Let me be perfectly clear: You miss anything, there's going to be huge risks and losses for your business.

Before you get excited and start sending campaigns or triggering automation flows, you must ensure your groundwork is flawless. Marketing genius cannot fix a broken foundation. These tasks are ongoing email marketing management essentials.

Here are the 5 monumental risks you face if you don't nail the essentials outlined in the Foundational Checklist:

Risk 1: Financial and Strategic Blindness

Many businesses jump into email without confirming that the money makes sense. This is a foundational failure.

If you haven't clearly defined your price points, margins, required ROI (Return on Investment), and acceptable CAC (Customer Acquisition Cost), you risk launching campaigns that are wildly unprofitable.

Sending an email that generates a sale is meaningless if the cost to acquire and serve that customer outweighs your margin.

Your email strategy must align perfectly with your core brand identity and your clear offers.

If you’re not sure why you’re making an offer, your email strategy is based on hope, not math.

Risk 2: The Spam Folder Abyss

This is perhaps the most technical, yet most catastrophic, risk. If your technical foundations are weak, every email you send is at risk of being blocked, quarantined, or lost forever in the spam folder.

We're talking about core authentication protocols like SPF, DKIM, and DMARC, including DMARC monitoring. If these records aren't set up correctly, internet service providers (ISPs) won't trust your sending domain.

And it's not going to be as easy as setting up DKIM, SPF, or DMARC automatically. Setting up your DMARC usually involves a slight technical work with your DNS provider. More importantly you would also need to focus on monitoring your DMARC so that as time goes by you will move your regular DMARC

See this Youtube Short on allowing yourself the gift of a free DMARC checker and lookup tool

Furthermore, failing to properly manage all sending domains—including transactional emails and using sub-domains—exposes your brand to significant threats. This failure also includes projecting yourself from email phishing, which is a critical security step.

Without these technical checks, your marketing efforts are dead before they ever reach the inbox. Without setting up your DMARC, DKIM and SPF, you are taking on huge email marketing risks which are not even worth it.

Risk 3: Regulatory Fines and Data Integrity Loss

Compliance is not optional; it’s a legal necessity. Ignoring Compliance, Data Integrations, and Data Collection exposes your business to massive fines from global regulatory bodies (like GDPR or CCPA). Do not, for a moment, think that these email marketing risks do not apply to you just because you are not in the United States or not in European Union.

It's only a matter of time before this becomes a universal thing and regardless you would still be using email service providers that might be domiciled in the United States or Europe. Each of these email marketing risks that I am talking about are absolutely universal.

If your data collection methods are shady, or your consent records are incomplete, you are operating illegally.

But beyond the legal risk, poor data integrity cripples your strategy. If your data isn't properly integrated, you can't accurately segment your audience, which leads directly to the next risk...

Risk 4: The Audience Burnout Effect

Nothing kills an email list faster than irrelevance. This is one of those email marketing risks that you take on even without knowing that you're taking it on. This risk stems directly from neglecting proper Campaign planning, frequency of sending, relevance, segments, and personalisation.

If every subscriber receives the exact same message every day, you are actively driving them to hit the "Unsubscribe" button. Your list—your owned audience asset—will quickly burn out.

The mastery of email lies in segmentation and personalization. But that doesn't mean email design, copy and frequency of sending is not important. That's why it's critical for you to sit down and think about how frequently you will send, how your subject lines will be like, how you are going to segment your customers or subscribers, Your brand voice, how you going to communicate, how you going to structure your emails, and more.

You must use data to ensure the right customer receives the right offer at the right time.

For example, a customer who purchased running shoes last week should not be receiving a campaign for "New Customer Welcome Discount" today. This is an ongoing email marketing management task that requires constant vigilance.

Risk 5: The Static Business Model

When you fail to set up critical Automations and Integrations, you are essentially capping your business's revenue and preventing it from scaling.

Email automation is the engine of a modern e-commerce or SaaS business. Critical flows—like abandoned cart, browse abandonment, post-purchase follow-ups, and win-back series—are responsible for generating significant revenue on autopilot.

However, most of these automations and integrations has various different platforms and apps involved and each of them have to work together to get you the results you seek.

If your systems are not integrated correctly, or your flows are not mapped to the customer journey, you miss every opportunity to engage a customer exactly when they are most likely to convert.

Your growth becomes manual, slow, and expensive.

Why bother with Email Marketing Risks?

Think about it this way, if I guarantee that your email marketing will bring in revenue and lead your way to profits, would you take it easy? Do you, in your heart, truly think that you can take a big vat of cash and go and burn it?

Email marketing is not just about firing up your email designer and creating an email and just sending out campaigns. It takes precise care, precision, a lot of hard work to make it work.

Watch this video for the email marketing foundational checklist to cover your risks:

You should not start email marketing campaigns or setting up automation flows for your business without first having these fundamentals in place.

The checklist is not a suggestion; it is a prerequisite for success. By committing to these foundational steps—from technical settings to strategic financial alignment—you turn potential risks into reliable profits. This is what separates amateur emailers from market masterminds.

Start your email marketing or continue with your existing email program but do it the right way. Pick up my email marketing audit for a professional run down on whether or not you are covered with all your foundational risks. Let's turn your email marketing program into a revenue generating monster.

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No fluff. No sales pitch. Just raw insights from 20+ years in the trenches, delivered in a packed 20-30 minute video within 24 hours.
 

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Category: Marketing Services

The post 5 Email Marketing Risks To Avoid appeared first on fetchprofits.

Simple, quick, and it wont hurt.

Google just quietly handed publishers one of the most powerful visibility tools in years — and most site owners haven't touched it yet.

It's called Google Preferred Sources. And if you run a blog, a content site, or any kind of publishing operation, setting this up should be on your to-do list today.

Here's everything you need to know: what it is, why it matters, how to implement the button (three ways), how to style it to match your brand, and how to track every single click it gets.

The ability to be added as a Preferred Source presents the potential for greater visibility among your target audience. 

Google says people are “twice as likely to click through to a Preferred Source.”

For publishers (that applies to brands, eCommerce stores, businesses , that's the real opportunity. That kind of personalized visibility boost could meaningfully change traffic patterns, especially as AI experiences handle more queries.

According to Ana Camarena of Semrush,

"Being added as a Preferred Source is also a way to improve your AI visibility without directly optimizing your content or your online presence. You become more visible in AI Overviews, AI Mode, Top Stories, and the new carousels simply because users have chosen to prioritize your content."

What Are Google Preferred Sources?

Google Preferred Sources is a feature that lets users select their favourite websites to be prioritised in Google Search results, AI Overviews, and AI Mode. When someone adds your site as a Preferred Source, your content gets labelled and surfaced prominently — ahead of sites they haven't chosen.

Think of it as a personalised trust signal. The user is telling Google: "When I search for something, show me this site first."

And the numbers back it up: Google says people are twice as likely to click through to a Preferred Source. For a publisher, that's not a marginal improvement — that's a fundamental shift in how your content gets discovered.

Where Preferred Sources Now Appear

This is where it gets genuinely exciting. Google is expanding Preferred Sources beyond standard search — bringing it to AI Overviews, AI Mode, and new carousels for developing and breaking topics.

Content from Preferred Sources is labelled in AI results so users can easily identify it — similar to how it already works in Top Stories.

When a query is about an evolving or breaking subject, searchers may see a prominent carousel of timely article links — and Preferred Sources get pulled into those carousels too.

In plain English: as AI handles more and more search queries, being someone's Preferred Source means your content shows up inside AI answers — not just below them.

Why Every Publisher Should Care Right Now

Most site owners are focused on optimising their content for AI visibility — trying to get cited in AI Overviews through better writing, better structure, better E-E-A-T signals. That's valid. But Preferred Sources offers a parallel path that most people are ignoring.

Being added as a Preferred Source improves your AI visibility without directly optimising your content or online presence — you become more visible in AI Overviews, AI Mode, Top Stories, and new carousels simply because users have chosen to prioritise your content.

That's a meaningful distinction. You're not fighting the algorithm — your own readers are doing the work for you.

The audience you've already earned becomes an amplifier for your reach. Every loyal reader who adds you as a Preferred Source increases the likelihood that your content surfaces when they (and people like them) search for anything in your topic area.

