An effective email campaign is one that reaches the inbox, gets opened by the right people, and leads to the action you wanted, without generating complaints. For Australian businesses there are a few extra steps: a stricter-than-average legal regime, a spread-out audience across several time zones, and customers who mostly read on their phones. Here is a method you can follow for every send.
Step 1: Start with a clean, consented list
Deliverability starts with the list. Only include people who gave consent, directly or through an existing customer relationship, as the Spam Act 2003 requires. Remove hard bounces and long-term non-openers before a big send. A list that is smaller but engaged will outperform a large, tired one. If you are importing from an e-commerce platform or CRM, bring the unsubscribes across too, so no one who opted out elsewhere gets your campaign.
Step 2: Decide on one goal
An EOFY sale email should sell. A community newsletter should inform. A campaign that tries to do five things usually does none of them well. Choose one primary call to action and design around it.
Step 3: Segment by what matters in Australia
Useful Australian segments include state or territory (for time zones and local events), metro versus regional (delivery times, store locations), and climate (a customer in Darwin and one in Hobart need different product suggestions in July). Mailpro’s segmentation tools let you build these from tags and custom fields.
Step 4: Write a subject line that earns the open
Be specific and local: “EOFY: 30% off office chairs until 30 June” is clearer than “Big savings inside”. Keep it short enough to read on a phone. Test two versions on a small sample with A/B testing, then send the winner to the rest.
Step 5: Design for the phone first
With internet use at 97.1 percent of the population (DataReportal, 2026), most of your readers will see the email on a mobile before a desktop. Use a single column, large tap targets and a clear button. Every Mailpro template is responsive.
Step 6: Get the footer right
Under the Spam Act, every commercial email must identify the business that sent it and contain a working unsubscribe. The Commonwealth Bank paid $7.5 million in 2024 after sending more than 170 million marketing messages without a way to unsubscribe (ACMA), largely because messages were treated as non-commercial. If an email promotes anything, include the footer. Mailpro adds the unsubscribe link automatically.
Step 7: Authenticate your domain
Set up SPF, DKIM and DMARC for your sending domain, especially if you send from a .com.au address. Gmail and Yahoo now expect authenticated bulk mail; our guide to SPF, DKIM and DMARC explains how to set them up.
Step 8: Send at a local hour
Split your send by time zone rather than sending once for the whole country. A mid-morning send in AEST, then ACST, then AWST is a sensible starting point, but test your own audience.
Step 9: Measure and learn
Look at clicks and conversions rather than opens alone, since privacy features in some email apps inflate open counts. Watch the unsubscribe rate: a sudden rise tells you the content or frequency is off. Mailpro’s campaign statistics show results in real time and by link.
Step 10: Keep the data safe
If the Privacy Act 1988 applies to your business, your subscriber list is personal information that must be protected. Mailpro stores it in Switzerland on private infrastructure, outside US jurisdiction, with TLS 1.3 encryption in transit, and never sells or rents it.
Ready to plan the next one? Start with our Australian campaign calendar.