Is Your Email Program Health Good or Bad? [Checklist] – Litmus

You might know this stat by now: Email marketing’s return on investment (ROI) is an average of 36:1. That’s $36 for every $1 spent! But to maximize just how much of a return you get out of your email program, you need a healthy one that’s firing on all cylinders.

In this blog post, we’ll walk you through a 12-point check-up to gauge the health of your email program today, and what to do if things don’t look so great.

What is email health?

Email health is your program’s ability to reliably and efficiently send high-quality campaigns that avoid the spam folder and deliver on business goals.

A healthy email program is one that:

• Has an effective list-building process
• Regularly cleans email databases
• Maintains high email deliverability
• Moves emails through ideation, design, production, and testing without major hiccups
• Send enjoyable and actionable campaigns that drive engagement and sales
• Constantly experiments, learns, and refines

Why is email health important?

Email health is important because it helps you make the most of your investment and is a key part of the impact of your email across your organization. Like we mentioned earlier, email ROI can outpace other marketing channels. Email isn’t a magical money-making machine, though—you have to consistently send great emails that make it to the inbox to see those benefits.

Maintaining a high standard in your email marketing process also makes you more nimble. A healthy email program can navigate changes in the industry, make time for experimenting with the latest trends, and move ESPs with less of a hassle.

What are common signs that your email health is poor?

It can be easy to fall into autopilot mode and the lure of “set it and forget it.”

However, your email health needs regular check ups. Review your email program’s health every month or quarter, depending on your program’s complexity and send volume. Set up a calendar reminder to nudge you if you have to.

Luckily, some of the typical benchmarks for B2B email health are the same metrics and processes you probably already spend time with, like click rates and unsubscribe rates.

Here are common signs that you might have an email health issue:

• Low or dropping email engagement
• High customer or spam complaints
• Sudden drop in open rates or clicks
• Increased bounce rates
• Increased unsubscribe rates

It’s normal to see small changes in your email metrics over the course of time. But, for example, if your open rate drops by more than 10 percentage points in a short timeframe and consistently remains low (or gets lower!), you need to do some digging. It might be a sign that your emails aren’t being delivered to the inbox.

12 things to review during an email health check

The indicators for email list health cover a wide range of metrics—from deliverability to engagement and beyond—because email health is so comprehensive.

Don’t know where to begin? Here’s a helpful checklist of 12 things you should stay on top of:

Can you confidently mark each of these off?

1. Consistent email engagement and deliverability
2. Sender reputation score is good or above 90
3. SPF, DKIM, and DMARC records are all correct
4. Integrations and automations are running smoothly
5. Automated email copy, images, and links work
6. Re-engagement program remains effective
7. Every email still looks great across email clients
8. No problems with list health or data quality
9. List acquisition sources work and are documented
10. Your toolset or tech stack are also documented
11. Well-resourced with the right team and tools
12. Any new legal requirements are taken care of

Let’s dig a little deeper into how to run your diagnostic for each of these areas and how to resolve potential issues.

1. Double-check for consistent email engagement and deliverability

First, take stock of your overall email performance. Have there been any wild fluctuations in your email engagement rates? If the thought of investigating your entire email program is overwhelming, try working through an email reporting template to guide your steps and organize what you find.

How to fix it: 

If you notice dramatic changes in your email performance, here are some questions to ask:

• Was there a change in how emails are acquired?
• Was there a difference in how emails were added to your database and lists? Was there a bot issue that destroyed your email list hygiene with bad addresses?
• Was there any other new email activity around the same time—a new email program or automation being launched?
• Were the dips isolated to specific ISPs or inbox providers?

2. Monitor sender reputation score is good or above 90

Speaking of deliverability, when was the last time you checked your sender reputation score?

Your sender reputation score is what inboxes use to evaluate your reputation as a sender and whether your emails are trustworthy enough to go to the inbox or should be delivered to the spam folder instead.

