1. Protect permission and deliverability
Document how every subscriber gives consent, how suppression works and who monitors bounces and complaints. A larger list has no value if permission and sender reputation are weak.
2. Start with three lifecycle flows
Build a welcome flow, a cart or browse recovery flow and a post-purchase flow. These reveal whether store data, timing and message ownership work in practice.
3. Define the minimum useful data
List the customer, product, order and consent fields needed for each decision. Do not collect data simply because the platform can store it.
4. Test the weekly operating work
Create one campaign, one segment and one report in each trial. Record how many manual checks, approvals and fixes the process requires.
5. Measure beyond opens
Track qualified clicks, conversions, revenue, unsubscribes and complaints. Treat vendor attribution as one input and reconcile it with store and analytics data.