There’s nothing better than seeing your email marketing campaigns convert into sugary-sweet ROI. But before we take your business forward into the bright, bright future, we need to analyze what has been working and what hasn’t. And an initial email marketing audit is your first step on the journey to success. What is an email marketing audit? What are the benefits of having your email marketing audited? We have all the answers… and more!
“We were stuck in a rut with a very large global agency who never hit the mark with our brand identity and voice. After moving to CodeCrew, our email and SMS communications finally feel like they are coming directly from us. CodeCrew has gone above and beyond to truly understand our unique brand.”
Fun Fact: When PetLab Co. approached us, we discovered that they were losing a lot of revenue by not segmenting their wide audience. Click here to learn how just one campaign yielded a 53.33% click rate increase.
Essentially, a marketing audit is a step-by-step evaluation of all your business’s marketing elements and practices. We take your existing email marketing program and, after checking under and behind each and every metric, we can ascertain where you’re lacking some of that crucial zing. Our team pays close attention to your Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to see which emails yielded a higher conversion rate, and which ones caused a spike in unsubscribe rates. We also focus on ways to improve email deliverability to make sure your emails aren’t ending up in spam folders. There are a million little pitfalls that could be robbing you of revenue, and an audit is the first step toward getting rid of them.
When it comes to great email marketing, experience is everything. Our goal, as a team of email experts with decades (collectively) of experience in this field, is to put our expertise to good use when conducting an audit on your business’ email program. Sometimes we can even solve your problem at a glance because we’ve seen it before and know exactly where to go. We also have the ability to spot things that are invisible to the inexperienced eye, as well as find potential issues and stop them before they can negatively impact your business. What’s more, through effective email campaign management, and by carefully assessing all your workflows, lists and segments as well as doing a deep data dive, we’ll get a better understanding of what’s already effective and what can be improved upon in order to fully optimize your email marketing program.
You’d be surprised at the impact seemingly simple things like subject lines and even your CTA button size can have on your ROI.
Knowing what motivates your customers is the best way to craft effective messaging.
Because there’s no point in spending all that time and effort on your campaigns, only for them to end up in the spam folder.
Getting caught up in the small details often distracts from the larger challenges.
Scrubbing your list can positively affect your sender reputation and ensure that your metrics are accurate.
By staying in sync with your audience’s needs, you can decrease churn rates and unsubscribes, and increase sales.
Of course, we don’t just wing it. The key to getting answers is asking the right questions. Which is why we divide your audit into the following sections:
Does each email look like a work of art? We are known for our dazzling, impactful design work and we recognize how much of a difference good design (and great content) can make. Sometimes, all you need is a slightly smaller logo to start making the kind of profits you want. Sometimes, you need a lot more love, but we’ll get you there either way.
Will this look great on an iPhone AND a laptop? The best strategy, content and design can still fail if you don’t stick to some key benchmarks of email design. One of the many best practices we check for is that all images in your emails are clickable. It might sound simple but it’s something that can have a big impact and is often overlooked.
Your GDPR/CASL/CCPA/LGDP legal compliance all needs to be in place – this isn’t just best practice, it’s mandatory. And for good reason - these legal requirements are designed to protect you and your customers from questionable emails. So, while some might roll their eyes at compliance, we see it as a great way to ensure that customers receive quality, trusted content, and that you’re sending your campaigns to people who are genuinely interested in your products and services.
When it’s done right, email marketing automation not only generates a lot of income but also makes the day-to-day running of your business so much easier. We’ll go through a few of the main ones you may have in your program, including:
These typically yield the best click rate, since it’s the first email subscribers receive from you after signing up. A welcome flow should do exactly what it says on the can by first welcoming a customer and then recommending products and services to get them started.
These are designed to target customers who are browsing your site, but not adding anything to their cart. This can be done by highlighting any special offers on those products, recommending similar items, or simply encouraging customers to return to the site.
For customers who’ve added items to their cart, but haven’t moved to checkout. A good cart abandonment flow can recover a LOT of potential revenue, while a bad one can be costly for your business.
We’ll make sure that you know everything you need to know about transactional emails, and ensure that all transactional emails - like order confirmations, shipping reminders, and delivery notifications - are up and running, in order to help you communicate with your customers and offer the best possible level of service.
“CodeCrew is the real-freakin-deal. They professionalized my brand in a way I didn't know was possible and genuinely went the extra mile for my company because they CARE. They have heart and brains - it's a win-win and any company would be lucky to have CodeCrew representing them.”
Before we start an audit, we remind ourselves of the basics. Here’s what we’ve learned over the past few years:
The world of email marketing is intricate and tricky to navigate. It can overwhelm anyone, from seasoned entrepreneurs to new business owners. But it doesn’t have to be that way. Our team of dedicated experts is here to guide you through every step of the process, from doing an email marketing audit on your existing campaigns to building the kind of email marketing program that will help you create the business of your dreams. Sound good? Then schedule a 45-minute meeting with us.
A marketing audit is a step-by-step evaluation of all your business’s existing marketing elements, campaigns, and practices. It’s a litmus test to ascertain what’s working, what needs improvement, and how your business’s marketing is performing as a whole. If you’re using an Email Service Provider (ESP), our experts can do some serious digging and look at Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), cross-reference those with campaigns, and also see when customers unsubscribed. Of course, we’ll also pay close attention to those campaigns that had a good click-through rate. The saying goes, “You can’t improve what you don’t measure”. Well, this is the first step toward giving your marketing a boost in the upward direction.
Imagine a football team without a coach. Each game they run out onto the field and simply give 110%. Except there’s no one to analyze the game, look at the team’s strategy, or plan their next play. This is what you’re doing with your email marketing if you don’t do an audit. Yes, your emails look great, but they could be sitting in spam folders or boring subscribers without you knowing. With an email marketing audit, you get a clear insight into both your own campaign’s performance and - more importantly - your audience’s preferences. Perhaps your subscribers simply don’t read emails at the time you send them. Maybe they don’t like getting three emails a day? All these questions can be answered (and corrected) by taking a closer look at the instant replay and listening to your coach.
Every email marketing program is different and you may need to focus on deliverability over design (as an example) - it just depends on what’s affecting your ROI and general performance. Having said that, the key factors you should focus on include design and layout, content, the quality of your automated flows, deliverability, spam and bounce rates, unsubscribe rates, cadence, click rates and open rates, A/B testing, and your overall strategy and approach.