You might or might not publish. But learn how to add

How to Add a Preferred Source Button to Your Site

To take advantage of this, you need to make it easy for your readers to add you. That means putting a Preferred Source button or CTA on your site — ideally somewhere prominent, like your header, footer, or sidebar.

Here's how to do it, three different ways.

Here is exactly how to generate the link and/or implement the button on your site (depending on how you choose to do it).

Your call. But do it.

Method A: Generate Your Direct Link

Google uses a specialised URL format that takes users directly to the Source Preferences dashboard with your domain pre-filled. This means they can add your site in a single click — no searching required.

The URL format is:

https://google.com/preferences/source?q=yourdomain.com

Example: If your site is fetchprofits.com, your link is:

https://google.com/preferences/source?q=fetchprofits.com

Important eligibility note: Subdomains like blog.yourdomain.com are fully eligible. However, subdirectories like yourdomain.com/blog cannot be isolated — you can only register the root domain or a subdomain.

Click on this link https://www.google.com/preferences/source?q=fetchprofits.com or on the button below to add this site as your preferred source

Please remember that your website has to start showing up or show up completely in the list that shows up after the page that follows loads, and users have to explicitly check a box to add your site as their preferred source.

You could just drop the link to a custom button to have people go to the page and take the final step to add you as a preferred source.

Method B: Add as Preferred Source on Google WordPress Free Plugin (No Code)

If you manage a WordPress website, a dedicated plugin automates this layout. My only issue with this method (although this would be easiest for WordPress users) is that it's another plugin (potentially slows your website down).

One way to counter this is to use a faster host or take the risk and follow along, or use Method A.

1. From your dashboard, navigate to Plugins > Add New.
2. Search for "Add as Preferred Source" or "Add as Preferred Source on Google".
3. Install and Activate the plugin.
4. Go to Settings > Add as Preferred Source to turn on the layout banner, customize colors, and choose a top or bottom viewport position.

Method C: Page Builders (Wix, Squarespace, Shopify)

Wix: Add a Custom Embed widget to your template and insert your HTML hyperlink code.

Squarespace: Insert a standard Code Block in your footer or page section layout.

Shopify: Navigate to your theme customizer and add a Custom Liquid section to paste your hyperlinked button.

Method D: Official Google Button (Custom HTML)

Google provides official button assets — localised graphic images you can download and use directly on your site.

Steps:

1. Visit the Google Search Central Guide to Preferred Sources
2. Download the button asset in your preferred language (English, Spanish, Danish, and others are available)
3. Upload the image to your server or media library
4. Wrap it in a link pointing to your custom URL:

<a href="https://google.com/preferences/source?q=yourdomain.com" 
   target="_blank" 
   rel="noopener">
  <img src="/path-to-assets/google_preferred_source_badge_light.png" 
       alt="Add fetchprofits as a preferred source on Google">
</a>

This is the cleanest implementation — uses Google's official branding, works universally, and requires no plugins.

The Bigger Picture

Search is changing faster than at any point in the last decade. AI Overviews, AI Mode, personalised carousels — the traditional "write good content and rank" playbook is being rewritten in real time.

Google Preferred Sources is one of the few mechanisms that lets your own audience advocate for your visibility inside that new system. It's not a hack. It's not a loophole. It's Google explicitly building a path for publishers to stay visible — and handing you the tools to use it.

Set up the button. Tell your readers. Track the clicks.

The publishers who act on this now will be better positioned than the ones who wait until everyone's doing it.

The post How to Add Your Site as a Google Preferred Source (And Why It Matters More Than Ever in 2026) appeared first on fetchprofits.

Some reasons can be simple. Some critical.

If you’ve been staring at a "Database Connection Error" , If your site loads slow, crashes or stalls during a flash sale or when you watch your Google Search Console rankings dip because your site loads like it’s 1999, you know the feeling. It’s that sinking realization that your current hosting provider is no longer a partner in your growth—they’re a bottleneck.

As a Technical marketer and as a lean ops marketing architect, I’ve seen hundreds of eCommerce founders hesitate to move. They fear the "Great Migration Crash." Or maybe it's just laziness. Or is it inertia?

They worry about lost orders, broken checkout pages, and the dreaded SEO nightmare where Google decides your site is "down" and strips your rankings.

I’m here to tell you that migrating your WordPress site doesn’t have to be a high-stakes gamble. When done correctly, it’s a seamless transition that results in faster load times, better security, and a healthier bottom line. It's easier than it's made out to be. Many leading managed hosting providers either plugins that automate or semi-automate this process. Or, they have white-glove migration services (so, you don't even have to learn how to migrate WordPress sites)

In this guide, we’re going to walk through the exact, battle-tested blueprint for migrating your site without losing a single visitor or a penny in revenue.

Phase 1: The "Why" and the "Where"

Before we touch a single file, we need to address the most important question: Where are you going?

Cheap shared hosting is fine for a hobby blog, but for a growing business, it’s a liability. You need an environment that scales with your traffic. This is why I almost always steer my clients toward Kinsta’s Managed Platform. Unlike traditional hosts that cram thousands of sites onto one server, Kinsta uses Google Cloud Platform’s premium tier network.

When choosing a new host, look for these non-negotiables:

• Isolated Resources: Your site shouldn't slow down because another site on the same server is getting a traffic spike.
• Server-Level Caching: This eliminates the need for bulky, complex caching plugins.
• Staging Environments: A "sandbox" where you can test the migrated site before the world sees it.
• Expert Support: You need 24/7 access to people who actually know WordPress, not just script-readers.
• Saved Time: When you don't have to think about hosting, WordPress security, Speed of your site, or managing servers, I don't have to explain how saving time translates to profits.

Phase 2: The Pre-Migration Audit

The biggest mistake people make is migrating "trash." If your site is bloated with 40 deactivated plugins and 2GB of old backups, don't move them.

1. Clean House

Delete unused plugins and themes. Run a database optimization tool (like WP-Optimize) to clear out thousands of old post revisions and expired transients. This makes your migration file smaller and the process faster.

2. Take a "Safety First" Backup

Even though your new host might offer migration services, always take your own manual backup. Use a plugin like Duplicator or UpdraftPlus and store that file on your local machine or a cloud drive like Dropbox.

3. Record Your Benchmarks

Run a speed test on GTmetrix or Google PageSpeed Insights. Take screenshots of your current SEO rankings for your top 10 keywords. You need a "before" snapshot so you can prove the "after" is better.

Phase 3: Choosing Your Migration Path

There are two ways to move a site: the Auto-Pilot Way and the Manual Way.

The Auto-Pilot Way (Recommended)

Most premium hosts want your business and will move your site for free. For example, if you move to Kinsta’s Isolated Cloud Infrastructure, their engineers handle the heavy lifting for you. This is the "Zero Stress" option. You simply provide your current host's credentials, and they move the files, the database, and the configurations.

The Manual Way

If you’re a hands-on founder or developer, you’ll likely use a migration plugin.

1. Install a Migration Plugin: (e.g., All-in-One WP Migration).
2. Export Your Site: This creates a single file containing your entire site.
3. Install WordPress on the New Host: Create a fresh, blank WordPress install.
4. Import the File: Upload your export file to the new site.

Phase 4: The Secret Weapon — The Staging Site

This is where 90% of migration disasters are avoided. Do not point your domain to the new server yet.

Once your site is moved to the new host, it will live on a "temporary URL" (e.g., sitename.kinsta.cloud). This is your staging area.

What to check in Staging:

• Permalinks: Click through your pages. Do you get 404 errors? If so, go to Settings > Permalinks and hit "Save" to refresh the structure.
• The Checkout Flow: If you run WooCommerce, do a test transaction. Does the payment gateway connect?
• Forms: Submit a contact form. Does the email actually arrive in your inbox?
• Images: Look for "broken" images that might still be trying to load from your old server's file path.

Also, if you can't keep your hands off your WordPress experiments, this staging site feature will save your pink bottom more than you'll ever give credit for.

Phase 5: The "No-Downtime" DNS Switch

This is the moment of truth. To move your traffic from the old host to the new one, you have to update your DNS (Domain Name System) settings.

The TTL Trick

A few days before you migrate, log into your domain registrar (like Namecheap or GoDaddy) and look for the TTL (Time to Live) setting on your A Record. It’s usually set to 3600 (one hour) or 86400 (24 hours).

Change this to 300 seconds (5 minutes).

