Content Marketing Checklist

Monthly content marketing workflow for a DTC e-commerce brand — covers planning, production, distribution across owned and paid channels, and performance review against ROAS and organic traffic KPIs. Run by the marketing manager with input from SEO, email, and paid specialists.

5 sections 24 steps Collects data
1

Strategy and Planning

  1. Pull last month's GA4 and Klaviyo performance

    • Export sessions, conversion rate, and assisted-conversion data from GA4 (Acquisition > Traffic acquisition, segmented by organic / email / social). Pull Klaviyo flow and campaign revenue for the same window. Note which content pieces drove sessions that converted, not just sessions.

  2. Identify keyword targets in Ahrefs or Semrush

    • Filter for KD < 30, search volume > 200, and commercial / informational intent that maps to PDPs or collection pages. Avoid pure transactional terms already saturated by Amazon — focus on top-of-funnel buyer questions.

  3. Set MER and ROAS targets for the month
    Collects number Collects number Collects number
  4. Lock the editorial calendar in Notion or Asana

    • Map each piece to a launch date, channel mix (blog, email, IG, TikTok, Pinterest), and product / collection it supports. Include UGC and influencer drops alongside owned content so paid teams can plan whitelisting windows.

  5. Confirm campaign type drives the playbook
    Collects list
2

Content Production

  1. Brief writers with target keyword and SERP intent

    • Each brief includes primary keyword, secondary keywords, target word count, internal links to PDP / collection, and the 3 top-ranking SERP competitors. Include schema requirements (Product, FAQ, HowTo) for the dev handoff.

  2. Shoot product photography and UGC video

    • Use Soona or in-house studio for hero shots; brief Insense / Billo / GRIN creators for UGC in 9:16 for Reels, TikTok, and Meta placement. Capture lifestyle, unboxing, and demo angles per piece — paid teams burn through creative fast.

  3. Draft long-form blog post
  4. Edit copy against brand voice guide

    • Run copy through the voice guide and a Grammarly / Hemingway pass. Flag any unsubstantiated health, performance, or comparative claims for legal review — FTC has stepped up enforcement on cosmetics and supplement claims.

  5. Add internal links and Product schema

    • Link to the relevant PDP and collection at least twice in the body. Apply Product, FAQ, or Article schema via the theme or a Shopify app (Schema App, JSON-LD for SEO). Validate in Google's Rich Results Test before publish.

  6. Approve final asset bundle for launch
    Collects list Collects paragraph Collects file
3

Distribution and Launch

  1. Publish blog post and submit to Search Console

    • Publish on the live theme, confirm canonical and Open Graph tags, then submit the URL via Google Search Console > URL Inspection > Request Indexing. Re-submit the sitemap if new collection pages were added.

  2. Send Klaviyo campaign to engaged segment

    • Send to the 90-day engaged segment first to protect deliverability — full list sends after open rate confirms inbox placement. Suppress unengaged 180+ day non-openers to keep sender reputation clean.

  3. Schedule organic social across IG, TikTok, Pinterest
  4. Launch Meta and TikTok paid creative

    • Promotional and product launches get paid amplification — evergreen SEO does not. Use Spark Ads / Partnership Ads with creator handles whitelisted; new creative goes into existing winning ad sets to inherit learning, not fresh CBOs.

  5. Brief affiliates with FTC disclosure language

    • Send Refersion / Impact / GRIN partners the asset pack and required #ad / "paid partnership" disclosure language per FTC Endorsement Guides. Contract-required disclosure protects the brand from FTC enforcement on the partner's posts.

4

Performance Review

  1. Pull Triple Whale or Northbeam attribution at 7 days

    • Compare blended MER and channel ROAS against the targets locked at month start. iOS attribution gaps mean Meta-reported ROAS will overstate; Triple Whale / Northbeam post-iOS modeling is closer to truth for blended decisions.

  2. Review keyword rankings in Ahrefs
  3. Score campaign against MER target
    Collects list
  4. Diagnose creative or audience underperformance

    • Run when MER misses target. Check creative-level CTR and thumb-stop rate in Meta Ads Manager — sub-1% CTR usually means hook problem, not audience problem. Compare to last month's winners and pause anything below 0.6x account average.

5

Maintenance and Optimization

  1. Refresh top organic posts older than 12 months

    • Pull Search Console pages with declining impressions but still ranking on page 1-2. Update statistics, refresh internal links to current PDPs, and re-shoot any broken or outdated product imagery. Republish with updated date metadata.

  2. Audit broken links and 404s

    • Run Screaming Frog or Ahrefs Site Audit. Set 301 redirects in Shopify for any retired SKU URLs that still have inbound links — losing equity to 404s after a SKU sunset is the most common SEO leak on Shopify stores.

  3. Review Core Web Vitals in PageSpeed Insights
  4. Document learnings in monthly retro doc
    Collects text Collects paragraph

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Sections 5
Steps 24
Category E-commerce
Price Free to start
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