What Is an Eshot? How to Send an Email Mailshot

An eshot is a single marketing email sent to a list of contacts at the same time: an offer, an announcement or an invitation. The word is British shorthand for "electronic mailshot" and is also written e-shot or eShot. Elsewhere the same thing is called an email blast or simply an email campaign.

This article explains what counts as an eshot, who you may send one to in the UK, and how to send one in seven steps. The example throughout is James Carter, who runs an independent bike shop in Bristol. Until now James has emailed his customers from Outlook with everyone in BCC (blind copy, the field that hides each address from the other recipients).

What is an eshot?

The eshot meaning is easy to unpack: electronic mailshot, the inbox version of promotional post.

A reply to one customer is not an eshot. Nor is an order confirmation, or the automated welcome email that goes out when someone signs up. Those are set off by one contact's action. An eshot starts with you: you choose the message, the audience and the day.

For James the eshot is a spring service offer, "Book a full service before 31 March", sent to the customers it applies to.

Eshot vs mailshot: email or post?

A mailshot traditionally goes through the post: letters, postcards and leaflets sent to a list of addresses. That is the original mailshot meaning. An eshot is the email version.

What is a mailshot today? In office talk the word covers both, so an email mailshot is simply an eshot.

The practical differences are cost, speed and measurement. Post carries a print and postage cost for every item, while an eshot costs far less per recipient and arrives in minutes. With email you can also see who clicked.

The rules differ too. The email rule in PECR (the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations, the UK law on electronic marketing) applies to an eshot, not to a letter.

Eshot, email blast, bulk email or newsletter: what is the difference?

Six terms describe much the same activity.

Term	Where you hear it	What it means	One-off or regular
Eshot	UK offices and agencies	One marketing email sent to a list at once	One-off
Mailshot	UK; post first, email by extension	Promotional post, or loosely an eshot	One-off
Email blast or eblast	Mainly American	The same as an eshot; sometimes said dismissively	One-off
Bulk email or mass email	Technical and support pages	One message sent to many recipients at once	Either
Newsletter	Everywhere	A regular, editorial email, weekly or monthly	Regular
Email campaign	Email platforms	One email sent to a group of contacts	Either

Bulk email is one message sent to a large number of recipients at the same time, and mass email is another name for it.

What matters is whether the contacts on the list expect the email. Sending everything to everyone is what our email marketing strategy guide calls batch and blast, and it is the habit to avoid.

Eshot marketing: examples from a small business

Eshot marketing, or eshot email marketing, means using one-off promotional emails as a regular part of how a business sells.

James's shop has about 3,200 contacts on its customer list: buyers from the till and the online shop, plus newsletter sign-ups. A smaller list holds local employers who asked about the cycle-to-work scheme at an open evening. Over a year, his eshot examples might be:

• A seasonal offer. The spring service, for customers who bought a bike more than twelve months ago.
• A new range. The first electric bikes, announced to the whole customer list.
• A stock clearance. Last season's helmets, for customers who have bought a bike from the shop.
• A business note. Cycle-to-work in two paragraphs, for the employers who asked.

Each carries one message and asks for one action. Most go to part of the list: "customers who bought a bike more than a year ago" is a segment of your list.

Who can you send an eshot to in the UK?

The rule comes from PECR and is enforced by the ICO (the Information Commissioner's Office, the UK's data protection regulator). This section summarises its guidance on electronic mail marketing at the time of writing; the page is marked as under review following the Data (Use and Access) Act.

For individuals, the ICO says you must not send marketing emails without specific consent. The one exception is the soft opt-in. It covers an existing customer who bought, or negotiated to buy, a similar product or service from you, and only if you gave them a simple way to opt out when you collected their details and in every message since. Sole traders and some partnerships are treated as individuals.

Companies are treated differently. Limited companies, limited liability partnerships (LLPs), Scottish partnerships and some government bodies are "corporate subscribers", and the ICO's business-to-business guidance says the PECR consent rule for email does not apply to them. Other duties remain, as the table shows, and UK GDPR still applies when an address identifies a person, such as [email protected]. If you are unsure whether a contact is a company or a sole trader, the ICO says to treat the address as an individual's.

Who is on the list	What the guidance asks for
Newsletter sign-up	Specific consent to email from you
Past customer (an individual)	The soft opt-in: a similar product, and an opt-out offered at the start and in every message
Sole trader or member of some partnerships	The same as any individual
Contact at a limited company or LLP	No PECR consent; say who you are, give an opt-out address, respect objections
Bought-in list	The soft opt-in does not apply
Any recipient	Say who the email is from and give a valid way to opt out

James checks his list against the table. Till and online buyers were offered an opt-out when they gave their address, and a service is close to what they bought. Website sign-ups asked for the newsletter. The employers left their details at the open evening; any who turn out to be sole traders count as individuals.

MailGraf adds a rule of its own: it accepts only lists you collected yourself with permission, and bought, rented and scraped lists are prohibited under its Acceptable Use Policy. A platform's own rules can be stricter than the law: MailGraf's Acceptable Use Policy asks for prior, verifiable consent. See also how the soft opt-in works and our guide to UK GDPR rules for email marketing.

How to send an eshot in seven steps

This is how to send a mailshot by email, and how to send bulk emails properly in general. The worked example uses MailGraf, where an eshot is called an email campaign. Labels in bold are the ones on screen.

1. Get the list into one place

James exports his customers from the till system and the online shop as a CSV (comma-separated values) file with a header row and an email column. In MailGraf, import the file: open Imports, click New import, match the columns and tick I confirm these contacts gave me permission to email them.