By doing this, you're telling the internet to check for updates every 5 minutes instead of every day. This ensures that when you finally switch hosts, the change happens almost instantly across the globe, minimizing the "propagation" window where some users see the old site and others see the new one.

Updating the A Record

Once you are 100% happy with the staging site, copy the IP Address of your new server. In your DNS settings, replace the old IP address with the new one.

Phase 6: Post-Migration "Sanity Check"

The DNS has switched. Your traffic is flowing to the new server. You’re done, right? Not quite.

1. Install your SSL Certificate

Most modern hosts provide free Let’s Encrypt SSL certificates. Ensure yours is active. A "Not Secure" warning is the fastest way to kill your conversion rate.

2. Update Your Search Console and Analytics

Check Google Analytics to ensure data is still flowing. You don't need to change any code, but you want to make sure your tracking snippets didn't get dropped during the move.

3. Monitor for 404s

Use a plugin like Redirection to monitor 404 errors for the first 48 hours. If a specific URL structure broke during the move, you’ll see it here first and can fix it before Google de-indexes the page.

4. Cancel the Old Hosting (Wait!)

Do not cancel your old hosting account immediately. Keep it active for at least 7 days. This acts as an emergency "Undo" button. If something catastrophic happens on the new server, you can simply point your DNS back to the old IP and you're back in business.

Why the Infrastructure Matters for Business Outcomes

As a business owner, you aren't just buying "disk space." You are buying uptime and peace of mind.

When we talk about Kinsta’s Managed Platform, the value isn't just in the migration—it's in what happens after. Because they use containerized technology, your site is shielded from the "bad neighbor" effect. If another site on their network gets hit with a DDoS attack, your site remains fast and functional because your resources are 100% isolated.

For an eCommerce store, a 1-second delay in page load time can lead to a 7% reduction in conversions. If your migration takes you from a 4-second load time to a 1.5-second load time, the move pays for itself within the first month.

Go to Google page Insights to see where you stand

Frequently Asked Questions (The Founder’s Concerns)

"Will my emails stop working?"

If your email is hosted through your WordPress provider (e.g., your email ends in @yourdomain.com and you check it via cPanel), yes, it will break if you don't migrate your mail records.

• Pro Tip: Move your email to a professional provider like Google Workspace or Microsoft 365 before you migrate your website. It keeps your communication and your hosting separate, which is much safer.

"What happens to orders placed during the migration?"

This is the "Data Gap" problem. If someone buys a product on your old site while you are moving files to the new one, that order won't exist on the new site.

• The Solution: Put your site into "Maintenance Mode" for the 30 minutes it takes to do the final database export/import. It’s better to have a "We’ll be right back" message for 30 minutes than to lose a customer’s order data.

"Is it worth paying more for Managed WordPress Hosting?"

If your site generates more than $1,000 a month in revenue, the answer is a resounding yes. Cheap hosting requires you to be the sysadmin. Managed hosting allows you to be the CEO. You’re paying for the security, the automatic backups, and the expert support that saves you from 3:00 AM meltdowns.

Final Thoughts: The Path to a Faster Future

Migrating your WordPress site is like moving to a better office space. It’s a bit of a chore to pack the boxes, but once you’re in a building with better plumbing, faster internet, and more room to grow, you’ll wonder why you waited so long.

By following this blueprint—cleaning your data, using a staging environment, shortening your TTL, and choosing a high-performance host—you eliminate the risk. You transition from a position of "hoping the site stays up" to "knowing the site can scale."

If you’re ready to stop worrying about server crashes and start focusing on your growth, take that first step. Audit your current site today, and look for a partner that treats your business with the technical respect it deserves.

Your customers (and your bottom line) will thank you.

The post How to Migrate WordPress Site(s): 6 Phases to a Better Host Without Losing Traffic appeared first on fetchprofits.

I've seen the exhilarating highs of a thriving online store and the gut-wrenching lows of a site brought to its knees by unexpected traffic or a security breach.

One of the most common, yet often overlooked, bottlenecks to growth and stability I encounter is hosting. It's the silent foundation of your entire online operation, and while it might seem like a minor detail, it can literally make or break your business.

Today, we're diving deep into a comparison that I see play out constantly: Kinsta vs. Bluehost. For many, Bluehost is the first step into the WordPress world. It's affordable, accessible, and widely recommended for beginners.

But here's the truth: as your site grows, as your traffic increases, and as your business stakes get higher, the very features that made Bluehost appealing become severe limitations.

This isn't about shaming Bluehost; it serves a purpose. Similar purpose when I first started out with Lunarpages several years ago.

This is about understanding why serious WordPress sites, those built for revenue, scale, and resilience, eventually make the switch to a platform like Kinsta. It's about moving from "good enough" to "built for growth."

Let's unpack this.

The Early Days: Why Bluehost Often Appeals First

When you're just starting out, building your first website or launching a new e-commerce venture, budget and simplicity are often top priorities. This is where Bluehost, and many other shared hosting providers, shine.

• Affordability that Feels Right: Let's be honest, the low introductory prices are incredibly attractive. You can get a domain and hosting for what feels like pocket change per month. For a new founder testing the waters, this minimal investment is a huge draw.
• Beginner-Friendly Experience: Bluehost's cPanel interface and one-click WordPress installation make getting started incredibly easy. You don't need to be a developer to launch a basic site. It's designed to remove technical barriers for non-tech-savvy users.
• Ubiquitous Marketing & Recommendations: Bluehost is heavily promoted, often appearing on "best hosting for beginners" lists and even recommended by WordPress.org itself (though this recommendation is for entry-level sites, a nuance often missed). This widespread endorsement creates a sense of trust and familiarity.

For a personal blog, a simple portfolio, or a brand-new business with minimal traffic expectations, Bluehost can certainly get the job done. It's like buying your first car – a reliable, economical sedan that gets you from A to B. But what happens when you need to transport a growing family, tow a heavy trailer, or race on a track? That's when the limitations become painfully clear.

The Tipping Point: When Bluehost Starts to Falter

I've seen it countless times: a business owner pours their heart and soul into their WordPress site, traffic starts to pick up, and then... things start to break. The initial euphoria turns into frustration, then panic. This is the tipping point where shared hosting, like Bluehost, reveals its inherent limitations for serious operations.

1. Performance Degradation: The Silent Killer of Conversions

This is often the first and most painful symptom.

• The "Noisy Neighbor" Effect: Bluehost, by nature, is shared hosting. This means your website shares server resources (CPU, RAM, disk I/O) with hundreds, sometimes thousands, of other websites. If one site on your server experiences a traffic spike or runs an inefficient script, your site's performance suffers. You're at the mercy of your "noisy neighbors."
• Lack of Advanced Caching: While Bluehost offers basic caching, it's rarely sufficient for dynamic WordPress sites with e-commerce functionality or frequent content updates. Without robust, server-level caching, every page request hits your database hard, slowing everything down.
• Slow Load Times & Their Consequences: Google prioritizes fast-loading sites. Users abandon slow sites – studies show conversion rates drop significantly with every extra second of load time. A slow site isn't just an annoyance; it's a direct hit to your SEO, your user experience, and ultimately, your revenue. I've seen businesses lose tens of thousands in sales during peak seasons simply because their site couldn't keep up.

2. Stability & Uptime Issues: When Your Site Disappears

Imagine launching a major marketing campaign or running a flash sale, only for your website to go down. This isn't a hypothetical scenario; it's a reality for many on shared hosting.

• Traffic Spikes Become Site Crashes: A sudden influx of visitors, which should be a cause for celebration, often overwhelms shared servers. Instead of scaling, your site simply crashes, turning potential customers away.
• Vulnerability to Shared Environment Problems: A DDoS attack targeting another site on your shared server can easily impact yours. Server-wide issues, even if unrelated to your specific site, can lead to widespread downtime.
• Lack of Robust Infrastructure: Shared hosting isn't built for mission-critical operations. It lacks the redundancy, auto-scaling, and dedicated resources needed to guarantee high availability when it matters most.

3. Security Concerns: A Constant Worry

In today's digital landscape, security isn't optional.

• Shared Vulnerabilities: Being on a shared server inherently increases your risk. If one site on the server is compromised, it can create a backdoor or vulnerability that affects others.
• Less Proactive Monitoring: While Bluehost has security measures, they are often less proactive and sophisticated than those found on managed platforms. You're more likely to be responsible for detecting and cleaning up malware yourself.
• The Headache of Remediation: Dealing with a hacked site is a nightmare. It's time-consuming, stressful, and can severely damage your brand reputation and SEO.

