How to Audit Your Email & SMS Program

Why should you audit your email and SMS program?

A retention audit examines five areas: revenue attribution, flow performance, campaign performance, list health, and technical setup. It gives you a fact base before you change a single email or SMS message.

You cannot fix what you have not measured.

An audit tells you what is working, where the biggest wins are, and the benchmarks to hold yourself to.

Start here before you change a single email.

The short version

Audit five areas in order: revenue attribution, flow performance, campaign performance, list health, and technical setup. Start by documenting the same dates, denominator, attribution settings, and eligibility rules across every report. Confirm that essential journeys and authentication are in place, then rank fixes by expected impact, confidence, and effort. The first goal is a reliable baseline, not a generic score.

What areas should a retention audit cover?

A retention audit covers 5 areas, in this order. Revenue attribution tells you the size of the prize. Flow and campaign performance show where you win or leak. List health protects deliverability. Technical setup makes sure the emails land at all. Work them top to bottom.

Revenue Attribution

Flow Performance

Campaign Performance

List Health

Technical Setup

ZHS uses a directional operating range for combined email- and SMS-attributed revenue in established DTC programs. Report email and SMS separately, then combine them; do not impose a universal channel split. A result below the range triggers diagnosis of attribution, eligibility, product economics, capture, flows, and campaigns, not an automatic instruction to send more. Use the canonical benchmark guide and pull a comparable period.

The question: what share of total revenue comes from email and SMS?

Metric	Needs Work	Good	Excellent
Email attributed share	Record and trend separately	Diagnose with audience and program context	Validate incrementality before celebrating credit
SMS attributed share	Record and trend separately	Diagnose with consent, cost, and program context	Validate incrementality and contribution
Combined email + SMS attributed share	Diagnose below operating range	Use the canonical ZHS operating range	Validate incrementality and margin

In Klaviyo: Analytics → Dashboard → Attributed Revenue for the documented comparison period ÷ Shopify Revenue for that same period

Which flows should you have, and what should they earn?

Start with four essential journeys: welcome, abandoned cart, abandoned checkout, and post-purchase. Then add growth and advanced journeys only where the required event, consent, catalog, and operational owner exist. Checkout recovery is often a high-intent place to begin; measure it against a clearly defined eligible audience rather than assuming the same return for every catalog. See our abandoned cart and checkout recovery guide for the setup.

Flows You Should Have

Essential:

Welcome Series
Abandoned Cart
Abandoned Checkout
Post-Purchase

Growth:

Browse Abandonment
Winback
VIP/Customer Thank You

Advanced:

Replenishment
Birthday
Back in Stock
Price Drop

What to compare for each flow

The two canonical cards above are ZHS operating ranges for the defined welcome and cart-recovery populations. They do not establish a universal conversion target for every other flow. For each remaining journey, record its trigger volume, eligibility, delivered messages, conversion definition, revenue attribution, and suppression behavior before comparing periods.

Comparison

Flow audit fields that make comparisons credible

Criteria	Primary question	Evidence to retain
Welcome	Does every eligible new subscriber enter the correct path?	Entry source, consent state, sequence, delivered audience, and attributed revenue
Cart and checkout	Does the journey stop immediately after purchase and avoid overlap?	Trigger definition, purchase exclusion, event volume, timing, and attribution
Post-purchase	Does the message serve the product and the next customer action?	Product cohort, delivery state, repeat-order window, and message eligibility
Browse and advanced flows	Is there enough identified intent to justify the message?	Identity coverage, consent, trigger quality, suppression, and incremental test plan

Compare like-for-like populations before assigning a performance label or moving a flow up the roadmap.

What are good email campaign benchmarks?

Use the canonical click and unsubscribe bands as directional ZHS diagnostics, then read them by audience, send type, acquisition source, and trend. Open and conversion rates add context, but their definitions and reporting can vary. Let recipient behavior and the value of each planned send determine cadence rather than applying one calendar to every list.

Pull a set of comparable recent campaigns and look at them together.

Metric	Needs Work	Good	Excellent
Open rate	Check reporting method and the program's own trend	Compare similar audience and message types	Never use it alone as a quality verdict
Click rate	Use the canonical ZHS diagnostic card	Compare offer, placement, and audience	Confirm the platform's click definition
Conversion	Confirm the event and attribution window	Compare similar product and traffic conditions	Separate attribution from incrementality
Unsubscribe	Use the canonical ZHS diagnostic card	Segment by source and send type	Investigate a worsening trend quickly

Ask yourself:

Does every planned send earn its place for this audience?
Are campaigns segmented, or blasted to the full list?
Are you A/B testing anything at all?