There are several tools you can use to learn what your sender reputation is, including:

• Barracuda Central
• Sender Score
• Microsoft SNDS
• Google’s Postmaster Tools

And while these scores are helpful to know, the score alone doesn’t often tell the whole story. When used in conjunction with other data points, it can be helpful in identifying any potential reputation problems.

How to fix it:

If your sender score isn’t on the high end, don’t panic! It can be fixed. Here are a few ways to help your email reputation.

• Steady your send volume: Check your email send volume—has it dramatically increased recently? Sending a consistent volume on a consistent schedule helps inbox providers understand you’re a good sender. Consider decreasing your send volume for the next few sends and segment your audience by targeting those who are most engaged.
• Assess your opt-in strategy: To bolster your deliverability health for the future, consider implementing double opt-in confirmation and get your subscribers to confirm their email address before you start emailing them.
• Send to your top subscribers: One way to alleviate any potential deliverability issues is creating targeted segments of your most engaged subscribers—the subscribers who are actively opening and clicking your emails more often. Send mini sends to these subscribers consistently and before the rest of your list, so you can increase your overall email engagement. This signals to inbox providers that you are in fact a good sender.

3. Verify your SPF, DKIM, and DMARC records are all correct

Sender authentication has long played an important part in email deliverability, and new Gmail and Yahoo sender requirements are about to make it even more critical.

Starting in February 2024, Gmail and Yahoo have new requirements for mass senders that include three key security protocols: SPF, DKIM, and DMARC.

Now is the time to verify that your authentication info is all up-to-date—senders who don’t abide by the rules by next year might face deliverability issues.

How to fix it:

Check with your ESP about how to set up your SPF, DKIM, and DMARC requirements. You can also learn more about how these protocols work (and what other common deliverability terms mean!) in our Ultimate Guide to Email Deliverability.

4. Test integrations and automations are running smoothly

Launching new email automations and nurtures is fun! Once launched, they’re out in the wild doing their own thing. Are they still running as planned today compared to the day you launched them?

Check out your welcome or new subscriber onboarding nurtures, new customer onboarding, re-engagement campaigns, or simple transactional emails after a form fill. Look at the send volume, performance, integrations, content, and designs to make sure everything is as expected.

How to fix it:

If you notice that the volume of your automations varies widely, you might need to adjust the triggers or segmentation so ESPs don’t give your program the side-eye. Also update branding and content and fix broken links, images, or templates.

If the number of updates feels overwhelming, prioritize based on email volume or size of impact to your goals. Those emails with the biggest impact or send volume, prioritize updating the content for those sooner versus those emails that are less important.

5. Ensure automated email copy, images, and links work

With more than 300,000 potential renderings for an email and email apps changing every 1-2 days, those once-trusty email templates may not look so great today. Your best defense against email copy, images, or links going rogue and harming your email health is through email testing.

One of the easiest ways to test what your emails look like right now to your subscribers is by sending them to Litmus directly from your email service provider (ESP). You’ll not only catch rendering issues, but also learn if any images or links are broken.

But you can’t be everywhere all the time, which is where Litmus Email Guardian comes in. Email Guardian monitors your emails 24/7 and alerts you to potential issues like broken links and changes in email rendering.

How to fix it:

If you find errors or issues, prioritize emails and email templates that are being sent more often.

6. Review that every email still looks great across email clients

Similarly to checking that your copy, images, and links still work, you should check that your templates still appear as you expect across email clients. This is another step in your process where Litmus Email Guardian can keep an eye on email client updates to tell you if your messages might not look like you intended.

How to fix it:

The first step to fixing email rendering issues is pinpointing the problem email client. From there, it’s helpful to reach out to the email community to help troubleshoot. You can also recreate your message with one of our free email templates that we’ve already tested and approved.

7. Evaluate your re-engagement program remains effective

Subscriber re-engagement emails aim to turn cold subscribers back into active audience members, but if they aren’t working, then you’re missing out on list cleaning opportunities. Compare engagement rates with these campaigns now versus in the past to be sure there isn’t a downward trend. If you have time, you can even try experimenting with new strategies ro designs to boost the effectiveness of the re-engagement emails.