4. Support Limitations: When You Need Real Answers

When your business is on the line, you need expert help, fast.

• Generic Support, Not WordPress Specialists: Bluehost's support staff are typically general hosting technicians. While helpful for basic issues, they often lack the deep, specialized WordPress expertise required to troubleshoot complex plugin conflicts, database errors, or performance bottlenecks unique to your site.
• Longer Resolution Times: Due to the sheer volume of users and the generalist nature of the support, getting complex issues resolved can take significant time, costing you valuable uptime and revenue.
• DIY Troubleshooting: You'll often find yourself spending hours researching and trying to fix problems that a specialized support team could resolve in minutes.

5. Scalability Roadblocks: Stunting Your Growth

Your business is growing, and your hosting should facilitate that, not hinder it.

• Limited Resources & Painful Upgrades: Moving between shared hosting tiers or attempting to upgrade resources often involves downtime, manual intervention, and a clunky process. It's not designed for seamless, on-demand scaling.
• Not Built for Rapid Success: If your product goes viral, or a celebrity endorses you, your site needs to handle a massive, sudden surge in traffic. Shared hosting simply isn't engineered for this kind of rapid, elastic scalability.

Enter Kinsta: The Solution for Serious Growth

This is where Kinsta steps in. It's not just "more expensive hosting". In fact, it's a fundamentally different approach, built from the ground up to solve the very problems that plague growing WordPress sites on shared platforms.

Think of it as upgrading from that economical sedan to a high-performance, custom-built vehicle designed for speed, safety, and reliability on any terrain.

1. Blazing Fast Performance: Driving Revenue and SEO

Kinsta is engineered for speed, leveraging cutting-edge technology to ensure your site loads incredibly fast, even under heavy load.

• Google Cloud Platform's Premium Tier: Kinsta is built exclusively on Google Cloud Platform's premium network, meaning your data travels through the fastest, lowest-latency routes available. This alone provides a significant speed advantage.
• Optimized Software Stack: They use Nginx, LXD containers, PHP 8+, and MariaDB – a modern, high-performance stack specifically tuned for WordPress.
• Server-Level Caching & CDN: Kinsta implements robust server-level caching, including full-page caching, object caching, and integrates with Cloudflare CDN (Content Delivery Network) for global asset delivery. This ensures your content is delivered to users from the closest possible location, drastically reducing load times.
• The Outcome: Faster load times lead to higher search engine rankings, lower bounce rates, and crucially, increased conversion rates. I've seen clients experience double-digit percentage increases in conversions simply by moving to a faster host. Kinsta's comprehensive performance features are a cornerstone of their offering, ensuring your site is always running at peak efficiency. This commitment to speed and stability is why many businesses choose to leverage Kinsta's Managed Platform.

2. Rock-Solid Stability & Uptime: Peace of Mind, Always On

With Kinsta, downtime becomes a rarity, not a recurring nightmare.

• Isolated Container Technology (LXD): This is a game-changer. Each site on Kinsta runs in its own isolated LXD container. This means no "noisy neighbors." Your site has dedicated resources, and the performance of other sites on the server has zero impact on yours.
• Automatic Scaling: Kinsta's architecture is designed to handle traffic spikes gracefully. If your site suddenly experiences a surge in visitors, the platform automatically scales resources to accommodate the demand, preventing crashes.
• Uptime Monitoring Every 2 Minutes: Kinsta proactively monitors all hosted sites every two minutes. If an issue is detected, their team is alerted instantly and can often resolve problems before you even notice them. This kind of proactive monitoring and isolated infrastructure is a hallmark of Kinsta's Isolated Cloud Infrastructure, providing unmatched reliability.
• The Outcome: Your site stays online during critical sales, marketing campaigns, and unexpected viral moments. This protects your revenue, your brand reputation, and allows you to sleep soundly.

3. Enterprise-Grade Security: Your Digital Fortress

Kinsta takes security incredibly seriously, providing multiple layers of protection.

• Hardware Firewalls & DDoS Protection: Robust firewalls and active DDoS protection are in place to fend off malicious attacks.
• Proactive Malware Scanning & Free Hack Fixes: Kinsta continuously scans for malware. If your site does get hacked (which is rare on their platform), their team will fix it for free, saving you immense stress and cost.
• Automatic Daily Backups: Your site is automatically backed up daily, with options for manual backups and one-click restores, ensuring you can always revert to a clean version if needed.
• The Outcome: Your customer data, intellectual property, and brand reputation are protected. You avoid the costly and damaging fallout of a security breach.

4. Expert WordPress Support (24/7/365): Your Dedicated Technical Team

This is one of Kinsta's biggest differentiators and a huge relief for business owners.

• Highly Specialized WordPress Engineers: Kinsta's support team consists of experienced WordPress experts, many of whom are active contributors to the WordPress core. They understand the intricacies of WordPress, plugins, themes, and complex server configurations.
• Fast Response Times: Their support is known for incredibly fast response times, often within minutes, available 24/7/365 via live chat.
• Proactive Problem Solving: They don't just answer questions; they help diagnose and fix complex issues, often going above and beyond to ensure your site performs optimally.
• The Outcome: Less downtime, faster issue resolution, and more time for you to focus on growing your business instead of troubleshooting technical problems.

5. Developer-Friendly Features: Empowering Innovation

For businesses with in-house developers or agencies, Kinsta offers a suite of tools that streamline workflows.

• Staging Environments: Create a one-click staging site to test changes, updates, or new features without affecting your live site.
• Git Integration, SSH Access, WP-CLI: Tools that developers love, allowing for more efficient development and deployment workflows.
• MyKinsta Dashboard: A powerful, custom-built dashboard that provides detailed analytics, resource usage, performance insights, and easy management of all your sites.
• The Outcome: Faster development cycles, safer updates, reduced risk of breaking your live site, and a more efficient development team.

6. Scalability Built-In: Grow Without Limits

Kinsta is designed to grow with you, seamlessly.

• Effortless Upgrades: Moving between Kinsta plans is a simple process, typically requiring no downtime. Resources are allocated dynamically, ensuring your site always has what it needs.
• Designed for Mass Traffic: Whether it's a planned marketing push or an unexpected viral event, Kinsta's infrastructure is built to handle massive traffic spikes and sustained high loads without breaking a sweat.
• The Outcome: Your hosting never becomes a bottleneck to your success. You can scale your business confidently, knowing your infrastructure will keep pace. This robust and comprehensive approach is what makes Kinsta's Managed Platform a go-to for businesses focused on aggressive growth.

Interested? Read in depth on How Kinsta is Built the Way It is from my Kinsta Review

The Investment: Understanding the Cost Difference

Let's be upfront: Kinsta is more expensive than Bluehost.

There's no getting around that. But framing it purely as an "expense" misses the crucial point. Kinsta is an investment in your business's stability, performance, security, and future growth.

Consider the hidden costs of cheap hosting:

• Lost Sales: Every minute your site is down or slow is revenue lost.
• Damaged SEO: Poor performance leads to lower search rankings.
• Developer Time: Hours spent by your team (or an agency) troubleshooting hosting issues that Kinsta's support would handle.
• Security Breaches: The cost of remediation, lost customer trust, and potential legal fees.
• Opportunity Cost: Time spent worrying about hosting is time not spent innovating, marketing, or serving your customers.

The ROI of Kinsta comes from increased conversions, improved SEO, saved developer hours, enhanced brand reputation, and the invaluable peace of mind that your most critical asset – your website – is in expert hands.

Making the Switch: Practical Advice

So, when is the right time to make the switch?

• When Performance Impacts Revenue: If your site is noticeably slow, if you're experiencing downtime during peak hours, or if analytics show high bounce rates due to load times, it's time.
• When You're Spending Too Much Time on Hosting Issues: If you or your team are constantly troubleshooting server errors, dealing with security scares, or battling slow performance, that's a clear signal.
• When You Have Aggressive Growth Targets: If you're planning major marketing campaigns, product launches, or expecting significant traffic increases, you need an infrastructure that can support it.

The good news is that Kinsta offers free migrations, handled by their expert team. This means the transition is typically seamless, with minimal (if any) downtime, making the move from Bluehost much less daunting than it might seem.

