Turn wasted ad spend into ROI: how a Google Ads audit can unlock new growth

Think your paid ads are killing it? The data might tell a different story. 

Research shows that 76% of PPC budgets are wasted on poorly targeted keywords, oversaturated audiences, or missed opportunities in ad copy and timing. Are you tracking below the average PPC conversion rate of 3.75% across Google search ads? Or maybe your cost-per-click is way above the $3.33 average for B2B Google search ads? If these numbers sound familiar—or if they’re much worse—have you considered why?

An audit is your chance to dig deeper, pinpoint what’s truly driving ROI, and identify what’s underperforming and draining your budget. (9 out of 10 keywords you bid on produce nothing!) 

Whether your goals are to drive leads, boost sales, or increase brand awareness, a strategic audit can expose hidden growth opportunities and provide the clarity you need to make your ad dollars work harder. In fact, companies that perform regular audits report a decrease in PPC costs while increasing conversion rates.

Ready to get into it? Here’s a no-BS, step-by-step guide to optimizing your campaigns for better results.

Step 1: Lock in your goals

Before anything else, get crystal clear on your primary campaign goal. While it’s tempting to expect your campaigns to do everything—generate leads, drive sales, and boost brand awareness— focusing on one clear objective will help you drive every decision you make and prevent you from tossing your budget at vague aspirations.

• Ask yourself: If your campaign only achieves one thing, what should it be? Then set up KPIs that speak to that goal: if it’s leads, measure cost per lead (CPL) and conversion rates; if it’s revenue, you’ll want to track return on ad spend (ROAS) or revenue per lead.

Action step: Define your primary goal, set achievable KPIs, and make sure they’re connected to your larger business goals.

Step 2: Take a high-level look at performance

Now that your goals are clear, it’s time to zoom out and analyze your campaigns from a distance. How do they work together? Are there gaps? Misalignments? This bird’s-eye view will help identify areas where you’re under-performing or highlight standouts relative to your goals.

• Key metrics: Start with total ad spend, lead volume, and CPL. Compare these numbers to the goals you set in Step 1. Are you on track, or do adjustments need to be made?

• Gut check: Be real about your goals. Based on historical performance, is it achievable within your budget? For example, if your budget’s $10,000/month and your CPL is $1,000, getting 50 leads may be a fantasy. Instead, adjust for more reasonable gains, like boosting lead volume by 10% or reducing CPL from $1,000 to $900.

• Campaign performance: Review individual campaign performance over time. Are top click campaigns seeing proportionate conversion volume? If not, your keywords may be too broad, or your offer is misaligned with your audience. Are campaigns driving the bulk of conversion volume restricted by budget? If so, you may need to reevaluate campaign budget allocation. 

• Sitewide performance: No channel works in a vacuum. Since paid search is primarily demand capture, it’s heavily influenced by interactions much earlier in the journey across channels like social, organic search and email. Reviewing sitewide performance is important to understand the interplay and help identify any changes in one stage of the journey that might impact others. Tracking these interactions will help you spot trends, adjust tactics, and make sure each channel pulls its weight in your overall strategy. 

Action step: Review your overall campaign performance, paying close attention to total ad spend, lead volume, and traffic sources. Compare these metrics to your goals and adjust accordingly. If there’s a mismatch between proportional click and conversion volume, dig deeper to find the source. 

Step 3: Account deep-dive

With a macro view in hand, you can now dive deeper into individual campaigns to identify winners and losers. A more granular evaluation helps you pinpoint opportunities for optimization and cut waste where necessary. 

• Segment by funnel stage: Break down your campaigns based on the funnel.

• Top of funnel (awareness): Display and Demand Generation ads

• Middle of funnel (consideration): Retargeting, competitor names, solution-oriented searches

• Bottom of funnel (decision): Brand search, product/service names

• Evaluate by metrics: Review ad spend, lead volume, and CPL by part of the funnel. Ensure that each is serving a distinct purpose and that KPIs align with expectations. If your middle funnel campaigns have a better CPL than your brand campaigns, it’s time to do some digging. However, awareness campaigns may not have any direct conversions but can positively influence branded searches.

• Consider statistical significance: Ensure you’re looking at an appropriate time period if testing a change or evaluating the success of a new campaign. This should account for the length of your sales cycle and the number of clicks and conversions in the given time period. If your industry experiences strong seasonal trends, it might be more insightful to compare performance year-over-year.

Action step: Break down performance by funnel stage and campaign. Identify the top-performing keywords and areas for improvement based on specific, relevant metrics.

Step 4: Assess ad spend allocation

At this point, you have a clear view of how your campaigns are performing. Now it’s time to optimize your budget by reallocating resources to the keywords that need them most. Pour more fuel on your top performers, and get ruthless with the bottom 33%—the keywords that are burning cash without results.

• Budget reality check: Use tools like Keyword Planner to estimate how much you’d need to spend to fully fund all of your active keywords. This will help you understand total available spend and offer perspective on how realistic your budget is for the keywords you’re bidding on. 

• Evaluate low impression share: Low impression share means missed opportunities. If your impression share is consistently below 10%, evaluate whether to continue bidding on those terms or redistribute that budget to more effective campaigns.

• Redirect spend based on performance: With your ceiling in mind, decide how to distribute your overall budget. Break your campaigns into the top 33%, middle 33%, and bottom 33% based on performance. Aim to fully fund the top 33%. For the bottom 33%, identify areas of waste and cut underperforming keywords.

Action step: Calculate the budget ceiling for each channel and refocus your budget on the high-impact campaigns and keywords, trimming the waste.

Step 5: Nail down your audience intent 

Your ad copy and landing pages are critical in converting traffic into leads. If your click-through rate (CTR) is low or your bounce rate is high, your messaging might not be resonating with your audience.

• Use search queries to decode intent: Look at actual searches that brought people to your site. Are they aligned with your target audience? If you’re seeing trends in searches that aren’t relevant to your audience or offer, create negative keywords to weed out irrelevant traffic. 

• Align copy with intent: Your ad copy should directly address user intent. If someone is searching for a specific product or service, ensure that your ad speaks directly to their needs and sends them to the most relevant landing page.

• Test CTAs: The call to action (CTA) in the ads should be reflected on the landing page and provide value to the user. If there are multiple CTAs (demo, sign up, learn more), test them to find out which works best. If you have multiple landing pages relevant to the user and product or service, test the CTAs on the landing pages and see which resonates more. 

Action step: Constantly refine your keywords, ad copy, and landing pages to keep the message aligned with audience intent. Run A/B tests on CTAs and content for better engagement. 

Step 6: Use KPIs to monitor performance

You’ve adjusted, optimized, and refined—now it’s time to define what success looks like for your newly optimized campaigns. Establish clear KPIs based on the goal you set in Step 1 and make regular tracking a priority.

