You’re Planning Your Monthly Email Calendar Wrong and Here’s Why.

You’re Planning Your Campaign Calendar All Wrong (Here’s the Right Way)!

Why Your Ecommerce Campaign Planning Is Broken (And How to Fix It Before Q4 Hits).

Most ecommerce brands are screwing up their campaign planning. And the worst part? They don’t even know it.

Here’s what usually happens: they hire an email marketing agency, the agency talks a good game, and then—guess what?—their “strategy” boils down to pressing “send” more often. That’s it. Their big idea for growth is: send more campaigns.

Let me tell you something blunt: if you think sending more emails equals growth, you’re not building a business—you’re just spamming inboxes.

Anyone can hit send. That’s not strategy. That’s not growth. That’s not how you scale an 8-figure brand into a 9-figure brand.

The Problem With Most Campaign Planning

When most agencies talk about “campaign planning,” here’s what they actually mean:

• Let’s send an email Tuesday.

• Let’s send another Thursday.

• Maybe toss one in on Saturday.

• Repeat next week.

That’s it.

This isn’t campaign planning. This is babysitting your Klaviyo account and pretending it’s strategy. You’re paying someone thousands of dollars a month to… push buttons.

And here’s the painful truth: most ecommerce brands fall for it. Because they confuse activity with results. They think, “Well, at least my email calendar looks full, so something must be working.”

But activity doesn’t equal growth. Sending more doesn’t equal selling more. And just stacking emails on a calendar won’t get you to the next level.

What Real Campaign Planning Looks Like

When I was VP of Retention, I hired tons of agencies. And I realized something: 90% of them are glorified email senders. 10% are actual growth partners.

Here’s the difference:

• Glorified senders: They treat your email calendar like a slot machine. Pull the lever, hope revenue comes out.

• Growth partners: They build a roadmap tied directly to your business goals, customer relationships, and long-term retention.

We don’t just ask, “When do we send?” We ask, “Where do you want to be in 6 months? In a year? In 2 years?” Then we build a campaign calendar that reverse-engineers that outcome.

The Wrong Way vs. The Right Way

Here’s the wrong way most ecommerce brands (and agencies) do it:

1. Sit down at the end of the month.

2. Throw random campaign ideas at the wall.

3. Plug them into the email calendar.

4. Rinse and repeat.

It’s short-term. It’s reactive. And it leaves money on the table every single time.

Now here’s the right way:

1. Start with a 12-month roadmap. Your calendar should reflect not just “this week’s promo” but a bigger retention strategy.

2. Zero in on customer pain points. Example: for one 8-figure retailer, their biggest opportunity wasn’t “new arrivals.” It was “back in stock.” So we built that into their campaign calendar.

3. Customize to goals. If the brand says they want to hit X in 6 months, every part of the calendar works backward from that number.

4. Hold accountability. Every campaign isn’t just a send—it’s a step toward the revenue target.

That’s how you stop being a “sender” and start being a partner.

Why Your Email Calendar Isn’t Working

Here’s why most email calendars don’t move the needle:

• They’re generic. Same promos, same sales, same “new arrivals.” Nothing that actually differentiates the brand.

• They’re transactional. Every campaign screams “buy now” but never builds a relationship. Customers get fatigued.

• They’re disconnected. No link between what’s sent today and where the brand wants to be in 12 months.

That’s why so many ecommerce stores plateau. They’re doing “stuff,” but none of it compounds.

The Better Way to Use Your Campaign Calendar

Your campaign calendar should do three things:

1. Recover revenue. Example: If you know you’ve got high demand for out-of-stock items, bake “back in stock” into your monthly planning. That’s free money you’d otherwise lose.

2. Build relationships. Not every campaign should be a sale. Mix in educational content, founder letters, toolkits—things that position your brand as the authority.

3. Drive long-term retention. Every send should be a brick in the wall of your customer relationship. Not just “one-off revenue.”

This is how you turn a campaign calendar from noise into a growth engine.

A Real Example

One of our clients is an 8-figure retailer with hundreds of thousands of SKUs.

The old way: They had an email calendar filled with random promos. It looked busy. But it wasn’t strategic.

The new way: We built them a 12-month roadmap. We mapped out:

• New arrivals for freshness.

• CEO letters to humanize the brand.

• Full toolkits to educate buyers.

• Back in stock campaigns that tapped into their #1 pain point.

The result? They didn’t just send more emails—they recovered lost revenue, built trust, and hit their growth targets.

Why Most Email Marketing Agencies Fail You

Here’s the dirty secret of the industry: most “email marketing agencies” aren’t really agencies. They’re freelancers with fancier websites.

They sell you on strategy but deliver… volume. They equate “number of campaigns sent” with “value.” And then they send you a report at the end of the month with open rates and click rates, hoping you don’t notice that revenue didn’t move.

That’s not partnership. That’s glorified button-pushing.

A real email marketing agency should tie your campaign planning to your business outcomes. They should keep you accountable. They should ask:

• Where do you want to be in 6 months?

• What are your biggest customer pain points?

• How do we align the email calendar with your long-term roadmap?

Anything less than that is wasted money.

Stop Talking At Customers. Start Building Relationships With Them.

Here’s the mindset shift:

Most brands (and agencies) talk at customers. They blast campaigns like a megaphone.

But the right approach is to become a growth partner for every subscriber on your list. Every email should move the relationship forward—whether that’s education, inspiration, or transaction.

That’s how you stop sending more emails and start building better customers.

The Bottom Line

If your campaign planning looks like filling boxes on a calendar, you’re doing it wrong.

If your email calendar doesn’t tie to a roadmap, you’re leaving money on the table.

And if your email marketing agency is just a glorified sender, you’re wasting your budget.

The right way to do it:

• Build a 12-month roadmap.

• Customize around customer pain points.

• Align campaigns with long-term goals.

• Hold accountability for results.

That’s how you transcend beyond “sending emails” and start building a business.

So ask yourself this: is your campaign calendar just activity? Or is it a growth engine?

If it’s the former—you’ve got some fixing to do.

👉 Need help implementing a smarter email campaign calendar?

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