Conclusion (Kinsta Vs Bluehost): From "Good Enough" to "Built for Success"

Bluehost serves its purpose for those just dipping their toes into the WordPress waters. It's an accessible starting point.

But for serious e-commerce founders, business owners, and developers who are building businesses designed for growth, resilience, and revenue, the limitations of shared hosting quickly become insurmountable bottlenecks.

Making the switch to a managed WordPress host like Kinsta isn't just an upgrade; it's a strategic decision to invest in the core infrastructure of your online business. It's a move from reacting to problems to proactively building a foundation that supports your ambitions.

Don't wait for a crisis – a major site crash, a security breach, or a missed sales opportunity – to realize your hosting isn't up to the task.

Be proactive. Evaluate your needs, consider your growth trajectory, and choose a partner that's truly built for your success.

Your business deserves a platform that not only keeps the lights on but actively helps you thrive.

The post Kinsta vs Bluehost: Why Serious WordPress Sites Eventually Make the Switch? appeared first on fetchprofits.

Here's What Happened.

I'd read all the articles. I still didn't do it for months.

I want to be upfront about something before you read any further.

I knew about llms.txt for a while. I'd seen the discussion around Google's announcements, read the takes about AEO and GEO, nodded along to the argument that "AEO/GEO is still SEO" — and then did absolutely nothing about it.

Not because I thought it was wrong. I just kept filing it under "will get to this" and moving on to things that felt more urgent.

Last week, I finally got to it.

2 minutes later, it was live. I used Rankmath (see how to do it below, thanks to Luke Marthinusen )

The Numbers That Made Me Feel a Bit Stupid

Luke writes that his llms.txt file had been hit 190 times in 30 days.

The average page on their site? Three to four hits.

One plain text file he'd been putting off for months was pulling 50x more AI traffic than anything else they publish. The blog posts. The landing pages. The service pages I spent weeks getting right.

The AI walked straight past all of it and went directly to a simple text file.

I'm not going to pretend I saw that coming. But once I saw the data, everything clicked.

What I Should Have Done Sooner (And What You Can Do Today)

Here's the bit I kept reading about and not acting on — and the bit I want you to actually act on.

All the conversation around AEO (Answer Engine Optimisation) and GEO (Generative Engine Optimisation) makes it sound complicated. Like there's some sophisticated strategy required before you can participate. The message that "AEO/GEO is still SEO" felt like it needed a big, considered response.

It doesn't. Or at least — it doesn't start that way.

It starts with a text file.

llms.txt is exactly what it sounds like: a plain text file sitting at the root of your domain. No design. No JavaScript. No clever formatting. Just a clear, honest description of who you are, what you do, and links to the pages that matter.

Think of it as a sitemap — except instead of being built for Google bots, it's built for AI systems. It's a direct note to the LLMs saying: "Here's what's worth your attention."

And they respond to it. Clearly and measurably.

Why AI Systems Actually Prefer llms.txt

This part helped it make sense to me.

According to Rankmath,

"A typical llms.txt file includes:

Clean formatting that skips navigation clutter, sidebars, or ad"

A short intro or summary about your site

A curated list of URLs pointing to your best content, including help docs, product pages, blog posts, and other content that reflects your brand

Optional notes or context to help AI understand the value of those pages

Compute isn't free. Every page an AI crawls, every token it processes, every piece of content it has to parse and interpret — it costs something. These systems are ruthlessly efficient about where they spend those resources.

A beautifully designed landing page with hero images, animations, and a carefully agonised-over button colour? That's expensive to parse. A plain text file that says exactly what a business does and where to find the relevant content? That's efficient.

When an AI hits one file 190 times while averaging 3-4 hits on everything else, it isn't confused. It knows exactly what it's doing. It's found the most useful thing on the site and it keeps coming back.

That's the signal I missed for months while I was busy with things that felt more important.

How to Setup LLMS.txt File (Rankmath Method)

If you use Rankmath, the setup takes less than 2 minutes. All you have to do is to get to RankMath plugin dashboard, look for llms.txt, and toggle it on.

Learn how to use llms.txt in Rankmath

The Setup, Luke's Method (Genuinely 30 Minutes, I Timed It)

No developer. No platform. No cost.

1. Create a plain text file called llms.txt
2. Add your key pages — services, about, core content — with one line describing each
3. Upload it to the root of your domain so it lives at yourdomain.com/llms.txt
4. That's it

I spent more time second-guessing the wording than actually building the thing (for both of the methods on How to Add a LLMS.txt file.

Why I'm Sharing This

Honestly? Because I wasted months not doing something that took half an hour.

The conversation around AI search has felt big and abstract — Google announcements, industry frameworks, strategy decks. And I kept treating it like something that needed a big, considered response before I could act.

It doesn't. You can do the meaningful first step today, before lunch, for free.

If you've been reading the same articles I've been reading and also not doing anything about it yet — this is me saying: just make the file. The data on the other side is worth it.

Already have llms.txt set up? I'd genuinely love to know what your crawler data looks like.

The post How to Add llms.txt File (using RankMath) Fast, In 2 Mins Flat appeared first on fetchprofits.

Shopify themes are built using "liquid" -- which isn't something a busy, regular, stressed-out eCommerce brand owner should be worried about (or forced to tweak or scratch heads). Looking for help in this department sets you back plenty which isn't required when you make changes and edits yourself. If you had help that is, and that's where EComposer for Shopify comes in

Your eCommerce business won't grow if you have to tweak code -- this is also the reason why WordPress DIY page builders like Divi and Elementor are popular (with new ones such as Brizy hitching the ride)

For Shopify, ideally, you could certainly use ultra-flexible Shopify themes such as the Booster Theme.

Read:

Shopify Booster Theme: The Best Shopify Theme, Ever?

But if you already purchased another Shopify theme, love a particular theme, or just don't want to change themes at all, what do you do?

You do eComposer, that's what.

What's EComposer for Shopify?

EComposer for Shopify is a light-weight, feature-rich Shopify Visual Builder -- a drag-and-drop page builder for Shopify. Pick a static page, product page, product collection page, landing pages, and practically any section of your Shopify store and you'll be able to make changes without ever seeing a line of code (Bye Bye Liquid)

It's for new merchants setting up their first Shopify store. It's also for Shopify partners and Shopify developers to help add new custom pages to an existing Shopify store, add new landing pages for eCommerce campaigns, build out new pages for Shopify stores, and more.

It's also for Shopify partners, agencies, and freelancers who work on Shopify (day in and day out).

EComposer For Shopify: Real-time, Intuitive Drag-and-Drop Editor

I love "drag-and-drop". What's to say about that little concept? It practically changed my life. I am not a Shopify Pro. I am not a WordPress design Pro. I can't code to save my life.

It's the Drag-and-Drop concepts applied to WordPress Design, Shopify Theme Customization, and even low-code/no-code tools today that make it all possible for me to explore frontiers that I normally do not.

With the Real-time and Intuitive EComposer Drag-and-drop Editor, building various Shopify pages and creating custom sections is just a matter of pulling, dropping, dragging, dropping.

Just like that.

Within the editor, you get to tweak margins and padding. You can apply global fonts and styles. Further, extend functionality with Custom CSS or JavaScript codes.

The EComposer editor allows you to design build out any Shopify page. Plus, you get 400+ page templates, unlimited element presets, and more than 1100+ pre-built sections.

The changes you make can be viewed in real-time along with a separate builder for mobile and desktop views so that you can craft you Shopify pages (or entire store) for device specific experiences.

SEO Optimization & Performance

All EComposer layouts and elements are SEO optmized - right out of the box -- featuring essential SEO tags like meta title, meta description, image ALT, etc.

EComposer also auto applies Lazy loading with optimized code that make the light house score green, makes your Core Web Vitals glow positive, and help you rank your Shopify store better.

Do note that the bulk of SEO optimization work and success with SEO performance lies with the work you put in with content marketing for eCommerce, product descriptions, eCommerce blogging (along with your publishing velocity), and several other aspects of SEO work that most Shopify owners miss.

I highly recommending using one of the many pre-built sections and elements for Shopify Blog pages and get the content marketing engine going.

Without the back-breaking work of "producing, optimizing, distributing, and repurposing" content, you have no chance with eCommerce SEO. Just saying.

Designer-made Templates (Will 400+ Suffice?)

If you want to, create your Shopify pages from scratch. Or revisit the Shopify theme you purchased and make changes on it.

