Your December Email Checklist: What Every Shopify Brand Should Fix Before January
Q4 Chaos Is Normal. Ignoring Cleanup Isn’t.
Every Shopify brand goes into December with one goal: get the sale.
And that means your email channel gets hammered. Promos flying, segments stretched thin, automations overlapping, subscribers flooded with “final hours.”
By mid-December, your list is tired, your deliverability is shaky, and your analytics look like they need a support group.
Most brands make the same mistake:
They roll straight into January without cleaning up the mess Q4 created.
This checklist fixes that.
It’s the exact pre-January audit I walk clients through inside The Profitable Inbox™, the system designed to help you rebuild trust, protect deliverability, and keep your email channel profitable (not panicked).
Let’s get your house in order.
1. Run a Deliverability Health Check (Before Anything Else)
Your Q4 sending volume was higher than usual. ISPs noticed.
If you don’t reset now, your January campaigns will quietly slip into the spam folder.
What to check:
Open rates over the last 30 days
Spam complaints
Bounce rates
Deliverability dips after Black Friday/Cyber Monday
Audience growth vs. engaged audience growth
Quick Fixes:
✔ Pause full-list sends for 1–2 weeks
✔ Send only to actively engaged subscribers
✔ Avoid back-to-back promos. Switch to value emails
✔ Reduce links/buttons in your next 2 emails
Your goal: stabilize signals before inboxes fully shift back to normal in January.
2. Tighten Your Segments: Q4 Attracts a LOT of Poor Leads
Holiday discounts attract:
Window shoppers
Coupon chasers
Gift buyers (not your ideal customers)
People who aren’t aligned with your brand long-term
If you don’t clean your segments now, your January engagement tanks even if your content is great.
Minimum Segments to Fix:
30–60 Day Engaged (your safest segment for recovery)
Holiday Buyers (need nurturing, not promos)
Non-Buying Engaged Subscribers (warm but need education)
Cold Subscribers (save for a January reactivation sequence)
Pro Tip:
Don’t delete anyone yet. Suppress strategically instead.
This protects deliverability and revenue.
3. Update Your Automations (They Took Q4 Damage Too)
Your flows have been working overtime and they’re probably out of alignment.
Q4 creates automation chaos:
Welcome Flow overlaps with promos
Abandoned Cart feels too aggressive
Post-Purchase messaging doesn’t match holiday buying behavior
Browse Abandonment gets ignored from inbox fatigue
Your December Flow Fix List:
✔ Welcome Flow: Add a “holiday expectations” email so buyers know what to expect next
✔ Abandoned Cart: Lighten tone + reduce urgency until deliverability resets
✔ Post-Purchase Flow: Add care tips + product education (NOT discounts)
✔ Browse Abandonment: Push value over sales. They’re tired
If you’re using Klaviyo, update your conditional splits for seasonal buyers.
4. Refresh Your Content Strategy for January
(Stop Selling, Start Rebuilding)
January is NOT the month for:
✘ Hard promos
✘ Flash sales
✘ “New year, new you” clichés
✘ “We’re back!” emails (you never left)
January is the month for rebuilding trust and engagement.
Your January Content Priorities:
✔ Value-heavy education
✔ “Here’s how to get more out of what you bought”
✔ Customer success stories
✔ FAQs
✔ Product care + tips
✔ Light community content
This is how you recondition inbox providers and subscriber expectations.
5. Clean Up Your Lists & Suppress What’s Hurting You
Your list grew during Q4 — but not all growth is good growth.
Some subscribers:
Never planned to buy
Only subscribed for a discount
Aren’t aligned with your brand
Are dragging your engagement metrics down
Your December Suppression Checklist:
✔ Subscribers who haven’t opened in 90+ days
✔ High bounce risk emails
✔ Previous complainers
✔ Disposable emails collected during holiday rush
This step alone can raise open rates by 8–15% in January.
6. Rebuild Your “Buyer Pipeline” Before Traffic Drops
Q4 traffic is wild. January traffic crashes.
That means you need to capture every visitor now while traffic is still flowing.
Optimize These Before January:
✔ Pop-ups
✔ Footer forms
✔ Landing pages
✔ Quiz funnels
✔ Lead magnets
If you don’t know what to offer, use my highest-performing freebie for list growth:
60 Ways to Skyrocket Your Shopify Store’s Email List
7. Plan Your Q1 Calendar: The Unsexy Step That Saves Your Revenue
Most brands wing January.
The ones who win? They plan in December.
Your Q1 calendar should include:
Weekly content topics
Monthly campaigns
Two nurturing themes
Seasonal tie-ins
Automation updates
One retention campaign per month
Want Me to Take the Guesswork Out of This?
Inside The Profitable Inbox™, you get:
✔ Monthly planning calendars
✔ Retention-focused templates
✔ Flow updates for every season
✔ Segmentation guides
✔ Engagement playbooks
✔ Live support
Basically: The email strategy you wish you had during Q4… delivered monthly.
8. Rebuild Your “Engagement Bank” Before You Sell Again
Your engagement bank is empty after Q4.
You need to refill it before running promos again.
How to Refill It:
✔ 2–3 value-only emails
✔ A click-boosting poll email
✔ A customer favorite product highlight
✔ A light storytelling email
When engagement goes up → deliverability improves → revenue follows.
Your December Checklist in 60 Seconds
Here’s what you need to do before January hits:
Run a deliverability health check
Tighten your segments
Update damaged automations
Plan a value-based January content strategy
Clean your list (without deleting everything)
Optimize your list-building systems
Build your Q1 email calendar
Refill your engagement bank
Do these steps now and January becomes your most stable email month of the year.
Want Monthly Email Plans, Done-For-You Templates & Klaviyo Strategy That Actually Works?
Join The Profitable Inbox™ and get the exact systems Shopify brands use to keep revenue predictable — even after Q4 chaos.
If you’re tired of guessing and want your email channel to finally feel simple, this is your next step.