• Primary KPIs: These will vary based on your goals but might include metrics like CPL, conversion rate, ROAS, or lead volume.

• Secondary KPIs: Keep an eye on click-through rates (CTR), impression share, and average CPC to ensure your campaigns are running efficiently.

• Ongoing tracking: Regularly monitor your KPIs and make incremental changes to improve performance. Don’t change too many variables at once—focus on small optimizations based on data.

Action step: Monitor, adjust, and iterate. Set clear KPIs and track them regularly. Use these insights to guide ongoing optimizations and ensure your campaigns stay on track.

Final thoughts

A paid ads audit isn’t just a routine check-up–it’s essential for ensuring your campaigns are aligned with your business goals and driving the best possible results. 

By following this step-by-step guide, you’ll be able to confidently assess how your campaigns are performing and where to make strategic adjustments. Define your goals, align your budget with performance, and continue to optimize based on data. 

With these steps, you’ll be well on your way to more efficient, high-performing campaigns.

Need a little extra support with your ad strategy? We’re here to help you make every dollar count.

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6 ways to improve your email development process

The email creation process can feel like herding cats—so many moving parts, so many people, and it all needs to come together seamlessly. Whether your marketing team is a lean, mean machine or you're juggling a small crew, streamlining your process is key to keeping your email campaigns running smoothly.

Let's face it: email marketing could use a lot less chaos. That’s why I’ve pulled together six actionable strategies to help you tighten up your email development process and bring a little sanity back to your workflow.

Create a project brief

No matter the size of your team or email program, start with a project brief. Trust me, even if it’s just you on a one-person email team, you’ll want to keep a record of what you did, the assets, the goals, and the results. There are a few planning doc or project brief templates circulating the internet, or you can make your own. Start with:

• Dates

• Goals and how you’re going to measure success

• Audience

• Asset names

• Responsible parties

• Envelope fields

• Copy and call-to-action

• Design ideas/sketches

• Links 

• Cadence

Establish a formal intake process

Set up a formal intake process with your stakeholders, designer, developer, freelancers, your boss, and anyone else that’s involved. You’ll want to define roles and responsibilities, deliverables, timelines, and goals. Set expectations and get consensus—this is an opportunity to get everyone on the same page:

• Mention that you’ll be creating a project brief to keep things organized. Get feedback on your brief. 

• Talk to your designers and developers and make sure you understand their needs. For example, designers may want to see a project brief to start designing. Your developer may want to see a PSD file before she starts to code. All this can be hashed out when you establish and document your email creation process.

• Make sure your designer and developer have access to your brand guidelines so everyone’s on the same page. 

• Discuss how work will get done. Do you want to work in sprints? What are the agreed-upon SLAs? 

• If your team is large enough, consider creating an intake form. 

• Consider how you or your team will prioritize work if you’re at full capacity.

• Determine who’s in charge of testing your emails to make sure they render properly across your major email clients.

• Once agreed upon, make sure you document the process in detail and share it out to the rest of the company or team. 

Set up project management software

I recommend using a project management software to keep things organized. Trust me, a spreadsheet might be okay to begin with, but as you get more projects, send out more emails, and add more team members, spreadsheets don’t scale. 

Find a tool that can help keep track of timelines, dependencies, deliverables, etc. There are numerous options out there including Asana, Wrike, Workfront, Basecamp, and many more. Ensure that each team member understands what their responsibilities are within the projects—if they’re required to close tasks, update due dates, etc. 

Schedule periodic check-ins

One of the easiest ways to keep your email development process running smoothly is to schedule regular check-ins. Whether it’s weekly or biweekly, gather your team to assess how things are going. Are there bottlenecks? Is anyone stuck? Use this time to troubleshoot issues as a group and brainstorm solutions. It’s also the perfect opportunity to give and get feedback, making sure everyone feels heard and the process stays efficient.

Benchmark and measure 

To track the success of your process improvements, start by benchmarking where things stand now. Then, after making changes, compare the results. Here are some key metrics to track before and after:

• How many people are involved in the process?

• How long does it take to build and deploy each email (or set of emails)?

• How many emails are built and deployed per month or quarter?

If you see an increase in the number of emails you’re cranking out and a reduction in the time it takes to create them, don’t be shy—celebrate those wins and share them with the team! 

Plan ahead!

I know, I know—cue the eye-roll. But your parents were right: planning ahead really does matter (even in email marketing). Give yourself and your team the breathing room to think, plan, and collaborate. Trust me, the process will be a whole lot smoother than scrambling to roll out changes after a last-minute Friday decision to "fix everything" by Monday. Nobody wants that kind of chaos, and your emails will thank you for it. 

Embrace the evolution

These are just a few of my recommendations to kickstart smoother email development. But remember—great processes evolve. Stay open to change, because the most efficient workflows often get better with time.

I’d love to hear about your own experiences—drop a comment on our LinkedIn page and let me know if you’ve implemented any process improvements and how they’ve impacted your email program. 

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A version of this post was originally published on the Email on Acid blog. 

Why a cheap agency is costing you

Everyone loves a good deal. But when it comes to investing money into your marketing, you get what you pay for.

Sure, the numbers might look good on paper at first, but like the infamous "Boots theory” of economics, where opting for low-quality leads to more expense down the line, cutting corners with a marketing agency can set you up for long-term headaches. If you’re tired of patchwork solutions and “good enough” campaigns that don’t quite stick, it’s time to think about what that bargain is really worth.

The “Boots” theory in action

If you’re chronically online, you’ve probably heard of the "Boots" theory (sometimes known as the “Vimes” theory). It comes from a book by Terry Pratchett, where a character named Sam Vimes explains that struggling people can’t afford to buy quality goods. They end up buying cheap boots that fall apart quickly, forcing them to buy boots again and again.

Over time, someone who buys cheap boots will replace them so often that they end up spending more than if they’d just invested in a quality pair upfront. It’s a great analogy for how cutting costs can trap people into a cycle of higher spending simply because they can only afford quick, short-term fixes.

When you invest in quality from the get-go — whether it's boots, software, or a marketing agency — you're setting yourself up for fewer iterations, fewer issues, and more room to focus your time and money on productive pursuits.

By choosing a marketing agency solely on the best price, you’re essentially buying the “cheap boots.” The initial cost is low, but what you’re really doing is introducing inefficiencies into your marketing efforts. You might save some cash upfront, but the poor foundations these firms lay are going to cost you in the long term — not just in dollars, but in time, resources, and missed opportunities.

Cheap agencies and their hidden costs

Choosing an agency based on price alone doesn’t look at the full picture. Sure, it seems like a great deal at the time, but the real cost often reveals itself later. Here’s why:

1. Poor quality work

   Cheap agencies cut corners — it’s a fact. They’ll often outsource work to the lowest bidder, use cookie-cutter strategies that aren’t tailored to your business, or rush through tasks to meet deadlines. This means that the work you get is likely low-quality, and you’ll find yourself fixing or redoing it later. Bad campaigns lead to bad data, and bad data leads to even worse decisions (plus a costly headache once you do wise up and try to fix this huge, foundational problem).
   

