The audit examines your entire email infrastructure components, policies, procedures and delivers specific recommendations for long term performance and isolation ideas by email type (i.e., marketing vs. transactional emails).

We review the underlying technicals and authentication setup that every company needs to ensure their emails hit the subscriber’s inbox.

These technicals include (but not limited to):

• IP Addresses (and reputation)
• Authentication (SPF, DKIM, DMARC, etc.)
• Sending FROM Addresses
• Image hosting
• Click tracking domain

The audit will include a client interview to understand the business goals (and needs).

There is no one-size-fits-all approach to an email program, and it is vital that I thoroughly understand your business model and we define and completely understand our email marketing goals.

When was the last time you signed up to your email list or purchased to see the user experience?

My extensive audit examines your customer-facing email journey and participates as a subscriber and customer, providing insights that can increase customer satisfaction, increase email engagement, and improve your email deliverability and conversion rates.

The subscriber journey and customer experience evaluation portion also takes a detailed look at the following elements:

• subscriber acquisition channels
• content strategy & relevancy
• mailing patterns & frequency
• open & click rates
• unsubscribe & complaint rates
• domain performance report
• segmentation tactics
• retention

Bad data is one of the main reasons that cause poor sender reputation and email deliverability problems.

I will look at your current email address acquisition process and assess your current acquisition sources’ risk levels (to identify good vs. poor performers)

I’ll also suggest alternative ways to grow your email list organically.

Also included in this section are:

1. Bounce and suppression list management review
2. Email segmentation (and the use of DATA to improve targeting)
3. Implementing proactive list hygiene practices

I’ll look at the competitive email landscape to evaluate how your email campaigns stack up against your competitors. 

This section includes:

• Email schedule, timing, and cadence
• Inbox placement
• Branding via email
• Subscriber journey and email targeting
• Subject line, email copy and CTA analysis

When you send an email for any reason, it’s important to remember that all of the elements that make an email successful — the copy, CTA and design.

They should all work together toward accomplishing a single goal: getting people to open your email, click your CTA and convert.

This section includes:

• Template and design (mobile rendering)
• Formatting and HTML code
• Subject lines and preheader
• Email Copy & CTA
• Legal and best practices 

Do you have automated emails setup?

If so, how are the drip sequences, triggered emails, and behavioral emails setup and performing? 

Have you automated your highest performing emails? 

I’ll go through all onboarding, transactional and behavioral triggered emails (and you don’t have any of this setup yet, I’ll suggest how to implement)

Nailing email automation is vital to an email program’s success.

If done correctly, it allows you to segment your list, send relevant emails, re-engage subscribers, avoid lost sales (with browse or abandoned cart emails), and more.

How engaged are your recipients with your email program? 

I’ll help you define the relevant KPI’s to measure success and meet critical business milestones (not only for deliverability but also overall email performance)

In this section, the audit will dive in and analyze the components that create a high-performing email (see if the emails accomplish the goals they are sent for). 

The main thing I look for in determining whether an email is high performing or not is if it met the end-goal. 

Did the email accomplish what you wanted it to accomplish? Did people buy? Did people read your article? 

Because, in the end, an email can have great metrics, but if it didn’t accomplish the goal for which you sent it, then it wasn’t a success.

Finally, attributing a conversion back to an email can provide additional insight and direction for the email program and what’s working vs. what’s not.

The final step is to audit your email service provider.

Is it the right tool for your needs?

Do you have any limitations?

Can you scale with it over the next few years? 

Together, we’ll go through the following questions:

• Are you happy with your current ESP? and is it easy to use?
• Do they have all the features you need? and are there features you wish they had?
• Are they too expensive? and if yes, can you justify the cost?
• How’s their customer support?