. The company I worked for at the time, addCom (later Tiscali), was an Internet service provider. So we expected that our customers would be very keen on emails.
We also sent emails in HTML format from the start, which was completely new at the time and which customers were pleasantly surprised by the visual aspect. I was primarily curious, especially since customer reactions such as openings, clicks and unsubscribes could be measured precisely. No other medium offered this.
Martin Aschoff:
What were your hopes for the email and were your expectations fulfilled?
Julian Riedlbauer:
The hope was to create a new, cost-effective and interactive communication channel with our customers and thereby establish more intensive contact. This has been confirmed.
The email newsletters sent to customers have contributed greatly to customer loyalty and retention. Even back then, we offered recipients the opportunity to individually compile the topics they wanted for the newsletter. Incidentally, today, 20 years later, this is still not standard practice for many providers!
Martin Aschoff:
Did you already suspect back then how successful dominican-republic number dataset email would be in marketing?
Julian Riedlbauer:
Absolutely. I entered the industry in 1991 selling high-speed modems and have since then witnessed the rise of email as a medium. It was clear to me that email was unstoppable.
Martin Aschoff:
At that time, AGNITAS was still a small startup and you were a representative of a successful company. How did you experience working with AGNITAS?
Julian Riedlbauer:
addCom was also a startup in 2000. Therefore, the cooperation was operationally on an equal footing and characterized by an extremely high speed of implementation.
Our ideas for features, such as the aforementioned individual compilation of newsletter content, were implemented by AGNITAS within days and we were able to put them into operation. This dynamic and the subsequent success were a great joy for both sides.
Martin Aschoff:
If you compare emails from back then with emails today, we think a lot has changed. Do you agree? Do you think the medium is already mature or do you think it has the potential to develop further?
Julian Riedlbauer:
Essentially, email has remained a channel through which I can reach practically anyone in the world. But of course there are many more emails, and their design is often much more complex. But some providers could put more work into the content, because although the appearance ensures that the recipient engages with the newsletter, the content decides whether he or she sticks with it or unsubscribes.
Therefore, I still see potential in individualizing email content for each recipient.
But there is still a lot that could be done on the technological side. The decisive factor here is that the manufacturers of email clients are willing to work together to develop and approve new standards. On the sender side, there is certainly a great deal of interest and willingness to integrate new options for more interactivity.