What do you look at when conducting an email marketing audit?
Typically you’ll see most guides on the Internet recommend paying attention to the following:
Setup, integrations
Flows: how many, what are they, number of emails, conditional split, offers, etc.
Campaigns: Frequency, content, offer, A/B test, send time, deliverability
Email template
Segmentation
Mobile optimization
Metrics
These are important. But for me, I also focus on the below aspects:
1. Audience engagement
I’ll create a “Master Subscribers” segment which includes those who haven't suppressed emails and Subscribed to List at least once over time or Fill Out Lead Ad at least once over time or Accept Marketing True. This is to understand how subscribers are generally engaged with emails.
2. UTM tracking
Is it enabled in all emails? How are its parameters set up? UTM tracking is important because it’ll help you track Klaviyo performance in Google Analytics. If you just depend on numbers shown on Klaviyo dashboard, it might not reflect the true picture of email contribution to overall revenue.
3. Email sender
It’s easy to assume sender’s email address always includes brand domain name, for example, hello@brandname.com.
Surprisingly, I recently audited some brands, and they always use [x]@gmail.com to send emails, which can lead to a high spam complaint rate.
4. Which list contains subscribers opting in via embedded form at the bottom of the site
This is the case especially if a brand migrates from MailChimp to Klaviyo. I’ve seen quite a few brands still using MailChimp form for the bottom newsletter signup form after moving to Klaviyo, and because the MailChimp - Klaviyo integration isn’t set up correctly, subscribers from this form aren’t synced into Klaviyo > lots of subscribers haven’t received any emails from the brand after subscribing.
5. The current Klaviyo plan
You might think what Klaviyo plan the brand is using isn’t part of an email marketing audit. However, I think it's valuable to explore areas where I can help brands improve their business efficiency, and managing platform spend is one of those areas.
I’ve seen some brands subscribe to a Klaviyo plan that doesn't align with the number of emails they send and their active profiles. This means they are spending more than necessary.
Final thought
Some people think about these areas only when they start working on their email plan, rather than during the audit stage.
But I prefer to evaluate everything right from the beginning. This way, I can identify what a brand is doing well, areas for improvement, and potential opportunities they might be missing out on.
My goal is to exceed expectations and go the extra mile in my work.
What is your email audit process? Feel free to share with me in the comment below — love to learn from you too.