2. Lack of strategic insight

   Low-cost agencies typically don't have the bandwidth or expertise to offer a deep, strategic partnership. They’re there to “execute” quickly and cheaply, not think long-term with you. If they’re not deeply analyzing your audience or aligning efforts with business goals, you’re basically throwing spaghetti at the wall and hoping something sticks. Instead of iterating and adjusting strategies based on your unique needs, you’re stuck with tactics that might not be the right fit. A higher-quality agency takes the time to test, refine, and optimize, ensuring that each project drives better results as it evolves.
   

3. Constant adjustments

   Much like the cheap boots falling apart after just a few months of use, cheap marketing efforts often need constant fixing. And while marketing is all about iteration, it’s always better to start with something that has a greater chance of success from the start. That LinkedIn campaign didn’t land? Well, now you need a new plan. That email marketing system wasn’t properly integrated? Great, now we need to redo it from scratch. Each time you pay to “fix” something, you're inching closer to what you could’ve spent on a high-quality agency from the get-go.
   

4. Hidden costs: time and energy

   It’s not just the dollars. It’s your time and mental bandwidth. Managing a poorly performing agency drains you. From constantly monitoring their work to explaining things over and over — it adds up. And in business, time is your most precious resource. When you lose time, you lose momentum, sales, and potentially the confidence of your team or stakeholders.

Investing in long-term iteration and growth

The takeaway? Choosing a quality agency isn’t just about paying for services — it’s about investing in a partner who’s committed to optimizing your growth from day one. With a solid agency, every step is a step forward — they’ll be refining, adapting, and evolving strategies based on real data, keeping your marketing aligned with your goals. It might seem like a bigger spend upfront, but what you’re really buying is peace of mind, efficiency, and most importantly, growth that builds on itself over time.

A high-caliber agency doesn’t just execute — they’re there to help you evolve, adapt, and iterate, ensuring your marketing is always optimized for growth. That’s the real ROI.

So, when it comes to choosing an agency, ask yourself: is this a quick fix or a foundation for long-term, scalable success? The right partner will help you avoid the cycle of constant rework, inefficiency, and wasted budget.

In the end, investing in quality means investing in results that scale, evolve, and keep you ahead. Don’t settle—invest in success that sticks.

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Stop chasing quick fixes. Let’s talk about a marketing strategy that actually scales.

Breaking up with cold emails – a 3 part blog series

Part 3: Cold emailing vs. ad-based strategies: which one is worth your marketing dollars? – The Solution

A solution-driven guide to smarter lead generation strategies.

This is Part 3 of a 3-part series where we dive into why cold emailing is no longer effective and what you should do instead. Check out Part 1 and Part 2 to continue learning about better lead generation tactics.

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When it comes to lead generation, marketers are increasingly being pushed to stretch their budgets while still being expected to drive strong lead volume. Cold emailing might seem like the cheaper option, but when you dig into the details, it becomes clear that the true cost goes way beyond the initial spend. Let’s break it down.

The high costs of cold email: not as “cheap” as it looks

Let’s take a look at a common data provider and an ABM (Account-Based Marketing) solution. Broadly, we’ll call these “cold contact” strategies – where you're sending messages to people who haven't engaged with you or requested any communication from you. 

Key takeaways

• Terminus: Not terrible. With a cost per lead (CPL) of $37, it seems reasonable, but the customer acquisition cost (CAC) of $927 is still on the high side, and that’s because of low sales conversion.

• ZoomInfo: A trainwreck. The CPL skyrockets to $745, and with zero sales, the CAC can’t even be calculated. Oof.

Though costs may seem cheaper up-front compared to a full demand gen strategy, the numbers tell a less than stellar story. Overall, you end up with an average CPL of $71 and a staggering CAC of $1,855 for cold contact campaigns. That’s like paying first-class prices for a coach seat. 

Ad-based strategy: a smarter way to spend

On the other hand, let’s take a look at the performance of some standard demand gen and demand capture ad channels.

Key takeaways

• Google Ads comes out swinging with a stellar CPL of $40 and an impressive CAC of $118. With 51 sales, it’s clearly the top performer here.

• LinkedIn offers high-quality leads but needs work on conversions—no sales here, making the CAC shoot up. It might need more optimization, but for awareness and top-of-funnel activities, it’s a solid option.

• Bing and Capterra are quite expensive, but Capterra’s single sale proves that lead quality can sometimes justify the cost.

Aggregate analysis: cold contact vs. ad-based strategy

Though cold contact vendors may offer a cost-effective contact rate or initial CPL, the quality is inconsistent at best, impacting CAC and skewing the cost comparison in favor of channels that drive better lead quality. 

Treating contacts holistically: an overlooked perk of an ad-based strategy

Comparing a cold email strategy to a robust demand generation strategy is a lopsided comparison. A well rounded ad strategy covers three main portions of the sales funnel: brand awareness, demand generation, and demand capture. In contrast, cold email is a more transactional one-time interaction that stretches the term “strategy” to its limits. 

With an integrated marketing strategy, you can repurpose existing content across owned channels like LinkedIn and YouTube to build and maintain relationships with your target audience. While this initial interaction likely won’t generate any flashy KPIs, it’s essential for positioning your product or service, highlighting your unique value, and making a strong first impression. 

From this foundation, you can continue to provide value, answer questions, and help prospects understand the problem you solve and how you do it differently. As you build rapport and trust, the likelihood increases that they will choose you when they are ready to make a decision or recommend you to others. 

Once prospects are ready to purchase, they typically have a short, targeted list of contenders. By this stage, they’ve likely made their decision but want to ensure due diligence. At this point, it’s essential to retarget them with relevant messaging, ensuring your brand shows up first in their searches. Once they’re ready to talk, they become a lead, and if you’ve done your job right as marketers, your sales conversations will focus on closing rather than selling.

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Previous posts in this series:

Cold emailing isn't cutting it - Part 2: The Breakdown

Why cold emails suck - Part 1: The Rant

Breaking up with cold emails – a 3 part blog series

Part 2: Why cold emailing isn’t cutting it anymore (and what you should do instead) – The Breakdown

A breakdown of compliance issues, deliverability challenges, and the real costs of cold emailing today.

This is Part 2 of a 3-part series where we dive into why cold emailing is no longer effective and what you should do instead. Check out Part 1 and Part 3 to continue learning about better lead generation tactics.

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Cold contacting (also called “cold emailing”) used to be the golden ticket for B2B lead generation. Need new clients or customers? Just fire up your outbound email list and hit send! But with recent changes in email sending guidelines from Google and Yahoo, along with compliance regulations like GDPR, CASL, and others, what was once an effective strategy has become an operational headache that can lead to serious issues for your other email efforts and even costly fines for compliance violations. And worse yet, cold email engagement and conversion rates are plummeting like a stone.

