16 Email Marketing Business Success Stories [2023]

16 Email Marketing Business Success Stories [2023]
Start An Email Marketing Business

Email marketing is a popular and effective way for businesses to reach their target audience and promote their products or services.

With the rise of the internet and the increasing use of email as a communication tool, starting an email marketing business can be a lucrative and rewarding venture.

An email marketing business involves creating and sending marketing emails to a list of subscribers. The emails can be newsletters, promotional messages, or other types of content designed to engage and convert the recipient into a customer. The business owner is responsible for building and maintaining the email list, creating the content, and sending the emails using specialized software.

To start an email marketing business, you must have a strong understanding of marketing principles and a good grasp of best practices. This includes creating compelling subject lines, segmenting your email list, and analyzing your campaigns’ results. You will also need to be proficient in email marketing software like Mailchimp or Constant Contact.

To run a successful email marketing business, you must clearly understand your target audience and what they are interested in. This will help you create relevant and engaging content that resonates with your subscribers and encourages them to take action. A solid call to action in your emails is crucial, whether it’s visiting your website, making a purchase, or signing up for a newsletter. Starting an email marketing business requires marketing skills, expertise, and a willingness to learn and improve continuously. The right strategies and tools can be a rewarding and successful way to reach your target audience and grow your business.

Here are some real life success stories of starting a email marketing business:

1. GreenRope ($1.92M/year)

Lars Helgeson (from San Diego, California, USA) started GreenRope almost 15 years ago.

Revenue
$160K / month
Team
1 founders / 15 employees
Location
San Diego, California, USA

Case Study

My name is Lars Helgeson and I am the founder of GreenRope, a CRM and marketing automation platform. Our company started in 2000 as an email marketing SaaS and in 2008 decided to focus on the challenges that businesses face in managing sales, marketing, customer service, and operations.

GreenRope has over 1,000 customers in over 20 countries, ranging from startups to universities and municipalities.

on-starting-a-160k-month-crm-automations-company-after-a-us-air-force-career

2. Deebo ($48K/year)

Christian Di Bratto (from Toronto) started Deebo almost 3 years ago.

Revenue
$4K / month
Team
1 founders / 1 employees

Case Study

Learn more about starting an email marketing business:

Where to start?

-> How much does it cost to start an email marketing business?
-> Pros and cons of an email marketing business

Need inspiration?

-> Examples of established email marketing business
-> Marketing ideas for an email marketing business
-> Email marketing business slogans

Other resources

4. SupplyDrop ($96K/year)

Danavir Sarria (from Miami) started SupplyDrop about 3 years ago.

Revenue
$8K / month
Team
1 founders / 0 employees

Case Study

Hi, my name is Danavir Sarria and I’m an eCommerce marketing consultant. I run 3 businesses including SupplyDrop, Rooftop Squad, and DanavirSarria.com. The focus for this article is SupplyDrop, which I consider to be my “flagship” business.

Currently, we’re making $8,000/month on average. The agency has been a side project for the majority of the time it’s existed due to my other business ventures. But over the past few months, I’ve decided to triple down on SupplyDrop and we just had our biggest month yet (definitely more than $8,000/month!).

i-make-8k-month-handling-email-marketing-for-6-figure-ecommerce-brands

5. Taximail ($1.44M/year)

Phaiboon Trikanjananun (from Bangkok, Thailand) started Taximail almost 11 years ago.

Revenue
$120K / month
Team
1 founders / 60 employees

Case Study

Hi guys! My name is Phaiboon Trikanjananun and I’m the founder of Taximail, an email marketing, and automation platform. It is effective and suitable for all types of businesses. We are a Thailand-based service provider that delivers campaigns, newsletters, promotions, and benefits to more than 5,000 reputable organizations in Thailand. We have a global reach of customers and proudly keep on growing.

Taximail has grown tremendously since its inception. We are serving large-scale enterprises and SMEs.

i-built-a-1-4m-year-email-marketing-platform-based-in-thailand

6. Hustler Marketing ($2.4M/year)

Bostjan Belingar (from Remote) started Hustler Marketing over 4 years ago.

Revenue
$200K / month
Team
1 founders / 68 employees

Case Study

My name is Bostjan Belingar and I’ve started an Email Marketing Agency about 4 years ago. We’re specializing in email and SMS marketing for eCommerce stores. This means we take over a client’s customer list start sending out promotional messages and set up all the automated sequences for them.

from-a-hustle-house-of-3-in-barcelona-to-an-international-2-5million-agency-in-3-years

7. Add Value Agency ($360K/year)

Joachim Brouckaert (from Antwerpen, Belgium) started Add Value Agency almost 2 years ago.