What does a healthy email list look like?

A healthy list has an explicit engagement definition, consistent audience windows, and a planned treatment for dormant profiles. There is no portable engagement percentage: a replenishable catalog, a seasonal business, and a high-consideration purchase cycle create very different baselines. Track recent, active, and dormant audiences against the brand's purchase cycle, then review delivery, clicks, conversions, complaints, and unsubscribes together.

Audience state	Define it with	Audit question
Recent engagement	A documented interaction or purchase window	Is this audience receiving the right amount of email?
Active engagement	Behavior that fits the category's buying cycle	Is engagement improving or decaying over comparable periods?
Dormant profiles	A documented lack-of-engagement rule	Is reactivation, suppression, or a different channel appropriate?

Vanity Metrics

List size is not a health metric on its own. Favor documented consent and meaningful engagement over indiscriminate volume.

What technical setup does an email program need?

Three things must be right: authentication, integrations, and compliance. Configure SPF, DKIM, and DMARC, use a branded sending domain, connect Shopify, sync the catalog, and confirm event tracking. Then check that unsubscribe links, a physical address, and SMS consent are all in place. Record the account-specific sender configuration rather than using a volume threshold copied from another program.

Authentication:

SPF configured
DKIM configured
DMARC configured
Branded sending domain configured and verified

Integrations:

Shopify connected
Product catalog syncing
Events tracking (Browse, Add to Cart, etc.)
Revenue attribution working

Compliance:

Unsubscribe links work
Physical address in footer
SMS consent captured

How do you prioritize what to fix first?

Rank each fix by expected impact, confidence in the evidence, effort, and risk. A missing purchase exclusion with proven overlap may outrank a design refresh even if the refresh feels more visible. Do the work with a clear problem statement, a measurable outcome, and a reversible path before making broad program changes.

Opportunity	Expected impact	Evidence confidence	Effort	Priority rationale
Add or repair an abandonment journey	High when eligible volume exists	Confirmed by event and purchase data	Moderate	Fixes a defined gap with a measurable audience
Segment campaigns	Varies by audience and offer	Requires a clean baseline	Moderate	Use when the broad send hides meaningful differences
Redesign a welcome message	Varies by creative and entry source	Requires comparable performance data	Moderate	Test after eligibility, timing, and data quality are sound
Build a replenishment journey	Depends on repeat cycle and product	Requires order-cycle evidence	Higher	Add only when product timing is known

Prioritize evidence-backed, high-impact work that is safe to measure and reverse.

What are the most common audit findings?

Common audit findings are missing journeys, stale logic, undifferentiated audiences, and a growing dormant population. None of these has a universal revenue percentage or age threshold. Estimate the impact from real eligible volume, current performance, and program constraints before putting it on a roadmap.

Process

What are the most common audit findings

01
Missing flowsEstimate from eligible event volume
No browse abandonment, no winback, or a one-message welcome. Model each gap from real entries instead of a universal revenue percentage.
02
Outdated flowsCompare current-state performance
Flows built years ago may contain stale logic, offers, links, inventory, or consent behavior.
03
No segmentationInspect marginal audience performance
Sending every campaign to one audience can hide fatigue and provider-specific deliverability problems.
04
Inactive profilesUse the canonical tier and sunset policy
Route dormant profiles through reactivation, then suppress persistent inactivity using reliable signals.

Structured from the canonical article steps for responsive reading and presenter mode.

Audit Template

Area	Current	Benchmark
Email + SMS attributed share	___	Canonical ZHS range, with documented attribution
Welcome performance	___	Eligible audience, first-purchase rate, total attributed revenue, and trend
Cart and checkout recovery	___	Eligible audience, recovery definition, and trend
List engagement	___	Category-specific recent, active, and dormant definitions
Campaign response	___	Comparable click, conversion, unsubscribe, and complaint trend
SPF/DKIM/DMARC	___	Configured

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Our team runs a full retention audit as part of onboarding. Deep analysis, competitive benchmarks, a prioritized roadmap, and revenue estimates you can plan around.

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