Or scratch the Shopify themes and rework eCommerce design the way you want it to be (and not the way Shopify themes will force you to be).

You don't have to create Shopify stores, Individual Shopify pages, Shopify landing pages, or any custom element on any page from scratch.

Speed up the process and save time by using any of the appropriate designer-made templates (more than 400+ of them currently available) for your projects or store changes, available with the EComposer for Shopify App.

Value-added EComposer Extensions

They are extensions. They are value-added. You get them all with EComposer with Shopify

Featuring more than 20+ extensions built exclusively to help make your Shopify store a super store (in terms of performance and results), EComposer allows you to skip expensive tools and apps that you might have had to purchase.

For instance, you can:

• Boost the Average Order Value (AOV) by cross-selling and up-selling products right on the product page. Also, feature products that are "frequently bought together", "You May Also Like", and more.

• Add product enhancement details to your products (on product pages and landing pages) which also includes custom color swatches, ability for your customers to leave questions for you, and to help your customers find and decide which product to purchase easily.

• Filter various product color options lively and clear all doubts about products before sales with our extensions.

• Boost the speed of your Shopify store -- while making the shopping experience better for your customers -- by using the AJAX cart, compress images using Tinify Image compressor, add a "Sticky" Add-to-Cart, and more.

• On top of cross-selling and upselling (above), enhance sales and boost trust by using sales notifications, back-in-stock notifications, and announcement bars.

• Some EComposer extensions allow you to protect your content, add a "Table of contents" to long-form blog posts, and more.

• Go compliant with GDPR compliance, Cookie Bars, Age Verification for Shopify stores -- all without breaking your head or looking for help.

With EComposer extensions, you'd save approximately $170 per month by one app -- instead of using several apps (doing various little things) -- while keeping your Shopify store stable, secure, and fast.

As of May 2026, here are the pricing plans for EComposer Shopify App -- starting from a generous free plan and it goes up from there.

How do you manage Shopify Store Design? What Shopify Page Builders do you use, If any?

Tell me all about it on Twitter, LinkedIn, or my LinkedIn Brand page.

The post EComposer For Shopify: No Code Designer To Boost Sales appeared first on fetchprofits.

If you run an e-commerce brand and tried to run Meta ads, you’ve felt the pain. Your ads run, but the results don't pull through. You seem to spend more on ads than the returns you get.

You try angles, you try landing pages. You try funnels and you even launched awesome email campaigns.

Yet, your campaigns fall flat.

You’ve got a beautiful store, your inventory is locked in, but your growth has hit a massive bottleneck as far as Meta ads are concerned: Creative volume.

To scale on Meta right now, you need dozens of ad angles every single week. You need different hooks, distinct buyer personas, and constant visual variations.

Historically, this meant a exhausting loop: manually writing briefs, arguing with video editors, wrestling with generic AI text prompts that look robotic, and spending hours uploading assets into Ads Manager.

But a shift is happening right now in the ecosystem.

Joe Devoy (Co-Founder) recently introduced Tempo, an AI-powered agentic growth engine built expressly for e-commerce.

And if you’re running your business on Shopify, your marketing game is about to change forever.

What is Tempo for Shopify? (Goodbye Prompting, Hello Autopilot)

Most AI marketing tools require you to sit in front of a blank search box and play "prompt engineer." You type in a concept, get a subpar image, tweak the prompt, and repeat.

Tempo completely skips that headache. It doesn’t wait for you to prompt it; it prompts itself.

Tempo functions as an autonomous team of copywriters, designers, media buyers, and producers wrapped into a single dashboard. Every single week, it automatically delivers fresh, on-brand, ready-to-run ad creatives.

Here is exactly how Tempo’s "Self-Driving Creative Engine" handles the legwork:

1. Learn: The moment you connect it, Tempo automatically ingests your entire brand context—your Shopify product catalog, customer reviews, Meta performance history, brand voice, and competitive landscape.
2. Plan: Instead of you writing a creative brief, Tempo maps out a strategy every week based on winning data patterns, new audience personas, and competitor angles.
3. Create: It builds static graphics, offer variations, and light-motion videos tailored to distinct buying angles.
4. Improve: Last week’s ROAS and hook rate directly dictate next week’s strategy. It spots creative fatigue before you do and pivots autonomously.

All you have to do? Swipe right to approve and launch it straight to Meta, or swipe left to refine Tempo's taste.

The Power of "Transparent AI"

The biggest issue with automated marketing has always been the "black box" problem—you don't know why an AI generated a specific ugly ad or weird headline.

Tempo solves this with a completely visible, node-based workflow. When an ad lands on your review desk, Tempo explicitly details the exact reasoning behind it:

• Which specific product insight triggered it?
• What target customer persona is it speaking to?
• Which positive customer review did it pull text from?

If you don't like a specific element, you don't start over. You just click on that specific "strategy node," swap a product or tweak a constraint, and instantly regenerate. It’s collaborative AI done right.

Why Shopify = Ultimate Ecosystem for This Innovation

Here is the kicker: Tempo relies heavily on the rich data infrastructure of Shopify to work its magic. While there is a waitlist for non-Shopify users, Tempo is built natively to thrive on Shopify.

Why? Because Shopify isn’t just an online shopping cart; it’s a robust, beautifully structured data engine.

Because Shopify seamlessly aggregates everything—from SKU specifications and live inventory data to deep transactional histories and customer review integrations—Tempo can "read" your business perfectly. It instantly knows when a product is trending, when a specific item is overstocked and needs an offer variant, or which customer demographics are buying what.

This highlights exactly why Shopify remains the gold standard for modern e-commerce. It is no longer just about having a website that looks pretty; it’s about having a platform with an ecosystem advanced enough to support cutting-edge AI automation.

When modern founders choose Shopify, they aren’t just buying an online storefront; they are unlocking access to a massive app ecosystem featuring revolutionary tech like Tempo.

The Verdict: It’s Time to Scale Without the Overhead

Early adopters are already seeing massive wins. Aman Advani, the founder of Ministry of Supply, noted:

"Have tried about 5 similar services and this is BY FAR the best... we're seeing real spend and results from at least half. Overall ROAS up a fair bit."

Whether you’re a scrappy startup utilizing their Starter Plan ($99/mo for 10 ads a week) or a scaling brand on their Growth Plan ($250/mo for 30 ads + videos), the value proposition is undeniable. You get the creative output of a full agency at a fraction of the cost, without losing control of your brand identity.

The era of manual media buying and creative bottlenecks is fading. If you're ready to put your brand's growth on autopilot, it’s time to lean heavily into the Shopify ecosystem and install Tempo today.

The post Tempo For Shopify: Autonomous Ad Machine For Your Brand appeared first on fetchprofits.

Setting up DMARC for Mailchimp (and also for any service provider you use) is the first step -- and is a part of foundational aspects of email marketing.

Skip this, and your email deliverability is sure to tank (although there are other aspects that affect email deliverability as well)

Email deliverability is a huge issue now (and the best of the best brands are currently struggling by landing in spam folders).

You don't want to end up there.

Specifically with respect to DMARC for Mailchimp, there are three stages that you need to set up or work through to ensure maximum email deliverability, proper DMARC for Mailchimp setup and proper foundational setup for your email marketing.

Note: Watch this video on the foundational risks associated with email marketing

Here are the three mandatory stages you need to setup DMARC for Mailchimp, the right way:

Stage 1

Stage 2

Stage 3

Stage 1: Automatic Authentication Within MailChimp

When you are logged into your email account, click on the top right corner, look for accounts & billing.

On that page you will find a tab called "domains".

If you already have a domain showing there, click on start authentication button. If you don't have a domain showing there, add a domain first.

Then click on Start authentication. This automatically initiates the process to set up DMACC for Mailchimp.

You will go through a wizard. It automatically identifies your DNS provider (usually where you purchased your domain from -- such as Cloudflare, Namecheap, etc.).

You will have to login to your DNS provider to complete this process.

Note: you may have to do this manually, just in case. Further, you can also view what DNS records were added to your DNS zone (usually two CNAME records and one TXT record). The TXT record is the DMARC record added for you. The two CNAME records are DKIM records.

Stage 2: Add a Subdomain For Mailchimp

If you are wondering why you should add a subdomain for Mailchimp or for any ESP such as Klaviyo, Moosend, or Omnisend

See this:

This is specific and unique to Mailchimp where it demands that you require an email associated with a subdomain. This step, however, is not a mandatory part of setting up DMARC for Mailchimp. This is the best practice that I highly recommend you implement.