Revenue
$30K / month
Team
1 founders / 4 employees

Case Study

Hi, my name is Joachim Brouckaert, I’m 24 years old and I started Add Value 1 year ago. Today, Add Value is a growth marketing agency. We’re focused on full-funnel marketing. Performance marketing, building landing pages, websites, funnels, email marketing flows. We do it all!

Currently, we are working with a team of 5 people for our customers and on our growth. But we are once again looking for an extra Growth Marketer! When we talk about turnover, we do an average of 30k per month. This fluctuates, as we sometimes take on larger, shorter projects. On average, we work for 18 active clients per month. Our retention is generally good, but short projects such as an analytics audit or building a website cause this number to fluctuate.

my-growth-marketing-agency-generated-360k-in-its-first-year-belgium

8. Boundless Labs ($99.6M/year)

Chase Dimond, David Bozin and Amelia Blackwell (from West Hollywood, CA, USA) started Boundless Labs almost 5 years ago.

Revenue
$8.3M / month
Team
3 founders / 2 employees
Location
West Hollywood, CA, USA

Case Study

Hello, my name is Chase Dimond and I am the Co-Founder of Boundless Labs. We are an email marketing agency that specializes in working with eCommerce brands. We currently work with 30 eCommerce brands that do anywhere from 6 to 8 figures in annual revenue.

We ended up bringing on our first full-time employee in Q3 of 2019 and started onboarding clients again. For the second half of 2019, our business grew by ~$12K per month and we’re now making ~$90K per month. We just recently hired our second full-time employee and anticipate we’ll be at $100K per month in revenue by the end of January 2020.

how-i-started-a-55k-month-email-marketing-agency-specialized-in-ecommerce

9. GMass, Inc. ($5.4M/year)

Ajay Goel (from Dayton, Ohio, USA) started GMass, Inc. over 7 years ago.

Revenue
$450K / month
Team
1 founders / 1 employees
Location
Dayton, Ohio, USA

Case Study

I’m Ajay! I created GMass, a platform to send cold emails and email marketing campaigns with Gmail. It works as a Chrome extension. Most of our customers are entrepreneurs and salespeople, but our customers really run the gamut from super small to the biggest tech companies in the world. Almost every major tech company you can think of uses GMass in some way, including Uber, Lyft, LinkedIn, Twitter, Indeed, Google, Salesforce.com, and Snapchat. Since I launched GMass in 2015, we’ve had over 500,000 user signups.

how-i-launched-a-200k-month-gmail-mail-merge-tool

10. Anachak Design ($84K/year)

Vathana Nguon (from Siem Reap, Cambodia) started Anachak Design over 7 years ago.

Revenue
$7K / month
Team
1 founders / 3 employees

Case Study

Hello, my name is Vathana Nguon and I am the founder of Anachak Design, a freelance Web Design Agency based in Cambodia. I started the company in 2015, my client list has included a broad range of companies from start-ups and big businesses. Here are some of the projects I have completed: Siem Reaper Travel, Tours By Jeeps, Ride & Rad - The Cycle Tour, etc.

I first launched my web design agency in 2015. I stumbled into beginning a business and I started with very low expectations and grew my business through old-fashioned methods like face-to-face marketing. With time, I began to receive a sufficient number of projects each month and hired my first three employees. Today I was able to generate $5,000 per month.

this-self-taught-wordpress-developer-started-an-84k-year-web-design-agency

11. iContact ($28.8M/year)

How does a wristband help a founder build a $169 million company? Ryan Allis is the founder of iContact, a provider of email marketing tools for small businesses. And a company that was recently sold for $169 million to Vocus. Here’s a quote from the last time I interviewed him, “we incorporated in…

Ryan Allis and Aaron Houghton (from Morrisville, NC, USA) started iContact over 20 years ago.

Revenue
$2.4M / month
Team
2 founders / 151 employees

Case Study

Ryan Allis and Aaron W. Houghton came together to build iContact, a provider of email marketing tools for small businesses.

Anyone can quickly learn email marketing tactics with iContact. Businesses can rapidly expand their customer base thanks to iContact’s user-friendly platform, adaptable templates, and the ability to create emails consistent with your brand.

Since 2003, small and medium-sized businesses worldwide have relied on iContact's best-in-class email marketing solutions and knowledgeable support team to deliver game-changing results. However, recently Vocus purchased this company for $169 million.

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Listen to the full podcast on podcasts.apple.com ➜

12. Keap ($100M/year)

I originally interviews Clate Mask after he had build Infusionsoft, a software that I felt revolutionized email marketing. Well, that company has grown massively since then and even changed names. It’s now called Keap. I want to find out about that and how Clate has grown a $100M dollar...

