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Marketing Academy · Field Work●Copywriting
All projects·From: Email Copywriting
MiniTeardown· 20 minutes

The Inbox Autopsy: Teardown of a Win-Back Email

Klaviyo

Objective: Diagnose five fragments of a real-world-style win-back email against the lesson's subject line, opening, CTA, and personalization principles.

You're auditing a win-back email template drafted by Klaviyo's lifecycle marketing team before it goes out to 40,000 lapsed subscribers.

Score each fragment, flag the real defect against the concept it violates, and don't get baited by cosmetic non-issues.

Before you start

What you'll need

Free path (everything below is enough to finish)

Google Docs
FreeAnnotate each fragment with its defect and severity

Free, shareable, no account friction

Google Sheets(optional)
FreeLog all 5 defects with severity for sign-off

Easy to sort by severity before a review meeting

The process

Specimens to review

This subject line sits on a win-back email meant to recover lapsed subscribers. What's wrong per the lesson's subject line data?

Sample output
Subject line: 'Newsletter #47'

Specimen: synthetic, realistic

What's the defect in how this email's preview text is handled?

Sample output
Preview text field left blank; the email client pulls in 'View this email in your browser | Unsubscribe' as the preview snippet.

Specimen: synthetic, realistic

What's the defect in this opening line?

Sample output
Opening line: 'Hi, we wanted to reach out to share some exciting updates about our platform and new features we've been working on.'

Specimen: synthetic, realistic

What's the defect in this footer?

Sample output
Email footer contains three buttons: 'Shop New Arrivals', 'Read the Blog', 'Follow Us on Instagram'.

Specimen: synthetic, realistic

What's the defect in how this CTA is styled and worded?

Sample output
Primary CTA is a plain underlined hyperlink reading 'click here to learn more', inline within a paragraph.

Specimen: synthetic, realistic

Final deliverable

A defect log across all 5 email fragments, each mapped to the concept it violates and a severity rating.

See a reference example
Sample output
Mailchimp win-back email teardown log (excerpt)

Fragment: Subject line 'March Update'
Defect: No curiosity/benefit framing | Severity: critical
Fix: 'Your cart's been waiting 9 days -- still want it?'

Fragment: CTA 'Learn more' text link
Defect: Text link, not button | Severity: moderate
Fix: Button copy 'Get My 15% Off'

Success criteria

You're done when you can:

  • Correctly flags all 5 defects with the right concept reference
  • Does not select any of the distractors as defects
  • Assigns a severity level consistent with the documented impact