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For most of my consulting career, email audits have followed a fairly predictable pattern. I was reviewing a client’s email program and looking for three things: what worked, what didn’t work, and what was missing. The goal was simple: build on what was working, fix or remove what wasn’t, and identify opportunities the organization hadn’t yet explored.
When I started consulting, many organizations simply weren’t doing enough with email. They weren’t taking advantage of automation, segmentation, or lifecycle marketing. There are clear opportunities to improve outcomes by developing new capabilities.
But lately I’ve noticed a change. Today’s email programs are overgrown. Most organizations haven’t set out to create large collections of newsletters, automations, nurturing campaigns, onboarding series, event promotions, and one-off initiatives. Each was created for a legitimate reason. A business need arose, a campaign was proposed, resources were invested, and another element was added to the ecosystem.
This is not the result of bad marketing. It’s almost the opposite. Organizations are much more sophisticated. They have embraced marketing automation, invested in lifecycle marketing, and built increasingly personalized customer journeys. Each new campaign was created to solve a business problem, and at the time, most of these decisions made perfect sense.
That’s why today’s email audits are different. The biggest opportunity is often not adding another campaign. It’s about deciding what still belongs.
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How did we get here?
Organizations are very good at enriching their messaging programs, but much less disciplined in asking whether each new initiative represents the best use of marketing resources.
I was reminded of this while working with a client who wanted to maintain campaigns for multiple secure content downloads. Tracking uploaded content is generally a good practice, which is why we developed the development strategy and message.
Months later, I checked the results. A few of these automations never sent a single email because the content offers weren’t generating any downloads. There was nothing wrong with the campaigns themselves. They just didn’t have an audience.
One of the things I enjoy most about consulting is helping clients invest their limited budgets where they will generate the greatest return. I would much rather help a client invest in an initiative that produces measurable business value than develop something that never has the chance to make an impact. When we spend time and budget on campaigns that never air, we miss the opportunity to invest those same resources where they could make a real difference.
The same thing happens over time across an entire email ecosystem. Organizations continue to add campaigns because each seems interesting in its own right. Very few people question whether it is the best investment or how it fits into a larger strategy.
The question we stopped asking
The more organizations I work with, the more I think we’re asking the wrong questions. We tend to evaluate email one campaign at a time.
- Should this automation be optimized?
- Should we update this newsletter?
- Should we create another development campaign?
These are not bad questions. They are simply too small. The bigger issue is whether the entire messaging ecosystem intentionally supports the organization’s most important goals.
Think of a building. Each load-bearing beam exists because it supports something essential. Remove it and the structure is weaker.
Now imagine spending 10 years renovating this building and adding support beams every time someone starts a new project. Eventually, beams would run through the dining room, blocking the hallways, even through the bathtub. They do not reinforce the building. They’re just taking up space because no one ever stopped to ask if they were carrying weight.
Mature messaging ecosystems are evolving in the same way. Each campaign brings something. The real test is whether its contribution is sufficient to justify the time, budget, creative energy and organizational attention it consumes.
More importantly, if you were designing your email ecosystem today, knowing your current business priorities, audiences, and resources, would you create the same program?
This is very different from asking whether an individual campaign is working reasonably well.
It’s a portfolio decision. This is how mature email programs need to think.
Maybe it’s time for a Swedish death cleanse
This change in my consulting work keeps bringing me back to the idea of Swedish Death Cleaning.
If you’re not familiar with it, Swedish Death Cleaning is about intentionally looking at your belongings and deciding what deserves a place in the next chapter of your life. It’s not about getting rid of things to have less. It’s about making deliberate choices so that what’s left is useful, meaningful, and aligned with what’s most important.
Messaging ecosystems deserve the same treatment. Every newsletter, automation, nurturing campaign, and triggered message should answer one simple question: Is this one of the best uses of our time, budget, and creative energy to help the organization achieve its goals?
That’s a very different standard than asking if a campaign is working. A campaign can generate opens, clicks, and even the occasional conversion without being one of the most profitable investments your team can make. The real opportunity is not to optimize all existing programs. It’s about taking a step back, looking at the ecosystem as a whole, and intentionally deciding what’s worth staying, what should change, and where to invest those resources.
This is the change I made in my own board. I always believe in optimization. But increasingly, optimization comes after something much more important: ensuring that the email ecosystem itself intentionally supports the organization’s strategic priorities.
Only then does it make sense to optimize what’s left.
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