Major internet (email) service providers (ISPs) have implemented increasingly complex and intelligent spam filtering rules, which makes it more challenging for EDM users to ensure the successful inbox delivery of marketing emails. To achieve consistent and high-quality results regarding email delivery, open rates, CTRs, and more, it is essential to adhere to the rules set by Email Service Providers (ESPs).
For mass marketing emails, an excellent sender reputation often serves as a guarantee for long-term and stable inbox delivery. The main factors influencing sender reputation include the health of the recipient list, the quality of email content, the frequency and quantity of mass email sends, and the accumulated credibility from historical sends (i.e. domain, IP), among others. To cultivate a good sender reputation, it is strongly recommended that you engage in a period of warm-up sending activity before initiating formal mass marketing email campaigns. This helps prevent a large number of emails from being marked as spam and ensures subsequent successful inbox delivery.
Here is an intro to warm-up sending in the SmartPush system. The following methods can help you improve email effectiveness.
SmartPush has already warmed up the default domains. Therefore, it is suitable for small and medium-sized corporates to use the default domains, enabling quick mass email sending. If you need brand exposure through branded email addresses, you can also access SmartPush's custom sender address feature. It is strongly recommended to conduct warm-up sending before mass sending emails through a custom domain.
What is warm-up sending?
Warm-up sending refers to the practice of sending a small number of emails to active users using a new sender domain and IP address before initiating a large-scale (mass) email campaign. Then, strategically increase the sending volume over a specified period. This incremental approach aims to accumulate the sender's reputation, eliminate suspicious behavior, and ultimately reach a level of sending volume that is considered normal and acceptable.
The sender domain refers to the domain of your sender email address, which is the info in the "Mail From" field. For example, if you use noreply@news.mydomain.com as the sender address, then news.mydomain.com is your sender domain. The sender IP is the IP address associated with your sender address during the sending process. Whether you use a shared IP or a dedicated one, it's crucial to monitor the reputation level of the sender IP.
For major ISPs, a newly deployed sender domain is initially considered unfamiliar. Typically, within the first 30 days, a new sender domain is considered suspicious. If you send emails in large quantities hastily or in an irregular manner, it may cause your sender domain blacklisted by ISPs. This can result in legitimate emails being marked as spam and even rejected. All of these actions are controlled by the ISP's reputation system.
All in all, warm-up sending primarily focuses on the warming-up of the sender domain and IP, allowing ISPs to gradually recognize you and allocate reasonable inbox quotas for you. SmartPush continually conducts IP warm-ups and provides high-quality IPs for your use. When using SmartPush to execute warm-up email campaigns, remember the main purpose is to warm up the sender domain and cultivate a positive sender reputation. Also, if your monthly sending volume exceeds 500,000, it is highly recommended to apply for a dedicated sending domain. A dedicated sender domain will utilize a separate channel for sending, allowing you to achieve better delivery results. Please note that this method also requires domain warm-up.
How to execute warm-up sending?
Before starting warm-up sending, some technical preparations are necessary to verify the authenticity of your sender address. SmartPush has already completed the configurations for users, saving you technical work and allowing you to focus on the sending strategy during the warm-up period and the handling of negative feedback. The technical settings required during the warm-up period are as follows:
- Real sender authentication, such as SPF, DKIM, DMARC settings, will be configured by SmartPush for each successfully verified sender address.
- Feedback loop settings, meaning that when a user clicks on "Report spam," the sender should no longer send emails to this user, as doing so may lead to being identified as a spammer. SmartPush currently has a dedicated spam collection mechanism that automatically tracks complaints from users after each campaign (task) is sent. It automatically filters out users who have filed a complaint, preventing further emails from being sent to them.
- Statistics on key email metrics, such as delivery rate, open rate, click-through rate, complaint rate, bounce rate, etc., are available in SmartPush's detailed data reports. You can monitor the email performance comprehensively, focus on key indicators such as complaint rate and bounce rate during the warm-up period, and clean your recipient list promptly. SmartPush also logs the status of each email sent, automatically filtering out addresses that have hard bounced or complained, preventing further emails from being sent to them.