Clate Mask and Scott Martineau (from Chandler, Arizona, USA) started Keap about 22 years ago.

Revenue
$8.33M / month
Team
2 founders / 398 employees

Case Study
  • Keap was primarily founded in 2001 and back then the company used to be called Infusionsoft. The founders of Keap, Clate Mask and Scott Martineau, rebranded Infusionsoft in 2019.
  • Keap offers CRM and sales and marketing automation that can streamline any business process by integrating with more than 2,500 software applications.
  • At the moment, Keap has grown to become $100 million dollar company.
  • They now offer Max Classic, the original Infusionsoft product, Keap Lite, Pro, and Max. Currently, 60% to 70% of new customers buy the Pro product, though demand for their Lite product is also rising.

article

Listen to the full podcast on mixergy.com ➜

13. JumpX Growth ($18K/year)

One challenge that most new businesses face is the awareness problem – nobody knows you exist. To help erase this problem, I’ve invited Dustin Lien from JumpXmarketing.com back on the show. Dustin first appeared on episode 251 back in 2017. Back then, he was just ramping up JumpX after shutting do…

Dustin Lien (from Austin, Texas, USA) started JumpX Growth about 7 years ago.

Revenue
$1.5K / month
Team
1 founders / 2 employees

Case Study

Dustin Lien is the founder of an E-commerce Marketing Agency named JumpX Growth. He helps consumer brands with audience-focused marketing strategies to multiply their growth and build a strong customer base.

  • He’s grown the business into a 6-figure operation and only works part-time.
  • How he builds his client base: partner workshops, virtual lunch-and-learn sessions

article

Listen to the full podcast on podcasts.apple.com ➜

14. Tarzan Kay ($1.08M/year)

Tarzan Kay is a launch strategist & email copywriter - and yes thats her real name! She teaches digital course creators how to turn a small email list into maximum profit. Top 3 Value Bombs: 1. People are going to leave and come back - that's a good thing. 2. Stop working on your digital course and start nurturing your list. 3. You don't make money by just waiting. Instead build relationships. Easily send video email to build trust faster, get more replies, and win more opportunities - Sponsors: : Learn how to grow better by connecting your people, your customers, and your business at ! : Connect all your apps, automate routine tasks, and streamline your processes! Try Zapier for free today at ! : Download your free report that reveals what the top 20% of course creators are doing right now to be so darn successful at !

Tarzan Kay (from Pelham, Ontario, Canada) started Tarzan Kay over 7 years ago.

Revenue
$90K / month
Team
1 founders / 2 employees

Case Study

Tarzan Kay created an online training company that assists businesses in writing effective emails for their email marketing campaigns.

The founder is an email copywriter and launch strategist who demonstrates how to maximize revenue from a small email list to online course creators.

Tarzan was a former copywriter-for-hire who built Tarzan Kay Global entirely on the strength of email by crafting an extremely devoted customer base and writing incredibly entertaining, narrative-driven emails.

She has also created a course launch copy kit and offers workshops to help her clienly launch and grow their online busines successfullyses.

article

Listen to the full podcast on podcasts.apple.com ➜

15. Drip ($24.4M/year)

The startup podcast with more than 500 episodes to help you launch and grow. 10 million+ downloads. 500+ five-star reviews.

Rob Walling and Derrick Reimer (from Minneapolis, MN, USA) started Drip about 11 years ago.

Revenue
$2.03M / month
Team
2 founders / 142 employees

Case Study
  • Rob Walling and Derrick Reimer co-founded Drip, a platform for marketing automation after first being an email service provider.

  • Drip began as a simple add-on widget included with Mailchimp or AWeber and developed into a full-fledged ESP with the ability to send bulk emails and manage lists. After that, automation was introduced, taking it to the next level—almost like Mailchimp plus.

  • Months after launch, Drip reached $8K MRR.

  • In July 2016, Rob and his co-founder sold Drip to Leadpages. After that, Rob worked for Leadpages for almost 20 months.

  • Walling estimates that between $100K to $150K was spent on the app’s development. Although expensive for a two-person operation, it was successful because Drip is today a million-dollar SaaS company.

  • Rob just established TinySeed, an early-stage VC fund and remote accelerator that seeks to close a market need by offering capital to SaaS firms that don’t strive for the $100 million milestone.

  • Since 2018, this e-commerce marketing automation software has brought in more than $2 billion in revenue for its clients. Currently, Drip’s estimated yearly revenue is $24.4M.

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Pat Walls,  Founder of Starter Story
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