{"id":11194,"date":"2026-07-16T07:54:50","date_gmt":"2026-07-16T13:54:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/attentionmedia.io\/?p=11194"},"modified":"2026-07-16T07:54:50","modified_gmt":"2026-07-16T13:54:50","slug":"your-email-program-is-overdue-for-a-portfolio-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/attentionmedia.io\/?p=11194","title":{"rendered":"Your email program is overdue for a portfolio review"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Marketers<\/div>\n

For most of my consulting career, email audits followed a fairly predictable pattern. I\u2019d review a client\u2019s email program and look for three things: what worked, what didn\u2019t, and what was missing. The goal was simple: build on what worked, fix or retire what didn\u2019t, and identify opportunities the organization hadn\u2019t yet explored.<\/p>\n

When I first started consulting, many organizations simply weren\u2019t doing enough with email. They weren\u2019t taking advantage of automation, segmentation, or lifecycle marketing. There were obvious opportunities to improve results by building new capabilities.<\/p>\n

Lately, though, I\u2019ve noticed a shift. Today\u2019s email programs are overgrown. Most organizations didn\u2019t set out to create sprawling collections of newsletters, automations, nurture campaigns, onboarding series, event promotions, and one-off initiatives. Each was created for a legitimate reason. A business need emerged, a campaign was proposed, resources were invested, and another piece was added to the ecosystem.<\/p>\n

This isn\u2019t the result of poor marketing. It\u2019s almost the opposite. Organizations are much more sophisticated. They\u2019ve embraced marketing automation, invested in lifecycle marketing, and built increasingly personalized customer journeys. Every new campaign was created to solve a business problem, and at the time, most of those decisions made perfect sense.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s why today\u2019s email audits look different. The biggest opportunity often isn\u2019t adding another campaign. It\u2019s deciding what still belongs.<\/p>\n

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<\/p>\n

How did we get here?<\/h2>\n

Organizations are very good at adding to their email programs, but much less disciplined about asking whether each new initiative represents the best use of marketing resources.<\/p>\n

I was reminded of this while working with a client who wanted nurture campaigns for several gated content downloads. Following up with downloaded content is generally a best practice, so we developed the nurture strategy and messaging.<\/p>\n

Months later, I checked the results. A few of those automations never sent a single email because the content offers weren\u2019t generating any downloads. There was nothing wrong with the campaigns themselves. They simply had no audience.<\/p>\n

One of the things I value most about consulting is helping clients invest their limited budgets where they\u2019ll generate the greatest return. I\u2019d much rather help a client invest in an initiative that produces measurable business value than develop something that never has the opportunity to make an impact. When we spend time and budget on campaigns that never run, we miss the opportunity to invest those same resources where they could make a real difference.<\/p>\n

The same thing happens over time across an entire email ecosystem. Organizations keep adding campaigns because each one seems worthwhile on its own. Very few stop to ask whether it\u2019s the best investment or how it fits into the larger strategy.<\/p>\n

The question we\u2019ve stopped asking<\/h2>\n

The more organizations I work with, the more I think we\u2019re asking the wrong questions. We tend to evaluate email one campaign at a time.<\/p>\n