Email Marketing Audit: Capitalize on What Works; Remove What Doesn’t

Why Your Email Marketing Needs an Audit

Email marketing is one of the best ways to connect with your audience, build relationships and drive revenue. But like any marketing strategy it needs to be regularly reviewed to make sure it’s working. If your open rates are dropping, conversions are low or you’re getting spam complaints it’s time for an email marketing audit.

Despite email’s strong ROI many brands neglect regular audits of their email marketing campaigns. Those that do prioritize audits see an increase in engagement and overall campaign success, as each email marketing campaign is refined and optimized over time. A deep dive into your email marketing strategy will reveal what’s working, what’s not and where new opportunities lie.

In this guide we’ll break down the steps to conduct an email audit, covering key metrics, campaign components, technical factors and ongoing optimization strategies to help you refine your approach and increase conversions.

What is an Email Marketing Audit & Why It Matters

An email marketing audit is a systematic review of your email campaigns, subscriber list and overall performance metrics to identify strengths, weaknesses and untapped potential. Instead of guessing what’s wrong an audit will help you pinpoint exactly where to focus and improve to ensure your email marketing strategy delivers the best possible results.

When should you conduct an email audit? Ideally quarterly. But if you notice declining engagement with subscribers, an increase in spam complaints or issues with inbox placement it’s best to address them immediately.

Benefits of Email Marketing Audits

Email marketing audits offer numerous benefits to businesses, including improved email marketing metrics, increased return on investment, and enhanced customer engagement. By conducting regular audits, businesses can identify areas of improvement, optimize their email marketing campaigns, and ultimately drive more conversions and sales. 

Additionally, email marketing audits can help businesses stay compliant with anti-spam laws and regulations, reducing the risk of spam complaints and reputational damage.

Regular audits allow you to pinpoint what’s working and what isn’t, ensuring that your marketing campaigns are always aligned with your business goals. This proactive approach not only boosts your email marketing performance but also helps in maintaining a positive brand image. 

By staying on top of your email marketing strategy, you can ensure that your efforts are always driving the best possible results.

Setting Audit Objectives

Before diving into the data, define your email marketing goals. Ask yourself:

• Are open rates and click-through rates meeting expectations?
• Is your subscriber list growing or are you losing more subscribers than gaining new ones?
• Are your email campaigns converting readers into customers?
• Are you optimizing emails for different devices and email clients?
• Are bounce rates and spam complaints increasing?

With clear objectives you can better determine which areas of your company and your email marketing need the most attention.

Key Email Performance Metrics to Analyze

To evaluate your marketing emails, focus on these key email metrics:

Delivery and Open Rates

Delivery is whether your emails actually reach inboxes, open rates is whether your subject lines are compelling enough to grab attention. If open rates are lower than expected, test new subject lines and preview text to improve performance.

Click-Through Rates & Conversions

A high open rate on email copy is meaningless if subscribers aren’t engaging. If click-through rates are low, evaluate your email content, call-to-action clarity and overall design elements to encourage more interaction.

Bounce Rate

Bounce rate is a critical email marketing metric that measures the percentage of emails that are rejected by the recipient’s email server. A high bounce rate can indicate issues with email list quality, email content, or email deliverability. 

To reduce bounce rates, businesses can implement strategies such as email list cleaning, email verification, and email authentication. By monitoring bounce rates and taking corrective action, businesses can improve email deliverability, increase open rates, and enhance overall email marketing performance.

Regularly cleaning your email list to remove invalid addresses, using email verification tools to ensure the accuracy of email clients in your list, and implementing email authentication protocols like SPF, DKIM, and DMARC can significantly reduce bounce rates. These steps not only improve your email deliverability but also enhance your sender reputation, leading to better engagement and higher conversion rates.

List Growth & Unsubscribe Rates

Subscribers' lists decay over time so you need to attract new subscribers while retaining existing ones. A high unsubscribe rate may mean your email content isn’t aligned with audience expectations.

Total ROI & Revenue Attribution

Email marketing should generate revenue not just engagement. Track how email campaigns contribute to sales, customer retention and total return on investment.

Analyzing Email Campaign Components

Each part of an email campaign plays a role in performance. Here’s how to evaluate:

Subject Lines & Preview Text

Your subject lines are the first thing subscribers see and need to be interesting. A/B test different subject lines to improve open rates and overall engagement.

Email Design & Content

• Are you sending error free emails?
• Is your email content aligned with your marketing strategy?
• Are your emails visually appealing and easy to read across different devices?