So how exactly do you stop throwing money at fruitless marketing campaigns and start seeing some real ROI? We’ll break down the true costs of non-permission-based email campaigns and poor deliverability – and show how you can (and should) shift your focus to consent-based marketing, leverage demand generation ads, and use omnichannel approaches like LinkedIn messaging and remarketing. These tactics not only align with compliance but deliver better ROI and higher-quality leads that are actually interested in what you have to say.

If you’re tired of your emails getting ghosted or flagged as spam, it’s time to break up with cold contacting and switch to strategies that prioritize engagement and value. We'll show you how to make the smart move and put your money where it matters—into ad-based strategies that work for you and your audience.

Compliance challenges: the 3 biggest downsides to cold emailing in 2024 and beyond

Besides genuinely annoying your prospects, there are some serious drawbacks to cold emailing in modern marketing.

Cold emailing often means skating on thin ice with laws like GDPR in the EU and CASL in Canada. If you don’t have explicit consent, you risk hefty fines and legal headaches. Some vendors like ZoomInfo or Apollo might provide you with vast contact lists, but there’s no guarantee they meet compliance standards—especially when targeting regions with strict opt-in policies.

Deliverability and spam issues

Do your email campaigns end up in the spam folder more often than in the recipient’s inbox? That’s because recipients haven’t given their blessing to receive your emails. Sending unsolicited emails without proper consent can tank your domain’s reputation, reduce deliverability of all of your company’s emails, and lead to costly compliance violations.

Low engagement and conversion rates

Recipients of cold emails typically have low interest levels since they didn’t sign up to hear from you. They may have no familiarity with your brand and aren’t likely to take the desired actions — resulting in poor engagement metrics and higher costs per lead, not to mention frustration in your sales funnel. 

In our experience, most cold emails suffer from one of the most egregious faults: they don't get their audience right. If you can’t send your message to the right people, then the chance of it being relevant is slim. 

It’s not a good look for your brand

Let’s imagine your email actually reaches the recipient's inbox, they see the subject line, and decide to open it. If it's a cold email with a hard sales pitch, you'll likely turn them off immediately. For someone who doesn't know you, this is a bad first impression—you're now associated with unsolicited outreach. Instead of sparking engagement, you've alienated a potential lead, and this negative experience may hurt your chances when they need your services later.

The true cost of cold contacting gone wrong 

Now that we've established the main concerns of cold emailing, it's time to take a look at the consequences. We’ve broken down the hidden (and not-so-hidden) costs of running non-compliant cold email campaigns, how declining deliverability impacts your bottom line, and why adopting a consent-based marketing strategy could save your reputation—and your wallet.

Monetary costs of email compliance violations

Email compliance is no joke. Sending unsolicited emails without proper consent can result in fines that go up to millions. Let’s look at some of the heavyweights in legislation and what a single misstep could mean for your business. 

Please note: We are not attorneys and this is not legal advice. The following are general guidelines that showcase potential fines for violating certain legislations. To get the most accurate risk assessment, we recommend working with an experienced attorney.

GDPR violations

The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is one of the strictest legislations. If you’re caught emailing EU residents without explicit consent, you could face fines of up to €20 million or 4% of your global annual revenue (whichever is higher). So, if your company pulls in €500 million a year, you’re looking at a potential fine of €20 million. All for an ill-advised cold contact. Ouch.

CASL violations

The Canadian Anti-Spam Legislation (CASL) is also a strict legislation that governs who you can and can't email. Violating CASL’s rules can cost you up to CAD $10 million per violation for corporations. If you’re targeting Canadian recipients without proper consent, that’s a risk you can’t afford to take.

CCPA violations

Under the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), and the updated CPRA, fines can reach $7,500 per intentional violation. The laws give California residents the right to know what data is being collected about them, to delete the data, and to opt out of the sale of their data.

Country-specific fines

In addition to regional regulations like GDPR, certain countries like Germany have also enacted their own legislation that covers electronic communication. Pay attention to country-specific penalties and additional scrutiny, not to mention potential legal fees and reputation damage.

Declining email deliverability: the silent budget killer

Inbox placement, also known as email deliverability, is whether emails land in the inbox or in the spam folder (or just don’t get delivered at all). For obvious reasons, businesses should care about whether their emails are making it to their final destination (to the recipient). 

Even if you manage to navigate the regulatory minefield of collecting data and sending marketing emails, poor email deliverability can silently drain your marketing budget and impact your brand reputation. When emails don’t make it to the inbox due to a block or get flagged as spam, it means fewer eyes on your message, lower engagement, and ultimately, fewer leads. 

Let’s break down why declining deliverability can cause cascading problems for your company:

• If your SDR/BDR (sales dev) outbound emails are sent to mostly cold email lists/non permissioned email lists, then the poor email deliverability from those emails WILL negatively impact your marketing emails (newsletters, customer emails, nurtures, etc). 

• If you don't regularly clean up your inactive email lists and send non-permission-based emails from your domain or subdomain (email.company.com or company.com) it can harm your domain reputation. This means all emails you send could be negatively impacted – including customer emails, sales emails, and more.

• Companies like Microsoft, Google, Yahoo, and more have highly complex spam filtering rules that work to block millions and millions of spam messages every day. By not making good choices, you’re signaling to these email providers that you’re no different than the spammers they’re trying to block. 

• Bad domain reputations will snowball, meaning they’re likely to get worse and worse, while taking longer to show improvement if you implement mitigation actions. Companies like Google (Gmail and Google Workspace) are less likely to help you get your emails inboxed if you’re struggling with a bad sender reputation. (ICYMI, over 6 million businesses worldwide use Google Workspace.)

• It only takes a few complaints to push your spam rate to 0.1%. What’s crucial to understand here is that many B2B senders are unaware of their actual email deliverability rates because platforms like Google don’t share that data. This detail is especially important for someone managing digital content or marketing strategy, where understanding deliverability can have a direct impact on campaign success.

• With a lower deliverability rate, fewer emails reach recipients’ inboxes, resulting in a lower overall lead acquisition ROI.

• Poor deliverability means you’ll need to spend more to reach the same number of potential leads. This drives up your cost per lead (CPL) and makes campaigns much less efficient.

• Additionally, your email marketing platform likely has a strict compliance policy. Poor deliverability can lead to account suspensions, adding to the headache and potential costs.

It only takes a few complaints to push your spam rate to 0.1%.

Email deliverability is an incredibly complex and nebulous topic, and we can’t fit all of our thoughts in this article alone. But the main thing to remember is that you can’t act like a spammer and expect to be treated differently. As a B2B sender, you won’t know your spam complaint rate but keeping spam complaints low is still important. And to achieve this, you truly need to focus on consent-based marketing strategies.

