Email Marketing for Marketers: Free Course (2026)
Free email marketing course: deliverability, Gmail and Outlook sender rules, lifecycle flows, newsletters, AI inboxes, GA4 tracking and compliance.
Email Marketing for Marketers is a free, practical 20-lesson track for B2B and SaaS marketers who need email to produce pipeline, not just opens. You will set up SPF, DKIM and DMARC properly, meet the Gmail, Yahoo and Microsoft Outlook sender requirements that are now enforced with rejections, monitor reputation in Gmail Postmaster Tools v2, and warm up new domains without burning them. Then you will build segments, lifecycle and onboarding flows, newsletters people actually read, copy and design that survive dark mode and AI summaries, honest tests, and a measurement model that works after Apple Mail Privacy Protection. The track closes with compliant cold outbound, AI in the inbox, email as citable content for AI search, UTM and GA4 tracking, ESP selection and a monthly routine.
- 20 lessons in four parts: foundations and compliance, deliverability, programs and content, then measurement, outbound and AI.
- Reflects November 2026 rules: Gmail enforcement with temporary and permanent rejections since November 2025, Microsoft's high-volume sender rules since 5 May 2025, RFC 8058 one-click unsubscribe, Postmaster Tools v2 with its Compliance status dashboard, and the May 2026 DMARC update (RFC 9989).
- Covers how Gmail AI Overviews, AI Inbox and Apple Intelligence summaries change what a reader sees before they open your email.
- Every lesson includes a Ledgerline walkthrough, an exercise, a quiz and a checklist.
Checked 5 November 2026 (CET) against Gmail Help, Yahoo Sender Hub, Microsoft's Outlook.com postmaster policies, the RFC Editor, the FTC, the ICO and the ESP documentation cited in Sources. Mailbox providers change enforcement without notice, so confirm rules in your own Postmaster Tools and ESP. "Our view" marks MentionX opinion. Ledgerline is a fictional company used for illustration.
01What will you learn?
02Which lesson answers my question?
| Question | Go to |
|---|---|
| Why are my emails suddenly bouncing from Gmail with a 5.7.x error? | Lesson 5 |
| What DMARC policy do I actually need? | Lesson 4 |
| Which Postmaster Tools dashboards should you watch? | Lesson 6 |
| How fast can I ramp a new sending domain? | Lesson 7 |
| Can I email EU and UK prospects without consent? | Lesson 3, Lesson 17 |
| What should a SaaS onboarding sequence contain? | Lesson 10 |
| Are open rates still worth reporting? | Lesson 15 |
| Why does email traffic show as Direct or Unassigned in GA4? | Lesson 16 |
| What does Gmail's AI summary show instead of my preheader? | Lesson 18 |
| Can a newsletter help us get cited by ChatGPT or Perplexity? | Lesson 19 |
03How is the track organised?
Foundations and compliance (lessons 1-3). How email creates pipeline for B2B and SaaS, how to build a list from people who asked for it, and the consent and opt-out rules in the EU, UK, US and Canada.
Deliverability (lessons 4-8). Authentication, the mailbox-provider sender requirements, monitoring in Postmaster Tools v2 and Microsoft SNDS, domain warm-up and list hygiene, and choosing an ESP that does not fight you on any of it.
Programs and content (lessons 9-14). Segmentation, lifecycle and onboarding flows, newsletters, copywriting and subject lines, design and accessibility, and testing.
Measurement, outbound and AI (lessons 15-20). Metrics that survive Apple Mail Privacy Protection, UTM and GA4 tracking, compliant cold outbound, AI drafting and AI inbox features, newsletters as AI-search source material, and a monthly routine.
04Who is this track for?
Lifecycle and email marketers, demand gen leads, founders who send their own newsletter, marketing ops people who own the ESP and DNS records, SDR and outbound managers, and agency teams who inherit a client's sending setup. Some of you already run a dozen flows. Others just found out that the marketing domain has no DMARC record. Both groups will find the gaps.
Each lesson has a Ledgerline worked example. Ledgerline is a fictional accounts-payable software company that competes with four rivals, called Competitor A to Competitor D. All Ledgerline numbers are illustrative, not benchmarks.
05What do you need?
- Access to your ESP or marketing automation platform (HubSpot, Klaviyo, Customer.io, Mailchimp, Brevo or similar) with rights to edit flows and sending domains.
- Access to your DNS provider, or a named person who can publish TXT and CNAME records within a day.
