building successful email workflows

Based on our 2017 State of Email

Survey of more than 3,500 marketers,

our second annual State of Email

Workflows report takes a detailed look

at every stage of email creation—from

planning and creation to quality

assurance and sending.

@LitmusApp @ChadSWhite @KevinMandeville

While the report focuses on industry

averages, over the next 40 minutes,

we’ll focus on the email workflows of

self-described successful email

marketing programs.


Chad S. WhiteResearch Director at LitmusAuthor of Email Marketing Rules


Kevin MandevilleProduct Manager, BuilderLitmus

Litmus’ web-based software works

with your existing email service

provider to give you better visibility

into subscriber experience problems—

and easily fix them.


Litmus offers:

• Email Previews in 70+ clients

• Builder, our email HTML editor

• Spam Testing in 20+ filters

• Checklist for quality assurance

• Email Analytics for new insights



63.4%Successful programs

43.2%Less successful programs

On average, marketers spend…

• 2.99 hours on copywriting

• 4.10 hours on graphics & design

• 3.78 hours on coding & development

• 2.38 hours on data pulls/logic

• 2.33 hours on testing & troubleshooting

• 2.14 hours on post-send analysis


Successful email programs spend…

• 1.3% less time on copywriting

• 8.0% less time on graphics & design

• 5.3% less time on coding & dev.

• 2.5% more time on data pulls/logic

• 1.7% more time on testing & QA

• 0.9% more time on analytics/analysis


For the most part, there’s very little

difference in the amount of time spent.

The competitive differentiator is how

efficiently that time is spent and how

much can be accomplished during that

time.



Successful email programs are slightly:

• More likely to code from scratch

• More likely to use Emmet

• More likely to use a framework

• More likely to use a static site generator

• More likely to use task runners

• More likely to use preprocessors


Factors that impact approval process:

• Number of approvers

• High-level executive signoff needed

• Frequency of last-minute changes

• Approval lead time


46.3% / 60.6%Successful programs

53.4% / 66.1%Less successful programs


Why do successful programs make

more apology-worthy mistakes?




1. Successful programs lean forward.




1. Successful programs lean forward.

2. Successful programs have better

visibility into performance.

Thank You!

Any Questions?You can find all of our

State of Email Survey Research at

litmus.com/stateofemail