B2C email marketing: writing to one person spending their own money
Selling to people, not companies. For your email programme that changes who reads it, how fast they decide and which consent rules apply to the address.
- 006B2C (Business-to-Consumer)
- Transactions between businesses and individual consumers. Email marketing in B2C involves sending targeted campaigns directly to consumers to drive engagement and sales.
- Opposite of
- B2B, business to business, where one company buys from another
- Who decides
- Usually one person, with their own money, often on their phone
- Consent rules
- UK PECR covers almost every address a consumer gives you
One reader, their own money, and a quick decision
A B2C email lands in front of one person who decides on their own, often on their phone, often in under a minute. Nobody's signing off a purchase order. If the email answers the doubt in their head, they buy. If it doesn't, they archive it and you try again next week.
| Selling to consumers | Selling to businesses | |
|---|---|---|
| Who decides | One person, usually | Several people, and a budget holder |
| How long it takes | Often the same day, sometimes weeks | Weeks or months, with a meeting in the middle |
| What the email has to do | Move somebody to buy soon | Keep you remembered until the meeting |
| Marketing email consent | Consent, or the soft opt-in | Company addresses sit outside that rule, sole traders don't |
Why consumer addresses need consent or the soft opt-in
One rule does most of the work. In the UK, PECR says you can't send marketing email to an individual without their consent, unless the soft opt-in applies. A consumer's address is an individual's address, so on a B2C list the rule covers practically everyone. The ICO's guide to electronic mail marketing is short enough to read over a coffee.
The soft opt-in is the exception you'll lean on most. Somebody who bought from you can hear about similar products, as long as they had a simple way to say no when you took the address, and get one in every email after. Our post on soft opt-in rules covers the edge cases. None of this is legal advice.
When a consumer brand has trade customers too
Plenty of B2C brands quietly run a second business: stockists, cafes, salons, corporate gifts. Those buyers often sit in the same Shopify store and the same Klaviyo account, and they end up in your consumer campaigns unless somebody keeps them out.
- Tag trade customers on the profile, so every segment can exclude them
- Keep them out of consumer sales, which undercut the price they sell at
- Write to them about what they care about: new lines, reorder dates, trade terms
- Check which rule covers each address, because a company inbox and a sole trader's aren't treated the same
Related terms
FAQs
Is B2B email marketing different from B2C?
Yes, mostly in pace and permission. A consumer decides alone and quickly, so B2C email is built to move somebody to buy soon. A business buyer decides slowly and with colleagues, so B2B email keeps you remembered until the meeting. The consent rules differ too: company addresses sit outside PECR's consent rule, sole traders don't.
Is every B2C brand direct to consumer?
No. B2C only says your customer is a person. A retailer selling other brands' products is B2C without being direct to consumer. A brand selling its own range through its own website is both, and that's where email does the most, because every order hands you the customer's address.
Do I need separate Klaviyo accounts for consumers and trade customers?
Usually not. One account with trade customers tagged and excluded from consumer sends is simpler, and it keeps a single suppression list, so an unsubscribe is honoured everywhere. A second account starts to make sense when the trade side has its own team, its own brand voice and its own calendar.
Rather we explained it on your own account?
Bring your Klaviyo account to a growth consultation. We'll walk through what this means for your numbers, in plain English, and what we'd fix first.
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