Make sure your emails use a responsive design, clear fonts and a well structured layout for the best user experience.

Call-to-Action (CTA)

A strong CTA guides subscribers to the desired action whether it’s to buy, sign up to a webinar or download content. Test CTA placement, color and wording to determine and improve clickthrough rates.

Segmentation & Personalization

Segmentation leads to better results by ensuring emails are targeted to the right audience. Personalized email campaigns get higher engagement so this is a key part of your audit.

Technical Audit Elements

Delivery & Spam Complaints

Are your emails landing in inboxes or being filtered as spam? If spam complaints send emails are rising, review your sending practices, email frequency and content relevance.

Mobile Friendly & Rendering

Many emails are opened on mobile so a mobile-friendly design is essential. Test email templates across different email service providers and clients like Gmail, Outlook and Apple Mail to ensure consistency. Using an email service provider can help ensure better email rendering and engagement analysis across different email clients.

Loading Speed & Error Free Emails

Broken links and slow loading emails frustrate subscribers. Regularly test emails and links before sending to catch issues before they impact engagement.

Automation Workflow

Email automation should enhance and not overwhelm the customer journey. Audit automated sequences to ensure relevance and inactive subscribers aren’t receiving unnecessary emails.## Competitive Analysis in Email Marketing

Knowing how your email strategy stacks up to competitors can be insightful. Consider:

• Benchmarking Against Industry Standards: How do your email marketing metrics compare to competitors in your industry?
• Competitor Subscription: Sign up to competitor email campaigns to review their welcome sequences, email content and tracking.
• Content & Offer Comparison: How do your promotions, marketing campaigns and subject lines rate?

Conducting an Email Marketing Audit

Conducting an email marketing audit involves a thorough review of a business’s email marketing strategy, campaigns, and metrics. The audit should include an analysis of email marketing metrics, such as open rates, click-through rates, conversion rates, and bounce rates. The audit should also examine email campaigns, including subject lines, email content, and calls-to-action. 

Additionally, the audit should review email marketing automation workflows, email list segmentation, and email deliverability. By conducting a comprehensive email marketing audit, businesses can identify areas of improvement, optimize their email marketing strategy, and drive better results.

Start by gathering data on your email campaigns and analyzing key metrics to understand performance trends. Review your subject lines to ensure they are compelling and relevant. Evaluate your email content and design to make sure they are engaging and aligned with your marketing goals. 

Assess your call-to-actions to ensure they are clear and effective. Finally, examine your automation workflows and segmentation strategies to ensure they are optimized for maximum engagement and conversions.

Track Your Progress Using a Spreadsheet

Tracking progress using a spreadsheet is an essential step in conducting an email marketing audit. The spreadsheet should include columns for email campaign name, date deployed, target audience, segment name, subject line, hard bounce rate, soft bounce rate, open rate, click-through rate, conversion rate, and unsubscribe rate. 

By tracking progress using a spreadsheet, businesses can easily monitor email marketing metrics, identify trends, and make data-driven decisions to optimize their email marketing strategy.

A well-organized spreadsheet allows you to see common email metrics and see at a glance how different campaigns are performing and where improvements are needed. By regularly updating and reviewing this data, you can quickly identify patterns and make informed decisions to enhance your email marketing efforts. 

This systematic approach ensures that your email campaigns are always optimized for the best possible results.

Actioning Changes from the Audit

An audit is only as good as the action taken after. Prioritize changes based on impact:

• Fix immediate issues like deliverability and high spam complaints.
• Run A/B tests to refine subject lines, email templates and CTA placement.
• Measure performance using key metrics like total ROI and conversion rates.

Ongoing Email Optimization

A one off audit won’t drive long term email marketers success—email marketing requires continuous refinement.

Schedule Regular Audits

Set up quarterly or bi-annual audits to keep your email marketing aligned with business goals.

Culture of Continuous Improvement

Get your team to regularly review, test and refine email campaigns to ensure maximum engagement.

Tools & Resources

Use email marketing tools like Google Analytics, HubSpot and Mailchimp to track engagement, conversion rates and total number of emails delivered.

Conclusion: Turning Audit Insights into Email Success

An email audit is not just about fixing problems—it’s about refining your email marketing to get the best results. By regularly using email metrics, reviewing data, tweaking email campaigns and fixing technical issues you can ensure email marketing is a key driver of business success.

Companies that audit their email marketing regularly see higher engagement, better conversion rates and stronger customer relationships. Get auditing today and start optimizing for long term growth.