RE:markable is the weekly email about emails. Dropping the latest email marketing news, updates, insights, free resources, upcoming masterclasses, webinars, and of course, a little inbox mischief.
If your email strategy begins and ends with a campaign calendar (whether it’s neat and colour-coded or not), it’s not a strategy… it’s chaos.
I’m not saying that to make you feel bad, the narrative online around email marketing tends to focus on the “doing” of email (writing, designing, hitting send) rather than the entire ecosystem required for email to actually work.
An email ecosystem is exactly what it sounds like. It’s everything your email marketing needs to thrive rather than simply survive: data, systems, people, strategy, deliverability, content, and messaging.
It’s everything that drives long-term performance, not quick wins.
This isn’t about how to write a good email; it’s about building a strong foundation so every email has a chance of doing what it’s supposed to do.
Here’s the ultimate checklist for a healthy email ecosystem.
If you’ve read any of my content before, you’ve probably seen me talk about The PPPP™ Framework.
It might sound like just another email marketing template or gimmick (yawn), but it’s actually a systemic, layered approach to email that covers key areas of how email works as an operational, data-led, human-centric growth function.
Key takeaway: Operational alignment and visibility are foundational to your email marketing success, and no amount of creativity or testing will save your strategy without fixing these areas first.
Goal: Your system is clean, connected, and supporting your strategy (not working against it).
Every single email should be linked to a business goal or audience need, which means that documenting each lifecycle journey is essential, from awareness all the way down to retention and re-engagement.
Avoid the “email everyone” mentality and focus on aligning your sales, marketing, and services on messaging, frequency, and audience segments.
Oh and do not assume your audience remembers who you are, why they signed up, or what they expected from you. A lot of the time, people joined months ago, downloaded something once, bought from you briefly, or opened an email while distracted. Unless you show up with intention and consistency, they forget - quickly.
Goal: Your email activity aligns with strategy, not schedule.
If your data feels like a liability, it’s usually because something underneath it is broken.
Strong email programmes rely on clean, structured, purposeful data that deepens over time.
You need to:
Collect motivational and intent-based data, not just demographics
Distinguish consequential vs intentional opt-ins
Implement progressive profiling so your data becomes smarter as people engage
Maintain suppression lists and exclusion logic
Make data usable across teams — not trapped in silos
Validate your data regularly (ZeroBounce etc.)
Measure disengagement patterns, not only engagement peaks
Consequential opt-ins (e.g., downloads, checkouts, webinar signups) carry low intent.
Intentional opt-ins carry significantly higher permission and better engagement.
A healthy ecosystem recognises this difference and adjusts frequency, messaging, and expectations accordingly.
And don’t forget invisible permission - the unwritten expectation that your emails will meet the value someone thought they were signing up for. Break invisible permission (by changing tone, frequency, purpose, or showing up unpredictably), and engagement will collapse before you notice. Inbox providers will notice much sooner.
Systems and data are useless without people who understand how to operate them.
Ask yourself:
Is there a clear internal owner of CRM/email strategy?
Do teams understand deliverability, consent, and compliance?
Is everyone trained properly on the CRM and ESP?
Are sales, service, and marketing aligned on communication?
Are workflows, naming conventions, and SOPs documented?
Do you review performance collaboratively (not in silos)?
If people don’t know how to contribute, what good looks like, or how decisions are made, nothing will run smoothly.
And don’t assume leadership understands how email works. Most don’t. They see a newsletter. You see infrastructure, permission frameworks, behavioural signals, attribution, and a whole ecosystem holding the business up behind the scenes. Educating upwards is part of maintaining ecosystem health.
Goal: Your people know how to use the tools and make confident, informed decisions.
If you’re feeling slightly called out or unsure whether your ecosystem is in good shape, here are the signs something isn’t right:
Your CRM & ESP don’t talk to each other
No one cleans the data and there is no data strategy
Your automations haven’t been touched in over a year
Email is a “hand-me-down” channel with no owner
You’re still emailing the entire list
You have an email plan — not an email strategy
You measure success using opens and clicks alone
You don’t track spam complaints
Deliverability is a mystery (or you assume your ESP will tell you)
You can’t quantify email’s impact on revenue, leads, or conversions
The good news: Every single one of these is fixable.
If your basics are already ticking along healthily, then you can opt for some more advanced optimisation.
Email health isn’t about sending fewer or prettier emails. It’s about having a connected stream that makes up your email ecosystem, backed by a solid strategy and consistent, clean, clear data.
The best email strategies aren’t louder or full of hacks and templates; they’re smarter, and they’re intentional.
Build a solid foundation by focusing on each element and building from the ground up, and your emails will thrive across all areas rather than just “getting by” as you go.
If your email ecosystem feels messy or disconnected, that’s exactly what I help fix.
I work with B2B teams to transform email and CRM from chaos into clarity — book an audit or workshop and start building a system that actually works.
RE:markable is the weekly email about emails. Dropping the latest email marketing news, updates, insights, free resources, upcoming masterclasses, webinars, and of course, a little inbox mischief.