2. Check the list before you send

An old list carries dead addresses, and each one produces a bounce: an email that could not be delivered. A high bounce rate hurts the next send too. MailGraf's free bounce test estimates the risk from a random sample of up to 250 addresses. Under 5%, use the list as it is; above 5%, clean it first with email verification.

3. Choose who gets it

An eshot rarely needs the whole list. The service offer is for customers who bought a bike more than a year ago. On the Audience step choose Lists, Segments or Tags; unsubscribed and blocked contacts are always left out.

4. Design the eshot

Good eshot design is plain: a headline, a short paragraph, a picture and one button. Start from the Drag and drop editor, a starter layout or your own eshot template. The last row is a locked footer with your company address and the unsubscribe link. Our design guide covers email widths and image sizes.

5. Write the subject line and set the sender

Subject and Preview text are both required. For From name, use the name customers know, and send from an address on your own domain, set up with SPF, DKIM and DMARC, the records that prove an email comes from you. An A/B test will settle an argument between two subject lines.

6. Send yourself a test

On the Review step, Send a test delivers the email to up to five addresses. Open it on a phone as well as a computer, click every link and read the offer date twice.

7. Send it or schedule it

Choose Send now, or choose Schedule and pick a date and time. If you send now, a 15-second countdown follows your confirmation, and Stop keeps the email campaign as a draft.

The help article on sending your first email campaign walks through every screen.

Can you send an eshot from Outlook or Gmail?

You can send a few dozen emails that way, but it is the wrong tool for an eshot. If you have been looking up how to send bulk email in Outlook or Gmail, the first obstacle is the same: the daily sending limit.

Service	Daily limit	Per message	Worth knowing
Microsoft 365 (Exchange Online)	10,000 recipients per mailbox	Up to 1,000 recipients	30 messages a minute. Microsoft says customers who need to send bulk commercial email should use a specialist third-party provider
Google Workspace	2,000 messages per user; 3,000 external recipients	500 external recipients	Mail merge is capped at 1,500 recipients a day
Gmail (personal account)	500 emails	500 recipients	Past the limit, you should be able to send again within 1 to 24 hours

The figures come from Microsoft, Google Workspace and Gmail Help.

Inside those limits, three things are still missing. An ordinary email sent with BCC has no unsubscribe link and keeps no record of who opted out. Nothing removes the addresses that bounce. And a plain Outlook or Gmail message gives you no report of who clicked.

Eshot software: what to look for

Eshot software, mailshot software and bulk email software are three names for one thing: an email platform that sends a message to a list and deals with what happens next. A good one:

• Sends from your own authenticated domain, so mailbox providers can confirm the email is yours.
• Adds the unsubscribe link and honours it, so nobody who opted out is emailed again.
• Removes bounced addresses, so one bad send does not repeat.
• Sends to part of the list, by list, segment or tag.
• Shows clicks for each link, so you know which offer worked.
• Records how each contact joined, in case a send is questioned.

In MailGraf an eshot is an email campaign, built in four steps: Design, Setup, Audience and Review. See how email campaigns work in MailGraf, or go to plans and pricing.

How to tell whether an eshot worked

Start with clicks, not opens. Privacy features in mail apps can load an email's images in the background, which registers as an open whether or not anyone read it.

Then check the numbers that protect your next send: bounces, unsubscribes and spam complaints. Google's email sender guidelines ask all senders to keep the spam rate reported in Postmaster Tools below 0.3%, and recommend staying under 0.1%. MailGraf puts an account under review, with sending held, when hard bounces reach 5% or spam complaints reach 0.1%.

In MailGraf each email campaign's report has four cards, Opens, Clicks, Bounced and Unsubscribes, and the Click map shows which link earned each click. James wants to know whether "Book a service" got the clicks and how many bookings followed. He counts that second number in the shop's booking diary.

Our guides to email marketing KPIs (key performance indicators) and email deliverability go further. Before your next eshot, one question is worth ten minutes: which customers on your list would be glad to receive it?

Frequently asked questions

What is an eshot in marketing?

An eshot is a single marketing email sent to a list of contacts at the same time, such as an offer or an invitation. The word is short for electronic mailshot and is mainly used in the UK. Email platforms call it an email campaign.

What is the difference between an eshot and a mailshot?

A mailshot is promotional material sent by post, and an eshot is the same idea sent by email. In everyday use "mailshot" often covers both, so an email mailshot is an eshot.

Is an eshot the same as a newsletter?

Not quite. A newsletter is regular and editorial, with several items on a fixed rhythm. An eshot is a one-off with a single purpose. Both are email campaigns sent to a list.

Do I need consent to send an eshot in the UK?

For individuals, yes, unless the soft opt-in applies to an existing customer who was offered an opt-out. The ICO, the UK's data protection regulator, says the PECR consent rule for email does not apply to corporate subscribers such as limited companies, but you must still say who you are and give a way to opt out. This is a summary, not legal advice.

How many emails can I send at once from Outlook?

Microsoft 365 allows 10,000 recipients a day per mailbox and up to 1,000 recipients in one message, at no more than 30 messages a minute. Microsoft's documentation says customers who need to send bulk commercial email should use a specialist third-party provider.

How do I send an eshot without showing everyone's address?

Send it from an email platform, which gives each contact their own copy, so no recipient sees another's address. BCC in Outlook or Gmail is the manual workaround, and one slip into the To or CC field exposes the whole list.

Is it eshot or e-shot?

Both spellings are in use, along with eShot, and they mean the same thing.