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13 ways to audit your email marketing campaigns

Want to get more out of your email marketing sends? Work out where you should be investing more time.

Anyone who manages email marketing campaigns knows that there’s always something more, something cleverer that could be done to improve performance. But that doesn’t mean more work, or harder work, just a smart marketing automation platform that does all the work for you.

In this blog, we pulled together 13 ways to audit your email marketing. Read on to see how you can make the grade.

1. Segmentation

Segmentation allows you to group your recipients by certain factors so that you can send different messages to different people. The more relevant and targeted the messaging, the more effective your email marketing campaigns. Take a look at this webinar for some segmentation inspiration.

2. Triggered email marketing campaigns

Triggered email marketing campaigns enable your company to automatically send an email to a customer or prospect based on certain actions they take. For example, if they download a whitepaper, or a certain time after they have purchased.

3. Dynamic content in email marketing campaigns

You can use dynamic content in your emails to change the information a recipient is sent based on their segmentation profiles. For example, you might want to send an email pulling in product information based on a recipient’s last purchase. The content in the email marketing message would be different for each recipient.

4. Email marketing campaigns health check

Like in our global ecommerce benchmark report, there are a plethora of different criteria you can use to check whether your emails are up to scratch. This will give you a broad effectiveness rating for your campaigns and allow you to identify areas for improvement.

5. Testing

Testing and tracking allows you to look at certain aspects of your email marketing campaign and see where you could improve performance. By sending different messages to different segments, you can see which are performing better. Don’t forget A/B and multivariate testing, too! You can compare two or several elements of your email marketing campaign at once to see which variations perform best.

6. Eye-tracking

Ever wondered which parts of your email a recipient actually looks at? If so, eye-tracking could help. Eye-tracking provides a picture of how your recipients actually read and interact with your emails.

7. Data collection strategy

Analyzing your customer journey ensures you have appropriate and effective data-collection opportunities at each touchpoint. Plus, this will help you grow your data list. Our Email Essentials data collection cheatsheet can help.

8. Data quality

It’s possible to benchmark the contents of your data by looking at, for example, its age and the last customer action. This will let you know whether you need to collect fresh data or at least trim your list.

9. Opt-in/Opt-out analysis

Are you worried about the number of opt-outs you’re receiving? It’s worth looking at the factors affecting opt-ins and opt-outs to see if there are improvements that can be made. Explore options like preference centers and feedback forms where you can collect insight about what your subscribers are feeling. Maybe it’s a frequency or content issue that can be easily rectified with the right permissions in place.

10. What metrics should you measure

Email marketing is fantastic because it is so measurable. But which metrics actually matter most for your business? Often, you don’t need to measure them all. Maybe look more at open reach rather than open rate? Then you’ll get a better idea about what impact your email campaigns have.

11. Email marketing ROI calculation

You know you are getting some good results from your email marketing, but is it actually giving you a return on your investment? If you don’t know, it’s worth taking a look and finding out. Here’s a link to our email ROI calculator.

12. Value of an email address

What is the lifetime value of your email asset? Calculating this can help you make a case for more budget or investment in email marketing. Our dedicated consultancy team can help you find out.

13. Email deliverability

Concerned about whether your emails are actually getting into the inbox? It’s possible to investigate whether there are changes you need to make to improve your deliverability. From data issues through to spam traps, there are experts out there on hand to help out.


Our Email Essentials content series takes you through all the dos and don’ts of email marketing strategy. Check out the first edition here.

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