Email QA and approval checklist for agency delivery
Before sending an email or enabling a flow message, check the brief, content, links, personalization, audience and timing against the approved version. Name the reviewer and the person allowed to send. Record unresolved issues and repeat the affected checks when the offer, audience or message changes.
What should the reviewer have before starting?
Use one review record for one campaign or flow change. Include the account, message name, intended audience, offer, timezone and version being reviewed. Link the brief and the preview. If several people can leave feedback, name one person who will resolve conflicting requests.
This is a working template for ecommerce brands and their agencies. It does not establish a service-level agreement or replace the responsibilities in your contract. An agency may handle all production, take overflow or build from copy your team supplies. The checks still need owners.
| Check | Evidence to keep | Who decides? |
|---|---|---|
| Brief and offer | Approved products, price, discount conditions and destination | Brand or agency’s named business approver |
| Copy and design | Subject, preview text, body, mobile layout and required assets | Named content and design reviewers |
| Links and personalization | Tested destinations, selected test profile/event and fallback cases | Builder and QA reviewer |
| Audience and timing | Lists/segments, exclusions, account, date and timezone | Named sending approver |
| Release | Approved version, exceptions resolved and permission to send or activate | Person assigned the send decision |
Download the QA and approval record (CSV). Fill in the reviewer and evidence columns; an empty row is not a passed check.
How do you check the email itself?
Read the message against the brief before checking how it looks. Confirm that the offer in the subject matches the body and landing page. Open the main CTA, product links and linked images. Check the destination page as well as the URL: the correct domain can still lead to the wrong product or an unavailable offer.
Review desktop and mobile layouts. Look for text that disappears into an image, an awkward crop, a button that is difficult to tap and information that is missing when images do not load. Check the actual inboxes relevant to your audience when you can. A clean editor preview is one part of this review.
For personalization, select a profile or event that contains the data the message uses, then inspect a missing-data case. Klaviyo’s preview and test email guide distinguishes profile-based and event-based preview data. A campaign test cannot supply the event context of a metric-triggered flow.
What needs a separate audience and flow check?
Content approval does not establish that the intended recipients will get the message. Review the selected lists or segments, exclusions and schedule. For a flow, record the trigger, filters, delays and message states. Check both a person who should qualify and a person who should be excluded, using permitted test data.
Klaviyo assigns draft, manual or live status to individual flow messages. Its flow activation guide also explains that recipients already awaiting manual review are not automatically sent when a message changes to live. Record those recipients as a separate decision rather than assuming a status change handles them.
Preview emails can use placeholder unsubscribe, preferences and browser-view links. When a send-time behavior needs checking, plan a controlled internal test using the relevant Klaviyo guidance. Verify the test audience before sending; this checklist is not permission to email customers.
What does final approval look like?
Keep a short approval note beside the version it covers:
Illustrative approval record: Campaign “Autumn restock,” version 3. Content, offer, audience and schedule checked against the linked brief. Open issues: none. Sending approver: [name]. Sender: [name]. Approved send time and timezone: [value]. Approval recorded at: [value].
Replace every bracketed field. If the offer changes after approval, repeat the offer, copy, link and schedule checks that change affects. If the audience changes, return to audience approval. Do not transfer an old “looks good” comment to a different message version.
What if the team finds a problem close to send time?
Write down the defect, affected messages and decision owner. Agree whether to fix, reschedule or omit the affected work. The person responsible for the business decision should see the consequence before choosing. Keep the corrected preview with the final approval so the sender can identify the version to use.
After sending, review delivery and list-health signals alongside the campaign’s intended outcome. Passing QA establishes that the agreed checks were completed; it does not predict revenue or prove an email caused an order.
Use the white-label partnership guide to divide responsibilities, then put review hours into the capacity planner.
Sources and scope
Platform behavior was checked against the two linked Klaviyo Help Center guides on October 30, 2026. The responsibility table, approval record and download are HWM-authored templates. They are not a survey of agency practices or a record of a client campaign.