What questions to ask an email marketing agency at a pitch

🔧 1. How do you approach building an email strategy for a new client?

What a good agency would say:

“We start with a discovery phase – understanding your business goals, customer journey, audience segments, and existing data.

From there, we audit your current setup, identify opportunities, and map out a strategy across key lifecycle stages: acquisition, onboarding, retention, and re-engagement. Everything we do starts with your data and is typically goal-oriented.”

Follow up Question: What about a strategy for an ecommerce brand?

✅ What a strong agency should say:

“We look at your full customer journey—from first touchpoint to repeat purchase. Our strategy starts with understanding your product mix, sales cycle, average order value (AOV), and customer lifetime value (CLTV).

We then build out lifecycle automations (like welcome, browse abandonment, cart recovery, post-purchase, win-back), layered with campaign calendars that align with your promotions, seasonality, and inventory cycles.”

📊 2. What email metrics do you focus on and how do you measure success?

What a good agency would say:

“While open rates and CTRs are helpful leading indicators, we focus more on downstream metrics – like conversions, revenue per send, and customer lifetime value (CLV).

We set benchmarks based on industry standards and previous performance, and continuously optimize based on A/B tests and performance data.”

Follow up Question: What results have you driven for ecommerce clients?

✅ What a strong agency should say:

“We helped a fashion brand increase their email-attributed revenue by 50% over 6 months by redesigning their flows, optimizing campaigns, and improving deliverability. Their cart abandonment recovery rate alone jumped from 7% to 18%. We’d be happy to walk you through that customer success story.”

🧠 3. What’s your approach to segmentation and personalization?

What a good agency would say:

“We don’t believe in batch-and-blast.

We use behavioral, demographic, and transactional data to create dynamic segments. For personalization, we go well beyond “Dear first name” 🙂 pulling in past purchases, browsing behaviour, and even predictive analytics to tailor content and timing.”

Follow up Question: How do you increase email-driven revenue without over-emailing?

✅ What a strong agency should say:

“We focus on segmentation and relevance. Instead of blasting the whole list, we send targeted campaigns based on purchase history, category affinity, and engagement level.

We also implement send frequency caps and engagement windows to prevent fatigue. With proper targeting, we can often increase revenue while sending fewer emails.”

✍️ 4. Who creates the content and design? Can we see examples?

What a good agency would say:

“We have in-house copywriters and designers experienced in crafting high-converting emails.

We ensure that every campaign aligns with your tone of voice and brand guidelines. Here are a few samples of recent campaigns we’ve done-notice the strong CTA hierarchy, responsive design, and personalized messaging.”

⚙️ 5. Which platforms do you work with, and can you manage complex automations?

What a good agency would say:

“We work with most major ESPs like Klaviyo, Salesforce Marketing Cloud, Braze, Omnisend, and Mailchimp.

We’ve built advanced workflows-like abandoned cart, lead nurturing, win-back sequences, and even event-based automations. We’re also comfortable integrating with your CRM or ecommerce platform to power these journeys.”

Follow up question: We’re trying to increase repeat purchases – how would you approach that?

✅ What a strong agency should say:

“We’d start by segmenting customers by first purchase product and AOV. Then we’d create post-purchase flows with upsell/cross-sell offers tailored to that product category. For consumables, we time replenishment emails based on usage cycles. We also introduce loyalty program emails and social proof to encourage second and third orders.”

🛡️ 6. How do you handle compliance (GDPR, CAN-SPAM, etc.)?

What a good agency would say:

“We follow global compliance standards rigorously-this includes double opt-in where applicable, clear unsubscribe links, proper data handling policies, and list hygiene best practices. We also work with your legal or compliance teams to ensure alignment.”

Follow up question: How do you manage deliverability and list hygiene?

✅ What a strong agency should say:

“We run regular list hygiene-suppressing unengaged users and removing bounced or spam-complaining contacts. We also set up dedicated sending domains, use warm-up strategies, and actively monitor sender reputation and engagement metrics to avoid spam filters.”

🤝 7. What does collaboration look like with your team?

What a good agency would say:

“You’ll have a dedicated account manager as your primary point of contact. We hold regular check-ins-weekly or bi-weekly-depending on your needs. Creative and strategic decisions are collaborative, but we manage execution end-to-end so you don’t have to worry about the details.”

⏱️ 8. What’s your typical turnaround time for a campaign?

What a good agency would say:

“For planned campaigns, we usually require 5-7 business days for concept, copy, design, QA, and scheduling. For urgent sends, we have a fast-track process where we can turn around within 24-48 hours when necessary.”

🧪 9. How do you handle testing and optimization?

What a good agency would say:

“We test continuously-subject lines, send times, CTA placement, creative variations, even audience segments. Every test is structured with a hypothesis and tracked using statistically significant sample sizes. We analyse results and bake learnings into future campaigns.”

Follow up question: What’s your process for aligning email with broader marketing efforts (like SMS, paid, or organic)?

✅ What a strong agency should say:

“We ensure email complements-not competes with-other channels. For example, we might tease a launch on SMS, deliver the full promo on email, and retarget with paid ads. We use UTM tracking and attribution tools to measure the impact across the funnel.”

📈 10. Can you share results from similar clients or industries?

What a good agency would say:

“Sure-we worked with a DTC brand in your space and grew their email-driven revenue by 35% in six months. That involved reworking their automation flows, optimizing deliverability, and creating highly targeted campaigns. Here’s a case study showing the impact by campaign type.”

💰 11. How is your pricing structured?

What a good agency would say:

“We typically work on a monthly retainer based on the level of service: strategy, creative, execution, and reporting. For some clients, we also offer project-based pricing or hybrid models. We’re transparent and flexible, and we can scale up or down based on your needs.”

Email Agency Scorecard for Ecommerce

Here’s a customizable Email Agency Scorecard for Ecommerce pitches – you can use this to objectively compare each agency’s strengths across critical areas.

It includes scoring criteria, weighting options, and a simple rating scale to help you decide based on both gut and data.

✅ Email Agency Pitch Scorecard – Ecommerce Focus

⭐ Scoring Scale:

🧠 Strategy & Ecommerce Expertise

📈 Performance & Reporting

🎯 Segmentation & Personalization

✍️ Creative & Execution

⚙️ Technical Expertise

🤝 Account Management & Collaboration

💰 Pricing & Value

🔚 Final Score Summary

👉 Total Weighted Score: /100