List Health and Consent Audit (Onboarding)
A checklist with 7 steps: Pull the full subscriber export with signup source, timestamp, and last engagement date.
By InnovaAI ResearchPublished
What are the steps?
List Health and Consent Audit (Onboarding)
- 01
Pull the full subscriber export with signup source, timestamp, and last engagement date
Request the raw CSV rather than a dashboard view so you can see field-level gaps before any platform migration or send. A 40,000-contact list with no source column is a deliverability liability the client will blame on you in month two.
- 02
Separate opt-in records from imported or scraped addresses and quarantine anything unverifiable
Permission-based sending is the whole premise of this category, so a contact with no documented consent path gets suppressed, not re-permissioned. Document the count you removed; that number becomes your first client-facing finding.
- 03
Score engagement in 90-day bands and flag the 12-month dormant segment
Most platforms suppress or throttle sends to long-dormant addresses, which quietly shrinks the effective list. Knowing the real sendable number before you quote a retainer prevents a scope argument later.
- 04
Verify authentication records on the client's sending domain
Confirm SPF, DKIM, and DMARC are published and aligned, and check whether a dedicated sending domain is warranted. Shared-IP reputation from a previous vendor can follow a client for weeks.
- 05
Map the current lifecycle flows and note which ones fire without a consent check
Abandoned-cart and win-back sequences built by a prior agency often enroll contacts who never opted in. List every active automation with its trigger and enrollment rule.
- 06
Rebuild segments around behavior and source, not just demographics
A segment that only splits by geography or signup month cannot support the creative and lifecycle work you are selling. Behavior-based segments (opened in 30 days, purchased twice, clicked pricing page) are what justify the strategy line item.
- 07
Deliver a written baseline memo with list size, sendable count, and remediation order
State the numbers plainly and rank fixes by deliverability risk. This memo is the artifact that converts a one-off send project into a list growth and segmentation retainer.