You'd either need to add a subdomain with your hosting account, create an inbox with a name like username@[yoursubdomain].yourdomain.com

So if your main domain is yourdomain.com and the subdomain you chose for email marketing activities (promotional) is mail.yourdomain.com, The subdomain you will add is "mail" or mail.yourdomain.com. The email inbox associated with this subdomain is going to be username@mail.yourdomain.com

When your inbox is ready, send yourself a test email to verify whether or not you are able to access this inbox.

username: name you chose for your new inbox

Subdomain: name you chose for subdomain (like email. More examples in the post embedded above)

Back in Mailchimp> Accounts & Billing > Domains> Click on Add New Domain and verify

Provide the new email address you created.

Start authentication.

Your new subdomain is created, authenticated, and verified.

Stage 3: How to Monitor DMARC for Mailchimp

The third stage Involving proper DMARC Mailchimp is all about DMARC monitoring. If you notice what happened in the previous step, the DMARC record( which was a TXT record provided to you by MailChimp) was set to policy or P = none.

By monitoring your email flows each week (from all sending domains) and capturing all of your emails in an email digest that are sent to a specific email address, You will identify your authorized sending domains such as the one that you just added on MailChimp and unauthorized sending domains (all bad players using YOUR domain for email sopam, email phishing, and so on)

After monitoring & reviewing reports, you will want to move your policy from "P= none" to "P=Quarantine" and then to P = Reject.

To make this part easy for you, I highly recommend you use a tool like DMARCwise or Valimail

If you'd like for me to set up your SPF, DKIM and DMARC for Mailchimp (along with sub-domains as a best practice and also monitoring your DMARC, get my Mailchimp Email Deliverability Package

GET IT

If you'd rather watch a video, here's some help:

https://youtu.be/ZWyZNAZShQM

Here's a platform agnostic email deliverability DIY fix kit to help you with these processes (platform-agnostic, and works with any email provider).

Would you require a professional audit to help you spot opportunities, prevent mistakes and make sure that you have a rock solid foundation for your email marketing? Then check out my email marketing audit.

DMARC is not just about security, but is the single greatest step to getting higher ROI from Mailchimp's segmentation and automation features. It's boring, semi-technical and it's something that most brand miss.

But you shouldn't. You ensure that you set it up the right way.

The post Easy DMARC for Mailchimp (2026): Don’t Land In Spam appeared first on fetchprofits.

There's a way to "authenticate" gmail account (used within Google Workspace for organizations), from inside admin access at Google Workspace. You normally only receive emails to all you organization accounts and might even send out emails -- to individuals, other businesses, partners, team members, and more.

The question from an email deliverability perspective is:

"Should I authenticate this? What are the benefits, from the POV of SPF/DKIM/DMARC standpoint?"

The answer is a resounding "yes." You absolutely should authenticate your email, even if you rarely send emails.

What you're looking at is the DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail) authentication process within Google Workspace. This is a critical step for your organization's email deliverability and brand reputation.

Trust: The Core Benefit Of Adding DKIM To Google Workspace Gmail

When an email is sent, receiving servers (like Gmail, Outlook, or Yahoo) check a variety of factors to determine if the email is legitimate and from a trusted sender. Without proper authentication, your emails look suspicious, and receiving servers might flag them as spam or even reject them outright.

Authenticating your email with DKIM provides a digital signature for every email sent from your domain. This signature proves that the email was sent by you and has not been tampered with in transit. It's essentially a tamper-proof seal of approval that builds trust with the recipient's mail server.

Benefits from the POV of SPF, DKIM, and DMARC

Here's how authenticating your Gmail account directly impacts your email deliverability from an SPF, DKIM, and DMARC standpoint:

• DKIM: As shown in the screenshot you shared, this process creates a unique DNS TXT record for your domain. This record contains a public key that receiving servers use to verify the digital signature of your emails. This is the core of the authentication process. Without this record, you cannot verify your email's authenticity.
• SPF (Sender Policy Framework): SPF works by telling the world which servers are authorized to send emails on behalf of your domain. Google Workspace provides an SPF record that you must add to your DNS settings. When you authenticate your domain in Google Workspace, you're confirming to the world that Google's servers are allowed to send emails from your domain.
• DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting & Conformance): DMARC is the policy that brings SPF and DKIM together. Once you have both SPF and DKIM set up, you can implement a DMARC policy. This policy tells receiving servers what to do if an email fails authentication (e.g., quarantine it, reject it, or do nothing). It also provides you with reports on your email performance. Without both SPF and DKIM correctly configured, DMARC is not effective.

In short, authenticating your email is a foundational step. Even if you don't send many emails, it's about protecting your domain's reputation from the start.

A clean, authenticated domain is less likely to be spoofed by spammers, and it gives you a clean slate for any future marketing or transactional emails you might send.

The benefit is peace of mind and protection, which is worth far more than the few minutes it takes to set up.

Chances are that you might have already added SPF and/or DKIM and/or DMARC settings to some of your domains (or someone or a platform itself must have done this automatically for you).

If you go by my 3-part framework for email deliverability, you'd have used:

1. Two subdomains (one for promos and one for transactional emails)
2. Used Branded Domain or Custom Domain option with the ESP of your choice (Klaviyo, Mailchimp, MailerLite, Moosend, etc)

You'd then have:

promos.yourdomain.com

(set-up through Klaviyo or others) and

trans.yourdomain.com

(set-up through ZeptoMail)?

If so, you have already set up authentication for those specific subdomains.

However, this entire blog post is about specific DNS settings for your root domain,

yourdomain.com

.

The Key Difference: Root Domain vs. Subdomain

When you set up DKIM and SPF for

promos.yourdomain.com

and

trans.yourdomain.com

...you were authenticating only those specific subdomains.

• promos.yourdomain.com: This is for your marketing emails, managed by Klaviyo.
• trans.yourdomain.com: This is for your transactional emails, managed by ZeptoMail.

These setups are perfect for their intended purposes. However, the root domain,

yourdomain.com, is still unauthenticated in your Google Workspace. If you use gmail that comes with Google Workspace, you'll probably have email addresses such as yourname@yourdomain.com, hello@yourdoamin.com, sales@yourdomain.com, and so on.

These email addresses also need protection, right?

The Benefit of Authenticating the Root Domain

Authenticating the root domain with Google Workspace is crucial for two main reasons:

1. Organizational Emails: Your team members might send one-to-one emails directly from their teammate@yourdomain.com or info@yourdomain.com accounts. Without a DKIM signature from Google Workspace, these emails will not be authenticated and could be flagged as spam, even by other Gmail users.
2. Client Distrust: If you use Gmail to send messages to your clients, they'll be warned that yiur email is not from an authentic source, it's likely to land in their spam folder, or it'll never be delivered at all. This isn't going to look good for you.
3. Brand Protection: Setting up DKIM on your root domain provides a blanket of protection for all email sent from any Google Workspace account on your domain. This ensures that any legitimate email from your organization is properly authenticated, which builds trust and improves your overall domain reputation.

In short, you have successfully set up your marketing and transactional email services, but the image you shared indicates that you still need to set up authentication for your primary, day-to-day Google Workspace email.

The steps shown in the image are for the final, foundational step in securing your entire email program.

Why This Is a Critical For Your Business?

This small step is a blanket protection for your root domain, for emails that often fall out of the radar. Normally, your entire attention is focused on email marketing campaigns, email marketing automation workflows, design, and analytics, The humble Google Workspace Gmail account(s) that your organization uses (even if it's one-person organization like mine), tends to be ignored.

Don't Ignore

• It Prevents a Future Problem. While you might not send many emails today, your business is going to grow. Without this foundational setup, your future emails will be vulnerable to deliverability issues. By setting this up, you're not just fixing your current problems; you're future-proofing your entire email infrastructure.
• It Protects Your Brand. Your core domain (yourdomain.com) is the face of your brand. Ensuring every single email sent from that domain is properly authenticated protects them from email spoofing and ensures that your brand reputation remains clean and trustworthy.
• It's not an issue, until it is. This is a perfect example of what you'd uncover from my professional Email Marketing Audit would uncover. You might not even know this is an issue, but my audit would flag it, and my Deliverability Service would implement the fix.

