After conducting countless email list audits for clients, I thought I’d create a short resource on how I conduct these for clients, and how you can do the same.
This post has been created for two kinds of people:
- People who do email marketing as a service for clients.
- And people who own an email list and want to audit their current email marketing setup.
The reason for this is that as time goes by, email lists can accumulate inactive subscribers and outdated contact information, which can then affect your email marketing campaigns.
And this is precisely why conducting regular email list audits is necessary.
A meticulous email list audit will unearth invaluable insights that can be harnessed to boost deliverability, open rates, and overall engagement.
In this comprehensive guide, we will walk you through the step-by-step process of conducting a successful email list audit, ensuring that your email marketing efforts are firing on all cylinders.
The Fundamentals of Email List Auditing
Here are some of the core elements you need to look at when auditing an email account:
What are the current Email Campaigns and Flows looking like?
Review recent and ongoing campaigns, looking at elements like, target segments, email content, subject lines, send times, and performance metrics (including open rates, click-through rates, and conversions).
This will give you a good idea of where you can improve with the emails you’ll be creating and what steps you should be taking next.
For example, a few key points you should be looking at are:
- How many emails are they sending out per week?
- What are the open rates, CTRs, and conversion rates looking like?
- What email automations do they have set up?
- Are they missing out on any of the key email sequences (Welcome sequence, post-purchase sequence, abandon cart sequence, etc.).
These are all the key metrics that you should be analyzing.
List Metrics and Benchmarks:
Continuing on from the previous point, you should also be checking out some of the key benchmarks that are on their email software like their list growth.
This is arguably one of the most overlooked metrics when it comes to email marketing because if you’re not continually driving traffic to your list, it can fatigue pretty quickly.
Yes, you’re an email marketer and not a media buyer, but it doesn’t hurt to advise your client on some strategies to begin driving more traffic to your list.
So make sure you analyze your email list metrics like list growth, if there are any inactive contacts, open and click-through rates, unsubscribe rates, spam complaints, and bounce rates.
Deliverability and Reputation:
Email deliverability and sender reputation are some of the most important areas to look at.
Why?
You could be the best email marketer in the world, but if the recipients are seeing the emails you send out, then all your hard work is for nothing.
An easy way to get a gauge of the current deliverability is to look at the open rates of the emails that have been sent out.
If the open rates are super low, talking single digits and the list is pretty big, then this is spam territory.
But if your list is hitting open rates of 15% and up, then you should be good.
And if you want to double-check, there are free tools out there that you can use to get a better handle on the current state of the deliverability, some of those tools are:
I do have a more in-depth post on breaking down email deliverability, you can access that post by clicking here as well as a post breaking down the different tools that you can use, you can also access that by clicking here.
Identify what the email list is already doing well..
When you’re auditing email accounts, you’re usually focusing on identifying areas for improvement, but it’s equally important to recognize what’s working well.
Highlight highly engaged segments, well-converting email flows, effective segmentation strategies, top-performing subject lines, engaging content, and successful automations.
These “bright spots” can serve as blueprints for future optimizations.
Areas Needing Improvement:
Now this is one of the main points that needs to be addressed in the audit, the areas for improvements.
Address the pain points unearthed during your audit, which may include irrelevant content, low open and click-through rates, high unsubscribe and complaint rates, low engagement from specific segments, and suboptimal segmentation practices.
So you must prioritize these areas based on their potential impact, formulating a comprehensive plan for optimization.
Going the extra mile.
(*This section is more if you’re working with clients, so if you’re auditing your own email list, I’d just skim this section*)
As the saying goes –
“When you go the extra mile, it’s never crowded”
And in today’s day and age in the online world of service delivery, where the bar is on the floor, going the extra mile will put you head and shoulders above your competition.
But how can you do this exactly?
Here are a few ways:
Create an action plan going forward
Chances are you’ve created the audit going over everything in their email marketing setup.
You’ve pointed out all the issues and what they may be doing wrong and to be honest, there’s nothing worse than someone pointing out a problem without offering a solution to that problem.
So, this is exactly what you’re going to do.
Maybe the client has already paid you for your services, so this would be the logical next step.
Explain what you’re going to do, if you need anything from them, and get started on fixing the problems you’ve pointed out in their email marketing setup.
Email Content Calendar for the client
Now, this is pretty standard if you’re working with a client, but setting up a content calendar is beneficial not only for you but the client as well.
The reason for this is that it’s so easy to stay on top of the emails that you need to create and being organized will make your life 100x easier.
If you don’t want to spend the time creating a content calendar, don’t worry because I’ve already done one.
You can click here to access it.
Now these are just a couple of easy ways to go the extra mile when doing your email list audit.
If you have any questions, then just email me at Jamie@EmailMaximalist.com or DM on Twitter @Emailmaximalist
Want someone else to audit your email list? Here's what you can do:
Now, if you’re someone who’s read this whole post and think to yourself –
“I can’t be bothered to do that…”
Then you’re in luck.
Because offering email audits is something that I offer.
If this is something you want to learn more about, then simply send me an email with the subject line “Email List Audit” and I’ll get back to you.
