The Ultimate Email Marketing Checklist

Want to level up your email marketing and improve your ROI and audience engagement? One of the best ways to do this is by live testing every single email campaign and workflow touch. That means creating a test send just for you and your colleagues, allowing you to view your campaign before it goes to a full audience.

By experiencing your email campaigns the way your subscribers do, you’ll be able to pick up any changes that need to be made before you hit send for real. Here’s what you should be asking yourself during every live test.

1. Did you test your subject line?

Be sure to check your subject lines on multiple devices to ensure that the text isn’t too long - if it is, it will get cut off on some platforms.

2. Is the copy persuasive??

Does your email copy achieve its goal? It’s tempting to waffle on, but a lot more challenging to edit your copy to ensure that the message is as strong and clear as can be.

Every email campaign should catch the reader’s attention and persuade them to take action. If you don’t feel that it does the job, give your content a few tweaks before sending your campaign out.

3. Does your email contain preview text?

If you leave out the preview text, your email provider may display a generic message like, “Can’t see this email properly? View in a web browser.” This doesn’t convey anything about your content and can lose your reader’s attention. Plus, a preview is a great way to hint at what your audience can expect from your campaign.

4. Does your email include a CTA above the fold?

Seriously - if you’re selling ANYTHING, you need to do this for every single designed campaign. Not only does it make your CTA impossible to miss even if recipients don’t scroll down, but it can also help increase your click rates, and even sales.

5. Did you verify that every link works??

Click on all links or interactive elements in the email to make sure they work correctly and that each link lands on the intended destination. If your links don’t direct your audience to the right place, you could end up losing a lot of revenue.

6. Did you proofread the email??

Check for spelling, grammar and punctuation errors. Plus, be sure the email copy sounds professional and is easy to understand. A great way to do this is to read your email out loud, as you’ll be able to catch any additional errors that your spell check app might have missed.

7. Did you check that your images are optimized for mobile??

According to a recent study, over 55% of emails are now opened on a smartphone. So it’s vital to test your campaigns on mobile as well as desktop to ensure that all images appear correctly. Plus, when it comes to file sizes, small JPEG or PNG files are the most suitable, as the majority of mobile devices support them (they also load a lot faster than large files).

8. Did you include an A/B test??

A/B testing different aspects of your email campaigns, such as subject lines, CTAs, and content, is essential if you want to get to know your audience better and send them campaigns they’re more likely to respond to.?

9. Did you verify your email list??

By validating your email list, you'll reach the right audience and avoid a high bounce rate. It’s important to check email validity before you hit send, as this could negatively impact your email’s deliverability.

10. Is your unsubscribe link visible??

It’s mandatory to include a visible unsubscribe link in every email. Plus, giving people the option to opt out of your emails themselves helps you keep your list free of uninterested subscribers without you having to remove them.

The Takeaway

With a whopping ROI of $36 for every $1 spent, email marketing is one of the most effective channels you can use to grow your business, convert leads, and reach more potential customers.

And if you’re putting the time, effort, and money into building email campaigns, it just makes sense that you would want them all to perform as optimally as possible in order to get the best out of your investment. So put your campaigns to the test before you send them out into the world - an extra few minutes spent can ultimately make an enormous difference to your engagement and revenue.