How to break up with cold contacting (without the drama)

1. Shift to consent-based marketing

Focus on growing your opt-in database through value-driven content tailored to your target audience(s) on owned channels like your website and social media. Make sure to implement robust lead capture mechanisms with clear consent language to meet compliance requirements for GDPR, CASL, and other regional laws.

2. Leverage demand generation ads

To boost awareness and engagement, leverage content marketing, social media, and SEO. Platforms like LinkedIn and Google Ads can help you reach target accounts and guide them through your sales funnel. Additionally, remarketing ads can help you stay top-of-mind with prospects who have already shown interest, keeping your brand visible as they move closer to making a decision.

3. Implement demand capture tactics

Leverage high-intent channels like Google Search Ads and Capterra to capture leads who are actively searching for solutions. To maximize the effectiveness of these efforts, ensure your landing pages and ad copy are optimized for higher lead-to-opportunity conversion rates, making it easier to turn interest into action.

4. Utilize omnichannel approaches

Create a coordinated outreach strategy by combining LinkedIn messaging, email, and targeted ads, ensuring compliance while delivering value. Focus on building relationships through non-intrusive channels like social engagement, webinars, and industry events to foster trust and connection with your audience. 5. Invest in tech and data

5. Invest in tech and data

Invest in a unified tech stack that supports multi-touch tracking and a well-rounded media strategy to drive both demand generation and demand capture. Use CRM tools to efficiently track consent and manage data, while automating lead segmentation, consent tracking, and compliance monitoring. At every stage, ensure your content and offers are aligned to deliver value and guide your contacts smoothly through their journey.

The bottom line: why choose ad-based over cold contact

Cold contacting is becoming a risky tactic. With compliance penalties and poor deliverability rates costing more than they’re worth, it’s time to rethink your strategy. Ad-based strategies may appear more costly upfront but they deliver significantly more value in terms of lead quality and compliance safety. Plus, you’ll sleep better knowing you’re on the right side of the law!

By shifting your focus to consent-based marketing and ad-based strategies, you’ll help ensure you’re reaching the right audience, staying compliant, and maximizing your ROI. After all, there’s no point in sending an email if no one’s ever going to see it!

Ready to break up with cold emailing? Give demand generation and capture a shot—you won’t regret it.

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Next: Continue to Part 3 to learn what strategies to use instead of cold emailing.

Previous: Why cold emails suck - Part 1: The Rant

Breaking up with cold emails – a 3 part blog series

Part 1: Why cold emails suck – The Rant

An in-depth look at why cold emails fail and how outdated they’ve become.

This is Part 1 of a 3-part series where we dive into why cold emailing is no longer effective and what you should do instead. Check out Part 2 and Part 3 to continue learning about better lead generation tactics.

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Let’s just put it out there: I hate cold emails. If I had a dollar for every irrelevant, templated, soul-sucking email that hit my inbox, I’d have enough to buy an island and retire. And I think you might feel the same—there’s nothing worse than opening an email that screams, “I don’t know you, I don’t care about you, but I want something from you.”

It’s 2024, folks. Your prospects are smarter, savvier, and more cynical than ever. If your marketing strategy still includes blasting strangers with unsolicited pitches, it’s time to rethink your approach. Let’s dive into why cold emails are trash, and more importantly, what you should be doing instead.

Cold emails: the digital equivalent of door-to-door sales

Remember the days when door-to-door salespeople would show up at your house, uninvited, trying to sell you stuff you didn’t need? That’s what cold emailing feels like—except now it’s digital, and it’s invading the one place you thought was safe from unsolicited sales pitches: your inbox.

Here’s the thing: cold emails are built on outdated principles of interruptive marketing. They’re spammy, annoying, and often feel like a desperate cry for attention. Instead of engaging your audience, you’re interrupting them—and not in a good way. Your prospects aren’t hanging around in their inboxes hoping to be “wowed” by your unsolicited pitch. They’re busy, and they don’t have time for emails that add zero value.

Your prospects are not numbers – they’re people

One of the biggest problems with cold emails is that they treat people like numbers—just another name to check off the list. This approach might have worked back when cold email was new, but now? People have wised up. They can spot a templated, impersonal email from a mile away, and they’re hitting delete (or marking as spam) faster than you can say “unsubscribe.”

An audience-first marketing approach is far more effective. By delving into what drives your customers, including their pain points, needs, and behaviors, you create marketing that resonates with real, breathing individuals. Because marketing that speaks to humans always outperforms outdated, mass-market methods. By focusing on genuine connections, businesses can develop more impactful marketing strategies that truly engage their audience and foster long-lasting relationships.

What 99.9999% of cold emailers get wrong 

I receive at least 3 cold emails in my personal and professional inboxes every day. It might surprise you to know that I read every one of them – I have for years. And you know what most of them have in common? They skip the most crucial step when communicating with someone: they don’t get the audience right.

Here’s just one example of a cold email I’ve received recently that got the audience wrong—we don’t do PLG, we don’t have a product.  

An example of an email that missed the mark on its audience.

In marketing, we often talk about how audience is everything—meaning that without the right audience, no matter how good your marketing is—it will always fail. Start with focusing on your audience’s “WIIFM” or “what’s in it for me” —what challenges they have, how you help them solve them, and why they should care about what you have to say. 

The numbers don’t lie: cold emails are a waste of time

The average cold email response rate hovers around 1%. That means for every 100 emails you send, you’re likely to get one person vaguely interested in what you’re selling. And that’s if you’re lucky. You’re spending time crafting emails, setting up sequences, and paying for software, all to get… crickets.

Don’t take it from me, others have noticed the abysmal return on cold emails. Rand Fishkin recently wrote a post about this very thing on LinkedIn: 

“I think Kieran Snyder’s latest newsletter hit on exactly why [cold emails aren’t working to sell B2B software anymore]. She analyzed the last 4 years of her emails, and notes: “For many years, I’ve received hundreds of cold sales emails every week. Call it an occupational hazard of having a leadership job title and a stable email address. But even with that baseline, look what happens in the 12 months after ChatGPT launches: the number of cold sales messages I receive shoots up dramatically.”

The only solution: build an opt-in audience. Earn attention. Get your brand known. Then sell. Otherwise, you’ll be lost in an ever-increasing herd of overwhelming junk.”

There’s no doubt that the launch of chatGPT has led to a surge in cold sales emails.

Instead of burning resources on tactics that don’t work, imagine what you could achieve by focusing on strategies that do—like targeted, well-timed, and value-driven engagement that actually moves the needle.

Why cold emailing is a no-go in 2024

Cold emailing isn’t just ineffective – it’s increasingly risky. With more data protection laws, strict sender guidelines from Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft, and sophisticated AI tools that filter out low-value content, the cold email tactic is fast becoming harder and harder to execute. Modern inbox providers like Gmail and Outlook are using complex engagement metrics—beyond just opens and clicks—to decide whether your email deserves the inbox or the spam folder. And you’re never going to be able to outsmart them.

