A list broker acts as an agent for those who wish to conduct direct marketing campaigns via direct mail, email, or telemarketing . List brokers provide lists that, minimally, contain a prospect's name and physical address. Consumer Lists may include additional demographic information such as age, gender, income, etc.; Business Lists may include firmographic information like job title, industry, employee size, etc. List Brokers work on behalf of their clients to find the best lists that reach their clients' desired target audience in which to promote/advertise their product or service, and coordinates the procurement process.

Database marketing is a form of direct marketing using databases of customers or potential customers to generate personalized communications in order to promote a product or service for marketing purposes. The method of communication can be any addressable medium, as in direct marketing .

Raymond Samuel Tomlinson (April 23, 1941 – March 5, 2016) was a pioneering American computer programmer who implemented the first email program on the ARPANET system, the precursor to the Internet , in 1971; he is internationally known and credited as the inventor of email. It was the first system able to send mail between users on different hosts connected to ARPANET. Previously, mail could be sent only to others who used the same computer. To achieve this, he used the @ sign to separate the user name from the name of their machine, a scheme which has been used in email addresses ever since. The Internet Hall of Fame in its account of his work commented "Tomlinson's email program brought about a complete revolution, fundamentally changing the way people communicate".