Docs

B2B cold outreach in Germany

Germany is the market where two things get confused most often: that a cold email to a company is easier than one to a consumer, and that sending from Poland means Polish law applies. Neither is true.

No. The basis is Section 7(2) no. 2 UWG, which prohibits advertising by electronic mail without the addressee’s prior express consent. The provision draws no line between consumers and businesses: the B2B distinction in the UWG concerns telephone calls, not email. The burden of proving consent falls on the sender.

A note on numbering. The same text used to sit at no. 3, and most older commentary and case law cites it that way. When relying on a decision from before the renumbering, give both, so the citation can still be found.

”Werbung” is broader than intuition suggests

This is where most of the risk comes from. The German concept of advertising covers any statement made in the course of a business aimed at promoting sales, including indirectly. Three Federal Court of Justice decisions show the reach:

BGH, 10 July 2018, VI ZR 225/17: a customer satisfaction survey attached to an invoice email is advertising, because it serves customer retention. Nothing has to be sold in the message.
BGH, 15 December 2015, VI ZR 134/15: an otherwise permissible confirmation email becomes impermissible purely by attaching an advertising element. A transactional message does not absorb the advertising added to it.
BGH, 12 September 2013, I ZR 208/12: an email sent through a “tell a friend” feature is the company’s advertising, even though a third party triggers it.

The practical consequence: webinar invitations, educational material, feature announcements and satisfaction surveys should all be treated as advertising.

The existing-customer exception and its four conditions

Section 7(3) UWG permits contact without consent, but all four conditions must be met cumulatively: the address was obtained from the customer in connection with the sale of goods or a service, it is used to advertise the sender’s own similar goods or services, the customer has not objected, and the customer was clearly informed of the right to object both when the address was collected and on every use.

Worth noting: signing up for a free plan is not a sale, so that contact does not fall within the exception.

A Polish choice-of-law clause does not exclude it

Sending from Poland to a recipient in Germany puts you under German law alongside Polish law. The regimes stack; they do not replace one another.

Rome II Regulation, Article 6(1) applies the law of the country where competitive relations are affected, meaning the market the message lands in rather than the place the send button was pressed. Article 6(4) closes the escape route: that law cannot be derogated from by agreement. A Polish choice-of-law clause in your terms does not displace the UWG.

The country-of-origin principle in the e-Commerce Directive does not help either: the permissibility of unsolicited commercial communication by email is expressly carved out of its scope.

Beyond the consent question, Germany requires the sender to be identifiable. Wrenwire injects the block carrying your company details into emails aimed at this market at send time, not at generation. A changed company address therefore leaves no stale details inside series generated earlier.

A campaign may deliberately waive that footer. It is a separate decision, confirmed in two steps, and it does not waive the legal basis for contact, nor does it remove the Article 14 GDPR notice, which is an independent obligation.

What blocks a campaign from starting

For the German, Austrian and Swiss markets a campaign will not start until the legal basis is declared, the sender’s legal details are complete, SPF, DKIM and DMARC are configured for the sending domain, and the unsubscribe-link signing key is in place.

You pick the basis from three: existing consent, existing customer within the meaning of Section 7(3), or knowingly accepted risk. The last is exactly what it looks like, and it is recorded alongside the campaign.

LinkedIn and phone

LinkedIn owes no sender footer, because a message after an accepted connection request is a conversation inside somebody else’s service. The legal basis still applies: German case law treats a message carrying an offer as advertising regardless of channel. Wrenwire does not automate LinkedIn sending.

Phone has its own construction in B2B, resting on presumed consent, and its own limits.

Legal position as at 6 September 2026. This page describes how the product behaves and cites the provisions that behaviour rests on. It is not legal advice and does not determine whether your campaign is lawful.