5 Step Email Auditing Process – For Effective Email Marketing

In order to stay on top of your email marketing game, you need an audit. It’s a way for companies and brands to look at their existing workflows as well as their performance. 

An email audit can be time-consuming but will save you time and resources in the long run. It helps you in understanding your current strategy, assess what is working and not working about it, brainstorm new ideas for improvement and make changes accordingly.

It also gives you a clearer picture of where your efforts are falling short so that in the future they will be more focused on increasing open rates and other important metrics that help in boosting business growth via email marketing.

What is Email Auditing?

The email audit is a systematic evaluation of an existing email marketing strategy. It means looking at the workflows, subscribers, copywriting, design and performance to see what works well with your business goals.

You’ll get to know how an organization’s email marketing strategy is performing. A comprehensive review typically includes the following: workflows, subscribers, copy, design (including visuals), performance metrics such as open rates and click-throughs to provide insight into what could be improved.

Strategies for improving deliverability which can include changing subject lines or sender address information based on recipient behavior; data privacy compliance protocols including GDPR regulations wherever applicable.

Data Required to Run An Email Audit

The crux of email auditing is data in various forms, mostly found in email or web stats. Pay attention to the stated stats very carefully while conducting an email marketing audit.

• Clickthroughs
• Conversion Rates
• Opt-in-numbers
• Opt-out-rates
• Open rates
• List retention figures

Why Do We Conduct Email Audits?

There are a number of reasons to conduct email marketing audits, it’s usually done for the following stated purposes.

• Security 
• Reputation
• Deliverability 
• Effectiveness
• Content Quality

Problems/Issues Caught by Conducting Email Audit Process

• Bounced Emails
• Low Clickthrough Rates
• High Percentage of Unopened Emails
• List Management & Acquisition Problems
• Inconsistent Messages & Policies
• Low Performing Email Campaigns
• Any Problem or Error
• Strategic Weaknesses

5 Step Audit Process 

This is an email audit checklist created with a step-by-step list to make it easy for any marketer around the globe to create an effective email marketing audit.

Email Audit Process | Source: retainup.co

Step 1:  Become a detective for your emails

• Talk to your email marketing team 
• Gather feedback from clients & other contacts 
• Collect study samples relevant to your brand, historic data & track trends

From content creation to the technical process. Ask everyone involved in the email marketing process, what works, what has worked in the past, and what does not.

The problems that they have fixed till now. What kind of approach helped them to solve certain problems.

You can also invite feedback through a survey, poll, questionnaire, etc. All this info will be useful in making all the parties clear on certain issues.

For example, whether they are aware of certain rules that make a subject line go to spam.

Step 2: Analyze the whole email design & development process

Email Auditing – Analysis | Source: retainup.co

• Make a rundown of how the email campaign evolves from scratch to the delivery of the final product. 

Creating a chart or timeline of how an email campaign evolves from start to finish would be very helpful in the process of email marketing audits.

Your email audit rundown will vary, but will mostly consist of items like concept creation, marketing strategy, subject line & headers, content from text to format, email design, list management & monitoring, testing, and evaluation. Work extensively on all your major email blocks.

Compile all the data & details of how each task is handled.

• Remember to delegate

The email audit process can be a huge task if you have a big mailing list. Make it easier by dividing tasks.

• Compile all the data & details of how each task is handled

When you’re conducting an email audit observe how different parts and departments of the business work together in order to give an efficient final product. 

• Protect your email reputation at all costs 

Step 3: Compile all the data required to run an email audit

After getting in-depth with the whole process, put your knowledge into immediate use. Be very mindful of how your next campaign will be. Monitor each and every time defined in your timeline.

Step 4: Make all the necessary improvements 

If and when you have all your information and have analyzed it, make adjustments accordingly. This is also the point where you can bring in ideas for experimentation.

Collecting the data is only half the job, you should focus on seeing what might change it and the goal is to change the data in a positive way. 

Step 5: Keep testing

Email Audit Process – Email Testing | Source: endgrid.com

Every time you move forward with new email marketing campaigns or sending out a new email – please make sure that you test and then hit send!

No matter how good and professional you are, everyone makes mistakes and it is always the best idea to check out how it’s being received before anyone else notices it. Sometimes people pay dearly for not doing email testing. Think of it as your email saver. 

Your future self would thank you only when email audit documentation is up to date, available, and easily editable. Whether you have the in-house resources to complete this process effectively or you can outsource it from marketing agencies that help in making your email marketing process fast, simple and affordable.

Just make sure you do it, it’s of utmost importance!

When is Outsourcing Email Audits better than In-House Email Audits?

Did you know you could conduct an email audit in-house without making any expenses? 

But, if you lack the expertise needed, it might be a great idea to outsource your email audit process or parts of it. 

• When you have a huge mailing list.
• Limited data & stats
• You have specific areas of concern that immediately need to be resolved
• You need expert hands on a big project

Conclusion

Try and keep your email audit process in auto-pilot mode. Even after you’ve scanned your emails with the most effective formal audit, there is still scope to make your emails even more effective and stay alert for any spontaneous problems that you should be ready to fix right away.

By keeping your evaluation & testing protocol in check you’ll always be in control of how your emails are gonna perform.

Optimite is the only outsourcing email marketing agency you need for email design and development services. They were tired same old email development services out there – so they built their own reliable, affordable, scalable email design solutions for any business in need of an extra hand with their emails or newsletters.

They give marketers and email marketing agencies the tools they need to succeed via email marketing platforms. So don’t forget to contact them when you need your emails to be successful.