Engagement matters. Positive interactions, like replies or moving emails to folders, signal value, while negative actions like marking emails as spam or deleting them without reading can tank your sender reputation. So, what does this mean? It’s simple: you can’t fake it anymore. If your content isn’t valuable, it won’t survive.

Have you seen the proliferation of cold email “bros” on Linkedin? This is the marketing version of the crypto bro. If someone is selling you a hack or a shortcut, or promising you amazing results– wake up! It’s the 2024 version of snake oil salesmen. If something sounds too good to be true, IT IS. 

What to do instead: smarter lead engagement tactics

It’s time to break up with cold emails and start dating your prospects (figuratively). Here’s what you should be doing instead:

1. Spend more time on high-value champions

   Your best leads aren’t hanging out in a cold email list. Use Account-Based Marketing (ABM) to focus your efforts. Identify your high-value accounts and champions within those accounts, and tailor your approach to them. This isn’t about more – it’s about better. What are their watering holes? Find where your ideal customers are and engage them with personalized, thoughtful interactions.

2. Use LinkedIn and 1:1 outreach the right way

   Try engaging with your prospects on LinkedIn. But remember, it’s important that you connect, comment, and add value before you slide into their DMs with a pitch. When you do reach out, make it a 1:1 email that speaks directly to their pain points. Is your value proposition clear? Are you solving a real problem for them? That’s what they care about. Make them feel special. 

3. Try direct mail, calls, and personalized engagement

   Sometimes the best way to stand out is to go old school—send a direct mail piece, pick up the phone, or create a personalized video message. These methods show effort and can break through the digital noise. It’s not about abandoning digital – it’s about mixing it up and being where your prospects are.

4. Elevate your messaging with real value

   Is your copy audience-focused or you-focused? Concentrate on your audience’s needs, pain points, and how you can help. Don’t just say you’re great—prove it with relevant case studies, testimonials, or a clear, compelling value proposition.

5. Content marketing!

   Cold emailing is not the only way to drive demand. Focus on creating better content that adds value—webinars, events, and community engagement are gold mines for building connections. Think less about pushing leads through a funnel and more about creating an environment where prospects come to you.

6. Optimize your funnel with better tracking and integration

   It’s not enough to generate demand—you need to operationalize it within your tech stack. Customer journey mapping, integrated campaigns, and effective tracking are key. Make sure your tools are set up to track interactions, follow up appropriately, and close the loop between marketing and sales. Your goal should be “no lead left behind!”

7. Invest in paid media

   Use paid ads to target your ICP, drive demand, and capture interest without the spam. Well-crafted paid media campaigns can position your brand as a trusted authority, guiding prospects through their journey.

8. Host events and build a community

   Focus on events, webinars, and community-building efforts that bring your audience together. These settings allow you to showcase your expertise, foster relationships, and engage in meaningful ways. Plus, when people feel like they’re part of something bigger, they’re far more likely to trust you when it’s time to buy.

Evolve or get left behind

The marketing landscape is changing, and those clinging to outdated tactics that don’t center the audience (like cold emails) are going to be left behind. Your prospects deserve better than spam. They deserve marketing that’s relevant, engaging, and human. 

At Nine Lives Digital, we’re here to help you evolve past the noise, ditch the bullshit, and connect with your audience in ways that actually work.

Because if there’s one thing we know for sure: when you put people first, results follow.

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Next: Continue to Part 2 to learn why cold emailing no longer works in 2024. 

How we crushed our first webinar with zero budget and a non-existent email list

You know that marketing advice that says you need a massive email list and a budget bigger than the GDP of a small country to host a successful webinar? Yeah, so do we.

As Nine Lives Digital celebrates its first year of business, it felt like the perfect time to share our riskiest and most significant accomplishment so far. The challenge: Take the skills we’d developed running webinars for billion-dollar tech companies and apply them to hosting a webinar for our boutique marketing agency.  

Meaning no big email list. No five-figure ad spend. No team of designers and developers behind us to ensure it all goes off without a hitch. What could go wrong? 

As it turns out, not that much. After an intense month of planning and promotion, we walked away with one of the highest live attendance rates in our careers (a 58% turnout) and a ton of valuable content. 

If you’ve been holding off on running a webinar because you don’t have a significant list or your promotion budget has dwindled, the good news is you don’t need much to make an impact. Here’s how we did it. 

The secret sauce for successful webinars

1 - Know your audience and offer them something of value

This all started with a need to solve a problem. In the lead-up to the Google and Yahoo email sender guidelines' changes, there was a lot of confusing, conflicting information swirling around. With the potential for plummeting email deliverability, anyone running an email program was on edge.

As email deliverability nerds, we knew we had valuable insights to share on the topic. When it came to running our webinar, instead of pushing a product or service, we focused on creating content to help our audience navigate the new email marketing landscape.

Far too many companies hold webinars to check off a box on a list of to-dos. Strategy and brand building become secondary to ensuring leadership is happy you got the event out the door. And forget about it if you’re promoting a new product to cold prospects. That’s the B2B webinar kiss of death: aka abysmal attendance and crappy follow-up results. 

With so much competing noise, your audience wants to see something that will solve their problem, not a sales pitch. Your audience is smart. A session that’s been cobbled together for the wrong reasons is easy to spot. Webinars must provide something tangible, with a clear goal and audience-centric value proposition that can be easily communicated through your promotional strategy.

When you deliver a step-by-step, interactive session that helps your audience solve their biggest pain points (where your product just so happens to be one of the linchpins of the solution), you’re going to build a lot of goodwill and see a lot more traction, both immediately and down the line. 

It might sound simple, but providing something authentic and worthwhile, strategically planned for your audience, really is the key to success. 

2 - Segment appropriately

No, we didn’t have millions of subscribers or hordes of SDRs ready to send 1:1 emails like their computers were on fire. But we did have a small, targeted audience we could reach out to with a message we knew would resonate. 

Point two goes back to point one (because your audience influences everything): If you don’t have an established marketing list, leverage the contacts you do have and offer them something of value they can’t say no to. 

A small, engaged segment is so much more valuable than mass emailing your entire list. Remember, if you’re producing something for “everyone,” it’s really meant for no one. And that’s what you’ll see when you look at your registration numbers. 

3 - The power of partnerships 

It's always good to borrow someone else's audience if you don't have one yourself. By partnering with deliverability expert and email geek Laura Atkins from Word to the Wise, we were able to significantly expand our reach beyond our existing network. 

Partnering with established experts in the field instantly boosted our credibility. Attendees knew they were getting insights from the best in the business, solidifying our position as a trusted resource. As a result, we gained exposure to a wider group of people who wanted to ensure their messages landed in inboxes instead of spam folders.