How to fix it:

If your re-engagement emails aren’t doing their job anymore, experiment with ideas like:

• New automation timing or triggers
• Personalized emails with dynamic, live content, or AI recommendations
• Updated emails with new updates or announcements

8. Check for problems with list health or data quality

If you notice your bounce rate has ticked upward, it’s time to check your email list database. Incorrect or outdated email lists increase your bounce rate, and continually sending messages to cold subscribers brings your engagement down.

How to fix it:

• Consider adding list-unsubscribe in addition to an unsubscribe option in every email
• Clean your email list of invalid addresses that have incorrect formatting, a missing domain, or an account that doesn’t exist within a domain
• Ask subscribers to add your email address to their contact list–helping you avoid the spam folder

9. Document all list acquisition sources

Keeping track of every signup form and subscriber source is hard, especially if you inherited an email program with a long (and potentially storied) past. Documenting every list acquisition source and deciding if they should remain or not helps you plug any leaky holes that might be causing unbeknownst problems.

How to fix it:

• Assess the effectiveness of each acquisition source

Review potentially problematic list sources like email list rental, co-registration, purchased email lists, lead generation forms, and direct mail signups

10. Review that your toolset or tech stack are also documented

Your ESP is the main tool you probably use, but what else? Auditing your toolset as part of an email program health check may uncover hidden tools and also… hidden budget. You may discover tools that overlap in their uses. So free up that budget to use it elsewhere!

How to fix it: 

If you want to make some changes, check out our guide to getting executive buy-in.

11. Assess your team and tools to get the resources you need

Take stock of your team and their skillset. If you’ve experienced days where you’ve felt stretched, emails have been sent late (or with mistakes!), they might be signs that you need more resources.

How to fix it: 

Work through our guide to assess the type of skills you need, organize your team, and level up your skills.

12. Review any new legal requirements are taken care of

Give yourself a quick refresher course on legal requirements specific to email as well as data and privacy in general. We’ve got some blog posts that can help you with some of them:

• What the CAN-SPAM Act Requires
• EU & UK GDPR: 5 Things You Must Know About Email Consent
• What Marketers Need to Know about the California Consumer Privacy Act
• CASL Debunked: Everything You Need to Know About Canada’s Anti-Spam Law

Are all of your email programs still compliant?

If you work in a regulated industry, you’ll also want to check that your email campaigns are meeting those industry-specific regulations, like for HIPAA or the FDA.

And has there been or will there be any new legislation you need to account for now?

Stay up-to-date on email marketing There’s a lot going on in the email world—but we’ve got you covered. Get email strategies, how-tos, industry news, and more delivered straight to your inbox. Subscribe to Litmus emails →

What are typical benchmarks for B2B email health?

We always recommend comparing your current email performance to your past email marketing metrics, and not worrying too much about what other teams do. But, it can be useful to look at typical benchmarks for B2B email health (especially when you want to show your boss just how good your team is).

Here are some averages you can use as reference:

• Aim for a bounce rate of 2% or less (or a delivered rate of 98% or more)
• Keep your unsubscribe rate in the 1-2% range to maintain good deliverability
• Investigate possible issues if your spam complaint rate is above 0.3%
• Strive for an inbox placement rate above 80%

Take control of your email health today

Maintaining the health of your email program is a huge part of being an email marketer. An unhealthy email program means you’ll have difficulty reaching your subscribers or customers. Doing a regular health check is a great way to stay in shape—without doing a full audit.

One way to make the process less intimidating is by documenting your email program. Having a clear view on which emails you send, what automations you have, where email addresses come from, and more lets you jump into the health check faster. Of course, email testing tools like Litmus Email Guardian also take some of the work off your shoulders and give peace of mind that you’ll know about changes before they turn into problems.

Take care, and you can get more out of email marketing by dialing in on what works and what doesn’t to drive broader marketing strategies.