What I actually do at 4 AM (& why is matters for your email strategy)
It's dark outside. My coffee is iced. Rocky is staring at me like I've personally offended him.
It's 4 AM.
This is how most of my mornings start - laptop open, Klaviyo loaded, the rest of the world still asleep. And it's my favorite part of the day.
What "the real work" actually looks like
When I open a client's email account in the early hours, I'm not just checking numbers - I'm reading their email program like a story.
I'm looking at what campaigns went out and when, clicking through every automation to see what a subscriber actually experiences, and reading their emails as a customer would - not as a marketer, not as an analyst, but as a real person who signed up because they love their pet and trusted this brand enough to hand over their inbox.
That's where the insights live. Not in a spreadsheet, but in the story.
By the time most people are pouring their first cup of coffee, I've already found the three things that are quietly costing my client opens, clicks, and sales, and I've started mapping out how to fix them.
Why this matters for you
Here's the thing about email marketing: it rewards attention.
The pet businesses struggling with email aren't struggling because they don't care - they're struggling because they're doing seventeen other things and email keeps getting pushed to "when I have time."
Spoiler alert: that time never comes.
That's not a judgment - it's just the reality of running a small business. You're the owner, the marketer, the customer service rep, and the accountant all at once. Email is important, but so is *literally* everything else.
Which is exactly why having someone who wakes up at 4 AM specifically to obsess over your email program is kind of a big deal.
What I'm actually looking at
When I audit a client's email marketing, I'm looking at 30 specific data points across five categories:
List health → who's on your list, how they got there, and whether they're actually engaged
Deliverability → whether your emails are even landing in inboxes
Campaign performance → what's working, what's being ignored, and why
Automations → the flows that should be running on autopilot (and often aren't)
Strategy → whether all of it adds up to something intentional
It's the kind of audit that turns "I think my email marketing is fine?" into "oh, HERE is exactly what's happening and here's what we do about it."
Rocky's official review
He eventually forgave me and moved from my bed to under my desk.
That's basically a five-star rating in rescue dog terms.