Like Captain Planet, when your powers combine, you build something so much greater than the individual parts.  And that’s exactly what happened with our webinar: we combined our skillsets and expertise to create a successful event.

4 - Have a strategy 

Despite some degree of "winging it" going on, we still followed a well-designed plan and process to get our webinar live by the deadline. After spending years running webinars for other companies, we knew what worked and what didn’t and had the documentation to back it up. 

Investing in creating a rock-solid standard for how your company runs webinars means you’re not reinventing the wheel whenever you need to put on an event. So you can spend your time creating content that sparks interest instead of trying to manage your webinar team. 

What we learned

The takeaway from our experience? Don't be discouraged by a lack of resources. With a focus on providing valuable content, building strategic partnerships, and having a comprehensive strategy, you can create successful webinars that put you at the forefront of your industry. 

We saw this webinar as an opportunity to build brand awareness and establish ourselves as a trusted resource (plus have fun with our friend Laura!). Instead of bombarding attendees with sales messaging, we offered personalized follow-up emails and answered any lingering questions. 

Plus, it proved the power of great content, strategic outreach, and the fantastic email community we're part of. 

Why is email engagement important? It’s more complicated than you might think.

Inbox placement, also known as email deliverability, is whether emails land in the inbox or in the spam folder (or just not get delivered at all). For obvious reasons, businesses should care about whether their emails are making it to their final destination (to the recipient). Keep reading to learn more about this topic, and how email engagement plays a key role. 

Inbox placement includes three main scenario, depending on the recipient inbox:

1. Free inbox (gmail, yahoo, etc)

Use engagement metrics to heavily influence inbox placement. ISPs look at positive and negative engagement when determining if an email message or a domain’s email messages are going to reach their recipients’ inboxes. ISPs may not care about clicks (or even opens – we know how inaccurate that metric can be) in the email because they have access to lots of other data. Free inbox providers look at both subscriber-level engagement (how you engage) and global engagement (how ALL recipients engage) with your emails:

Positive engagement could include:

• Reply 

• Not junk 

• Move to folder 

• Add to address book 

Negative engagement could include:

• Move to junk 

• Delete without open 

• Ignoring the email; no opens, clicks, or any other positive engagement

Free inbox providers also look at IP reputation and authentication (SPF, DKIM, DMARC), but engagement may be weighed just as heavily. These days, having a decent IP reputation and maintaining your authentication protocol may not be enough to get your emails to their intended recipients.

Non-engagement filters also include signals such as “does this mail look unsolicited?” For example, if an organization is buying, harvesting, stealing, or otherwise acquiring lists in a non-permissioned way, then they will have high bounces, send mail to users who no longer (or never) existed, or generate complaints. Mailing old email addresses can send signals to ISPs that make mail look unsolicited.

2. Enterprise Outlook, Office 365, Outlook.com

Outlook administrators do not usually take into account subscriber-level or global engagement when determining inbox placement. IP reputation and authentication (SPF, DKIM, DMARC), as well as the users taking action to identify the email as spam are the primary signals that determine whether emails reach the inbox. Filters can be further customized, but each organization is going to approach it differently. With email hosting moving from on-premise to cloud hosting, filtering will eventually be handled completely by 3rd party applications such as Barracuda and Spamassassin. 

3. Google Workspace (Gmail for businesses)

Google Workspace has the potential to operate like Gmail, but with the option for administrators to customize filters. When Google Workspace is configured like gmail, engagement filters apply to all incoming mail. If they so choose, administrators can also add a layer of additional custom filters, and the larger the company, the more likely this is the case.

So, what does this mean for senders?

Consider how your marketing database is divided. How many free email addresses do you have? What about business addresses? Keep in mind that business mail filtering can differ from consumer mail. 

Remember that even if Outlook inboxes do not take engagement into account as much as free inboxes and Google Workspace inboxes, my recommendation is to apply best practices to email marketing that encourage engagement and permission-based marketing. I’ve seen 3rd party email security tools block purely based on IP addresses. I’ve also seen corporate recipients block all mail from sender domains presumably because their IT team received one too many complaints. This type of blocking is really difficult to overcome, and that’s why it’s important to practice safe email sending habits from the start. 

Always monitor and maintain your authentication records, monitor bounce rates and other factors that could negatively affect your email reputation, as well as maintain bounce rates within the accepted range. And while sending cold email is tempting, it’s considered spam whether you think so or not, so practice permission-based emailing whenever possible. 

How to create a lifecycle marketing strategy in 8 steps

Welcome to the no-bullshit guide on creating a B2B lifecycle marketing plan that actually works. If you’re tired of the same old marketing fluff, complex funnels, and endless talk about generating “MOAR leads,” then you’re in the right place. At Nine Lives Digital, we believe in marketing with intention—and today, we’re spilling the tea on how to get your lifecycle marketing game on point.

What’s lifecycle marketing anyway?

Lifecycle marketing is all about delivering the right message to the right person at the right time. Think of it as your marketing GPS—it guides your audience through their journey with your brand, making sure you’re there at every turn with something valuable to say. And no, it’s not just about blasting emails – it’s about creating meaningful, relevant touchpoints that make your customers feel seen, heard, and ready to take action.

Step 1: Understand the business (yep, it’s that simple)

Before you dive headfirst into creating your plan, you need to actually understand the business. Who are your customers? What’s their biggest pain point? What are you selling, and why would anyone care? Getting crystal clear on these basics sets the foundation for everything else you’ll do. Ask questions, dig deep, and get nerdy about your business’s goals—because winging it isn’t a strategy.

Step 2: Get familiar with your funnels

Funnels aren’t just for beer—they’re how your business turns prospects into paying customers. You’ve got to know where your leads are coming from, how they’re getting into your database, and what happens when marketing passes the baton to sales. Are there gaps? Are there unnecessary handoffs that confuse your prospects? Map it out. Your job is to find those weak spots and fix ‘em.

Step 3: Identify your milestones, stages, and goals

If you don’t know where your funnel starts and ends, how will you know if it’s working? Define your milestones and lead statuses: Inquiry, Lead, MQL, SQL, SQO, and finally, Customer. It’s like setting the rules of the game so everyone knows how to win. Oh, and don’t forget to get your team’s buy-in on these definitions—nothing kills momentum like misalignment.

Step 4: Audit your current communications

Take stock of all the emails, in-app messages, banners, and smoke signals you’re sending to your audience. Are your messages segmented? Do they overlap? Are multiple teams communicating with the same prospects and confusing the hell out of them? Spoiler alert: They probably are. Make a list of what’s going out, who it’s going to, and why it matters.

Step 5: Map out your funnel visually

Time to put on your detective hat. You’ve got all this information—now make it visual. Create a map of your funnel with all its stages, entry points, and conversion points. This isn’t just to look pretty – it’s about spotting the dead ends and drop-off points where your prospects are ghosting you.