By handling this small step, you are following my 3-step Email Deliverability Framework for comprehensive email deliverability management

This isn't a technical fix; this is peace of mind and a bulletproof email foundation for your business.

Fix Email Delivery Issues Yourself

Email Delivery Issues are tackled with My 3-Step Framework that covers promo emails, transactional emails, and emails sent from your organization.

Get my "Email Authority" DIY Fix Kit & pass it to your delivery expert or Do It Yourself

GET IT NOW FOR $29

The post How To Add DKIM To Google Workspace Gmail Account appeared first on fetchprofits.

I once wrote about the problem with your marketing tech stack (maybe you don’t see that yet?).

Marketing Tech Stack Debt — is the total amount of cash you pay monthly or yearly — for the sum total of all the marketing tools (not including any other apps, software, and tools you could be using).

Here's shocking truth: Your customers don't care about your marketing tech stack; all that they care about is how they "feel" about doing business with you.

The customer doesn’t care about your hardware, software, and deployment details. They just want to know that they can get their problem solved or will receive the service they are expecting on time (or sooner).

There’s a lot to benefit from at the intersection of business and technology. Businesses stand to gain from digital enablement, digital transformation, refined business processes, faster turnaround time, cheaper and more efficient production

Meanwhile, my friends at Creators Virtual Solutions have an interesting take on all of these marketing tools that you have to stitch to make it work ("all held together by prayer and manual data entry")

Your tech stack looks like a digital junkyard: 17 different tools that hate each other, held together by prayer and manual data entry.

You're not leveraging technology. You're being held hostage by it.

Plot twist: The problem isn't your tools. It's your strategy.

— Creators Virtual Solutions (@CreatorsVirtual) August 27, 2025

Marketing Tech Stack Debt: Too Much already, more to come

Just a few years ago, it was just tools (al sorts of them). Now, it’s legacy tools with some sort of Generative AI thrown in, added-on, bolted in, and latched on. As if that wasn’t enough, we now have purely AI-driven tools (most of them are wrappers — delivering what they promise (and doing it well, hopefully). 

The trouble isn’t as much about the tools themselves (I love them and you love them too). It’s only the disparate, roughly strewn about, ecosystem-less promise that these marketing tech tools present to us as business owners. 

More specific points below but the main premise is the absolutely wild things you now have to think about, choose from, decide on, and commit to. 

Some tools are built separate for each platform you are on — say for Shopify, for WordPress, for Webflow, and so on

• Email marketing tools or platforms,
• eCommerce Checkout optimization tools, Apps for Shopify, and plugins for WordPress
• Lead generation tools, 
• Analytics tools, 
• Competitor Analytics tools
• Landing page software, 
• Marketing automation platforms,
• Referral marketing platforms
• Affiliate marketing tools and platforms
• eCommerce management tools: These include “things made for little things” such as a plugin for displaying currencies depending on where your customers are located. Or another plugin to help optimize speed, and so on.

Do you see where I I am going with this? Let’s say you pick and choose from the lot

The Integration Wild Wild West

Chances are that you could be using some marketing tools already, if it’s been a while you’ve been in business. You'd be using some sort of marketing tech stack

Go to any of the home pages of any of the marketing tools you are considering and click on “integrations”. What do you find? Do you see any of your existing marketing tools integrating with the specific tool you are considering at the moment? 

Chances are that you might not. 

Example: WordPress Integrates with Klaviyo (WooCommerce native integration). Klaviyo also integrates straight away with Meta lead ads, and other Meta campaigns. The combination of these becomes your marketing tech stack.

If you are on Shopify, it’s still good news as far as Klaviyo and Shopify go. Klaviyo has direct integrations with Shopify (and this enables tracking of all sorts — purchases, orders, newsletter sign-ups). You can also float automations, abandoned cart emails (automated), browse abandonment flows, and more. 

But let’s say you heard about just how awesome and promising Webflow route is, especially if you wanted to try Headless eCommerce. So, does Klaviyo integrate with Webflow? Not straightforward enough. Not native enough. It can still be done though.

Maybe you can stitch, slap, and duct-tape a few of these marketing tools together with Make, Zapier, or N8N. That’s another set of tools with subscription payments you didn’t see coming now, did you? 

Data Mismatch Horror Stories

Pete Caputa, CEO of Databox, recently did a podcast titled “Predictable Scale: The 6-Step System To Drive Consistent, Sustainable Growth”

Quoting him verbatim

The frustration that I’m both feeling and hearing is that it feels like we’re almost working twice as hard to get half as far these days. And there’s two reactions to that: One is ‘it is what it is’ and we just keep working as hard as we can. Or we can focus in on the things that will have the most impact on our business — and ignore the rest. ~ Pete Caputa, CEO, Databox

In the post, Pete talks about his SPEARS framework and chalks out specific leverage points for scaling (which we aren't getting into, in this post).

However, here's what I wanted to highlight:

Each of the tools in your marketing tech stack enables flow of data (from one tool to another). But you won't see much, let alone do anything about it.

The state of small businesses is that not everyone has access to, or sees, or has a way to utilize data. but:

Data only drives action if everyone can see it.

Also,

"More than 50% of companies don’t share beyond the manager level. What that does is disempower the rest of the organization from having ideas, helping each other, or even caring about their own performance.”

That's why tools like Databox makes it easy to pull in data to help businesses work with a Business Intelligence Dashboard. All the data -- including metrics, KPIs, conversions, newsletter subscriptions, purchases, orders, and sales flow into singular dashboards that everyone has access to. Other options for you, for this specific aspect without getting too fancy with PowerBI and others, are Coupler.io and Supermetrics

Pete also wrote a hard-hitting LinkedIn post on the horror of businesses “unable” to use all of the data pouring in for the marketing efforts these businesses break their collective backs for. 

What's the way out of this mess, apart from Pete's insights, applied to your marketing tools and your tech stack, you ask?

According to Jack Van Gills of Reconext

Make an organization-wide, consistent decision to be data-driven. Second, add people and resources towards that project of creating and moving to that world, so that you'll keep doing it for months and years.

The Potential Of Your Marketing Tech Stack

Your marketing tech stack has the potential to bring in real results for your business. You now have the ability to do more than you could ever dream of, with much less. 

At the age where AI intersects legacy technology and where “AI-driven” everything seems to be the norm (or will be?), the costs for orchestrating holistic marketing efforts (across the board — from content marketing to email marketing, from lead generation to paid advertising) are much less now. 

Of course, the cost of acquiring customers is going way up (that’s a topic for another day). 

So, how do you deal with this persistent issue of new tools trying to make their way into your marketing tech stack? How do you handle making decisions for these? What should you do before you decide? 

Get that cup of coffee and sit down to think hard about what you really need just to get a healthy start. I didn’t say “free start” and I didn’t say “cut the corners and start cheap”. Think about running your business the way middle-class families that are perennially tight on budgets think: What’s absolutely essential? What do we need to bring in X,Y,Z results?

• Categorise needs and wants: No, this isn’t a personal finance blog but stay with me: Let’s say you run an eCommerce business. What do you need? Choose one from below
  • Dependable, reliable, and robust eCommerce platform. Choose WordPress, Shopify, or Webflow eCommerce. 
  • You then need a way to do marketing — you need content marketing and a presence on social media (you can do eCommerce blogging for all three platforms and social is social). 
  • Generate leads with Unbounce, Instapage, Or LeadPages (LinkedIn Ad forms or Meta Ads Leads — are native to each of these respective platforms)
  • You then need email marketing (which brings in the money). You can use any email marketing platform such as Klaviyo, MailerLite, MailChimp, MooSend, and tons of other newer email marketing platforms — doesn’t matter, as long as you have an active program and you are committed to make email marketing work for you.
  • Analytics (apart from Google Analytics and platform-specific analytics like Shopify analytics): Get Databox, Supermetrics, or Coupler.io
  • One single platform for eCommerce support, say Gorgias.

Think of the bare minimum you need to start, run, and manage your business. Don't rush in and buy all sorts of tools just because you see slick home pages.

You can always get to them later.

That’s it. Every other decision comes in later. I’d go so far as to say that you don’t think of investing anything on any other tool for your marketing stack until you have a dollar in profit to show for that potential investment.

How do you handle your marketing stack decisions? What do you do to prevent yourself from getting into Marketing Tech Stack debt?

The post Marketing Tech Stack Debt Trap appeared first on fetchprofits.