Email Marketing Audit: Learning the Fundamentals

Email Marketing entails using emails to keep customers up to date on corporate news, limited time offers, product updates, and other information. When utilized appropriately, email is a powerful communication tool that may help you build relationships with potential customers and boost your sales efforts. The international e-mail marketing market was valued at $7.5 billion in 2020 and is predicted to boost to $17.9 billion by 2027. Email marketing needs to be executed with the right strategy and that’s where email marketing audit comes into the picture.

What is an Email Marketing Audit?

In the simplest of terms, an email marketing audit is a process of analyzing each of the factors that influence email marketing success. A thorough email marketing audit can help you pinpoint issues with your send lists, your timing, your content, and much more.

What are the factors to consider for an email marketing audit?

Many moving pieces make up an email marketing program - the more complex your email marketing campaigns are, the more complex your audit can be, though this is not a golden rule. There are common threads that run through nearly every email campaign - and we’ve outlined them below for your assistance.

1.  Email workflow and processes

        a. What is the general workflow of an email campaign - from idea to implementation?

        b. Is there a written documentation of the workflow?

        c. What are the different stages of the workflow?

        d. Is this workflow/process the same for every type of email campaign?

       e. Who are the different stakeholders for each stage of the workflow?

       f. A good example can be Swimlanes which is an easy to follow and versatile process flow diagram that differentiates                 job sharing and duties for sub-processes

2.   Email marketing infrastructure - The basic technological and physical setup every company needs to ensure that their             emails hit the right inboxes

     a. Dedicated IP Address and IP Reputation

     b. DNS Records

    c.  Authentication

    d. Reply and Response Addresses

    e. Standardized and Required Links

3.  Email lists and audience segmentation

    a. When was the last time the email segmentation strategy was looked into?

  b. Check the accuracy of the email segmentation strategy

  c. Get more specific with email segmentation

4.  Subject lines

       A subject line can single-handedly make or break your open rates - analyze your subject line and sort each campaign           by the open rate

5.  Sender name and address

    a. Use a consistent sender for your marketing campaigns

6.  Email copy

    a. Consider only a certain length of text

    b. Use the best tone in your emails

7.  Email design and creative

   a. Does the audience prefer plain text or image-based emails?

   b. Do images take a long time to load?

  c. Do images load correctly?

  d. Are the designs optimized for all devices and email clients?

  e. How do emails appear on mobile phones?

8.  Calls-to-Action

9.   Email schedule, timing, and cadence

    a. Check on the timing and cadence of your email sends

10.  Email analytics and performance metrics

Ameex tests your campaigns on the following aspects:

• Email list
• Segmentation criteria
• Subject lines and preheader text
• Email copy and links
• Design- alt text, accessibility, placement of CTA, and other elements
• Responsiveness, compatibility, and fallback
• ESP integration
• Send time
• Email Deliverability
• Metrics
• Profiling of your contacts/leads and even your analytics account

If you are seeking any expertise on email auditing and bringing in conversions, contact Ameex. We walk an extra mile to deliver you excellence.