Email Marketing Campaign Checklist

State one primary KPI (e.g., MQLs generated, demo bookings, revenue attributed) plus one or two guardrail metrics (unsubscribe rate, complaint rate). 'Engagement' is not a KPI — pick the conversion event the campaign exists to drive.

Build the segment in HubSpot, Marketo, Iterable, or Klaviyo using current criteria — lifecycle stage, last engagement date, persona, geography. Exclude unsubscribers, hard bounces, and any contacts on the global suppression list.

If the segment hasn't been mailed in 6+ months, run a re-engagement flow or sunset before broadcasting. Stale lists drive bounce rates that damage sender reputation across all subsequent sends.

Send a low-volume re-permission email to the dormant slice; suppress non-openers from the main send. This protects sender reputation and inbox placement for the engaged core of the list.

Keep subject lines under ~50 characters so they don't truncate on iOS. Avoid spam-trigger patterns: ALL CAPS, multiple exclamation points, '$$$', 'free' as the first word. Preheader should add value, not repeat the subject.

One primary CTA per email. Match the persona's voice and stage in the funnel — TOFU content educates, BOFU content converts. Fact-check any claims; comparative claims need a substantiation file under the Lanham Act.

Use the approved brand template from Figma or the MAP library. Confirm logo lockup, color HEX values, and typography match the current brand book. Image alt text on every image for accessibility and image-blocked clients.

Use the team UTM convention: source=email-platform, medium=email, campaign=campaign-slug, content=link-position. Inconsistent UTMs make GA4 reports uncomparable across campaigns.

Footer must include the sender's physical postal address, a clear unsubscribe link, and a non-deceptive 'From' line. The unsubscribe must process within 10 business days across every sending platform — not just this one.

EU recipients require GDPR lawful basis (typically express consent for marketing). Canadian recipients require CASL express or implied consent with sender identification. Cookie-banner 'accept all' is not marketing consent — audit the consent flow per audience country.

Pull consent records from the source-of-truth system (MAP, CDP, or consent log). For each EU or CA contact, capture timestamp, source, and consent text shown. Suppress any contact without documented consent.

Run the sending domain through EasyDMARC or a header-check tool. Gmail and Yahoo require DMARC alignment for bulk senders; failures land directly in spam. Confirm the From address matches the authenticated domain.

Litmus or Email on Acid against Gmail web/iOS/Android, Outlook 2016/365/web, Apple Mail, and dark mode. Outlook still uses Word's rendering engine — VML fallbacks for buttons and background images are common breakage points.

Over half of opens are mobile. CTA buttons need to be tap-friendly (44×44px minimum); single-column layouts render most reliably across devices.

Test one variable at a time — subject line OR send time OR CTA copy, not all three. Use a meaningful split (10/10/80 for two variants) and let the platform's significance test pick the winner before sending to the holdout.

Send to the seed list (marketing, brand, legal, exec sponsor) from the production sending domain so reviewers see the actual rendered email, not a staging preview. Slack DM approval is not a record — collect approvals on the step itself.

Confirm the send time, segment, suppression list, and A/B variant config one last time in the platform. Schedule using time-zone send if the audience spans multiple regions.

Watch bounce rate, complaint rate, and unsubscribe rate in real time. A complaint rate above 0.1% is a red flag — pause the send if it spikes early. Confirm landing-page traffic is showing up in GA4 with the expected UTM tags.

Open rate (treat as directional post-iOS MPP), CTR, conversion rate, revenue attributed, unsubscribe rate, complaint rate. Compare to the primary KPI target set during planning.

Diagnose where the funnel broke: low open rate points to subject line or deliverability; low CTR points to copy or CTA; low conversion points to landing-page mismatch. Document the hypothesis and the test it implies for the next campaign.