- A verified domain in Gmail Postmaster Tools for lessons 5 to 7. You can add it during lesson 6.
- A GA4 property for lessons 15 and 16, and optionally Looker Studio (Data Studio) for reporting.
- A list of where your email addresses came from. If nobody knows, lesson 2 and lesson 3 come first.
Our view: most B2B email programs underperform because of three boring problems: unclear consent records, a marketing domain that was never properly authenticated, and reporting built on opens. Fix those and the creative work starts paying off.
06How this track pairs with the other tracks
- Lessons 15 and 16 pair with GA4 UTM campaign tagging, GA4 default channel group, UTM basics and GTM form tracking.
- Lessons 10 and 12 pair with Claude for lifecycle email copy, ChatGPT for B2B demand gen and Gemini in Gmail and Workspace.
- Lessons 10 and 17 pair with n8n CRM and HubSpot workflows and n8n lead enrichment.
- Lesson 19 pairs with Perplexity for Marketers, ChatGPT for Marketers and answer-first content.
- Paid audiences built from email lists pair with Google Ads Customer Match and Meta Ads for Marketers.
- Organic landing pages for lead magnets pair with Search Console for Marketers.
07Routes through the track
Fix deliverability first. Lessons 4, 5, 6 and 7, then 3 and 20. Do this route if bounces, spam-foldering or a sudden open-rate collapse brought you here.
New program from scratch. Lessons 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 8, 9 and 10, then 12 to 16.
Newsletter owner. Lessons 1, 2, 11, 12, 13, 15, 19 and 20.
Outbound and SDR teams. Lessons 3, 4, 5, 7, 17 and 18. Read lesson 3 before you buy any data.
Analytics and reporting. Lessons 14, 15, 16 and 20, alongside the GA4 track.
08What changed in email in 2025 and 2026?
| Change | What it means for you | Lesson |
|---|---|---|
| Gmail ramps up enforcement from November 2025 | Non-compliant mail can be deferred or rejected, not just spam-foldered | 5 |
| Microsoft high-volume sender rules from 5 May 2025 | 5,000+ per day to Outlook.com needs SPF, DKIM and aligned DMARC or gets 550 5.7.515 | 5 |
| Postmaster Tools v2 and the Compliance status dashboard | Domain and IP reputation dashboards are being retired; read compliance, spam rate and delivery errors | 6 |
| DMARC published as RFC 9989 (May 2026) | pct= is deprecated, np= is added for non-existent subdomains | 4 |
| Gmail AI Overviews and AI Inbox (January 2026) | Gemini summarises threads and prioritises mail; clear text matters more | 18 |
| UK Data (Use and Access) Act 2025 | Charity soft opt-in from 5 February 2026 on the ICO summary. Confirm the PECR fine cap on the ICO site before you quote it | 3 |
09Common questions
Is this email marketing course free? Yes. Every lesson is free to read, with no sign-up.
Is this track for B2C or B2B? It is written for B2B and SaaS marketers first, but the deliverability, compliance, design and measurement lessons apply to any sender.
Do I need to be technical to follow the deliverability lessons? No. You need access to your DNS host or someone who has it. The lessons give the exact records to check and the order to publish them.
Does the track cover cold email? Yes. Lesson 17 covers cold outbound done compliantly, with separate domains, volume limits, personalisation and the legal rules that still apply.
Questions people ask
4 answersIs this email marketing course free?
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Yes. Every lesson is free to read, with no sign-up.
Is this track for B2C or B2B?
+
It is written for B2B and SaaS marketers first, but the deliverability, compliance, design and measurement lessons apply to any sender.
Do I need to be technical to follow the deliverability lessons?
+
No. You need access to your DNS host or someone who has it. The lessons give the exact records to check and the order to publish them.
Does the track cover cold email?
+
Yes. Lesson 17 covers cold outbound done compliantly, with separate domains, volume limits, personalisation and the legal rules that still apply.
Sources
- Gmail Help, Email sender guidelinessupport.google.com
- Gmail Help, Email sender guidelines FAQsupport.google.com
- Gmail Help, Postmaster Tools dashboardssupport.google.com
- Microsoft, Outlook.com postmaster policiespostmaster.outlook.com
- Yahoo Sender Hub, Sender best practicessenders.yahooinc.com
- RFC Editor, RFC 8058: Signaling one-click functionality for list email headersrfc-editor.org
- RFC Editor, RFC 9989: DMARCrfc-editor.org
- Google, Gmail is entering the Gemini erablog.google
- All accessed 5 Nov 2026.