Step 6: Find the leaks (and plug ‘em)

Your funnel might look like Swiss cheese right now, and that’s okay. But it’s time to patch it up. Identify where people are falling off, where your communications are falling flat, and what milestones need a little extra nudge. Think about every point where your prospect could say, “Eh, I’m out.” Then make it your mission to get them back on track.

Step 7: Create your lifecycle strategy

This is where the magic happens. Use your findings to develop a badass lifecycle marketing plan that covers all the stages of your funnel. You’ll need welcome series for new leads, onboarding for new customers, and nurturing for those sitting on the fence. And don’t forget the VES(P)A Framework: Value, End-to-End funnel coverage, Stage-dependent content, (P)ersona relevance, and Automate as much as possible.

Step 8: Build your ideal customer journey map

Picture your perfect world—your ideal customer journey where every campaign is optimized, every communication delivers value, and every prospect moves through your funnel like clockwork. This is your north star. It’s not about being perfect from day one, but about continuously tweaking and improving so you’re always delivering what your audience needs, when they need it.

Why bother with all this?

Because good marketing doesn’t just happen—it’s intentional, strategic, and always centered around your customer. When done right, lifecycle marketing doesn’t just get you leads — it cultivates demand, builds advocates, and drives predictable revenue streams. So stop chasing vanity metrics and start focusing on what really matters: making your customer the hero of your brand story.

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Ready to take your lifecycle marketing to the next level? Let’s chat about how Nine Lives Digital can help you create a strategy that’s no fluff, all impact. Because in B2B, it’s not just about the leads you generate—it’s about the relationships you build.

How to conduct an email marketing audit

This blog post was originally published in Email on Acid. Email marketing audits are an important part of checking your program's health and efficiency. At Nine Lives Digital, we offer this service as a first step to optimizing your email marketing efforts.

Whether it's a new year, a new fiscal, or you're starting a new job, doing an audit of your existing email marketing campaigns and database is a smart way to begin. These audit numbers can help you establish a baseline for improvement, as well as bragging rights. 

For an email marketing audit, let’s  focus on the following:

• Email sending systems

• Email marketing database

• Segmentations and lists

• Email marketing campaigns

• Email templates

• Email processes 

Email sending systems

It's often a good idea to maintain a list of all of your sending platforms. Every year, take note of any changes in this list. For example, at some companies, emails are deployed from the marketing automation platform as well as tools like Outreach, Salesforce, and Gainsight. I keep a simple list of these sending systems, as well as system owners and sending domains in a spreadsheet. 

Email marketing database 

Focus on your marketing automation database for this exercise, but if your company uses a data lake to pipe data into your Marketing Automation Platform (MAP) or Email Service Provider (ESP), you can look there too. Begin with a spreadsheet or Google sheet with all the data so you can both share it and save it for comparisons later. 

It's a good idea to take a yearly (or even quarterly) audit of these seven factors:

1. The total number of contacts: This is how many unique email addresses you have in your MAP or ESP.

2. The total number of marketable contacts: Define marketable as it relates to your company and business. For example, contact records that are unsubscribed,  missing  "job title" or "country" data values may not be immediately marketable (this is a B2B example).

3. The number of marketable contacts that you’ve emailed in the last 12, 6, and 3 months: This gives you a good indication if you're missing out on mailing large cohorts of your database, and it allows you to create a strategy for reaching them.

4. The number of marketable contacts that are inactive (or you can flip it to view active contacts) in the last 12, 6,  and 3 months:  Once again, you'll need to work within your business rules to establish a definition for "inactive." Often it means contacts haven't been opening or clicking emails, filling out forms, visiting the website, etc. Why measure inactive contacts? Because it's good practice to suppress inactive contacts from your email marketing campaigns.

5. Database growth: The number of new contacts added in the year. 

6. Database attrition: The number of contacts that have unsubscribed or hard bounced. You can also include another cell in your spreadsheet with the number of contacts who became inactive. 

7. The total number of emails sent: Instead of looking at contacts, for this metric, we want to know how many total emails were sent for the year, quarter, or month. 

Segmentations and lists

If you only use a small number of lists (or segments), use this time to think through whether creating additional segments is needed. Or, if you think it’s a worthwhile idea to test, you can start planning for those tests. If you employ dozens (or even hundreds) of segments in your email marketing, now is a good time to ask these questions:

• What are the segments you’re using in your marketing? If you use too many to count, what are the main segments you’re using?

• How is each segment performing? How are your main segments performing?

• What improvements can you make to your segmentation?

• Do you have the need for a new segment or segments? For example, your company started marketing to a new persona. Do you have a matching segment created?

Email marketing campaigns

If you’re an email marketing team of one, you likely already track which campaigns you sent for the year and how they performed. However, if you’re part of a larger company where multiple teams are sending emails out of the same MAP, it’s a good idea to take note of what business-as-usual (BAU) campaigns were sent, who they were sent to, and how they performed. If the campaigns were part of an A/B test, I keep track of those results, as well as the winner (if there was one). 

In your spreadsheet, make a column for:

• Email campaign name

• Date deployed (or dates)

• Segment or target list

• Subject line 

• A/B test (if applicable)

• Number of emails sent

• Hard bounce rate

• Soft bounce rate

• Unique open rate

• Unique click-through rate

• Click-to-open ratio

• Unsubscribe rate

• Conversion rate (optional, this metric might not be readily available)

This is basically just an email marketing campaign report for the whole year. Please add or remove columns as you see fit! With a whole year’s worth of campaign data, you can see what efforts have been more successful than others.

Do the same for automated email campaigns. Note which campaigns are running, and how they performed. You may not need to include a deployment date, but you could pull the rest of the metrics.  

Email templates

So you’ve taken a look at your email campaigns and your database, but you don’t want to forget about your email template(s)! During this annual audit, make a note of your existing email templates. 

Ask your stakeholders and yourself: 

• Do you need additional email templates or modules (sections within your email templates)? 

• Have you received any feedback or learned any new findings in previous A/B tests? 

• Have your email templates been tested in the last year? If not, it’s a perfect opportunity to use Email on Acid to test compatibility and fix, update. 

• Does your company have a new logo or imagery that you need to update? 

• Does your footer need a new copyright year? This is the time of year to make those improvements, including making your templates accessible and dark mode friendly.

Email process

A new year is an opportunity to audit your existing email production process and see where you can make improvements. Need ideas? Check out this article titled How to Improve Your Email Creation Process, by yours truly. 

Now that you’ve compiled all this great information together in your awesome spreadsheet, it’s time to share it with your team. Also, if you want to go the extra mile, create a presentation or slide deck and add bits of your data and learnings to it. Share it with your manager and team to show them what email marketing has been up to in the last year! Also, use this data to create your email marketing strategy for 2024. What campaigns can be repeated with a few tweaks? What automated campaigns are performing best but could potentially do better?