Pay attention to the sending strategy during the warm-up period. It is recommended that you adhere to the following principles when formulating your sending strategy:
- The warm-up period should be at least 2 weeks to allow the ISP reputation system to fully recognize you. It typically takes 2 weeks to a month.
- Maintain a consistent sending frequency, with at least 1-2 sends per week. If there's been no sending campaign for more than 30 days or an extended period, it's necessary to restart the warm-up process.
- Initial sending should be in small quantities and gradually increasing. As for the volume, you can refer to the "A reasonable warm-up sending plan" part.
- Use an authentic sender address, preferably the corporate's branded email, and avoid using free personal email accounts like gmail.com, yahoo.com, outlook.com, etc. as the sender address.
- Use an authentic, subscribed, and active recipient list, such as users who have opened/ clicked emails in the last 30 days. Having an active user group helps achieve high open rates and builds a positive sender reputation. You can use the "Segments" feature in SmartPush to easily filter out active user groups.
- Focus on personalized email content, such as notification emails, tutorial emails, newsletters, etc. to engage recipients. Avoid overly promotional content.
- In your recipient list, include internal emails such as team members' Gmail addresses, and encourage internal staff to open and click on emails. If you find emails in the spam folder, remove them from the spam folder and mark them as "Not Spam." These positive actions contribute to cultivating your sender reputation.
- Continuously monitor email data, promptly address hard bounces and complaints, and modify email subject lines or other factors to optimize open rates.
The following are the impacts of user behavior during the warm-up period on your sender reputation. Engage recipients for more positive actions and reduce negative ones to cultivate the reputation of your sender domain.
A reasonable warm-up sending plan
During the warm-up period, following the principle of gradually increasing sending volume is the key to a successful warm-up. The following are the appropriate sending plans summarized based on billions of emails sent through SmartPush.
During the warm-up period, it's important to closely monitor recipient engagement. If you observe that the expected volume has been reached with a stable inbox delivery, you can transition to the formal sending stage for reputation maintenance.
After completing the warm-up sending, you may observe a significant improvement in the open rate. At this point, you can officially send emails to your target recipient groups. When conducting formal sending, it is still essential to pay attention to sending legitimate and compliant content that is of interest to recipients and maintain a good sender reputation level. The following are recommended methods for formal mass sending:
Check all recipient lists
Using authentic, trusted, and confirmed subscribed recipient addresses is essential for maintaining a good sender reputation. Therefore, it is not recommended to purchase external recipient email addresses. Email addresses obtained through purchase may not have undergone subscription confirmation by the customers, leading to potential complaints and a severe impact on the sender reputation. You should regularly check the quality of your recipient list, clean invalid and inactive email addresses, reduce bounce rates during sending, and save a significant budget. SmartPush currently assists customers in automatically cleaning their recipient list every 90 days, promptly removing invalid email addresses. The system records email addresses marked as hard bounce or complaint after each send, automatically excluding such addresses from future email campaigns to protect your sender reputation.
Comply with email laws and regulations
Adhere to local anti-spam laws based on the country of your recipients, such as the CAN-SPAM Act in the United States or GDPR in the EU. Ensure that your email sending complies with the regulations of the respective country to conduct safe sending. For more info on anti-spam laws, you can refer to "How Strict Are Anti-spam Laws in Various Countries? Understanding Email Regulations."
Monitor core data of email behavior
Low open rates, high complaint rates, high bounce rates, and high unsubscription rates are important factors leading to ISP blocking. You need to regularly observe if there is significant fluctuation in the open rate and adjust the sending strategy accordingly. The reasonable complaint rate and unsubscription rate should be less than 1%, and the hard bounce rate should be less than 3%. If it exceeds these values, please suspend sending and clean your recipient list.
Use a dedicated marketing email sending domain
To prevent marketing emails from affecting the normal sending and receiving of emails in your business mailbox, it is recommended to use a subdomain of your brand domain as the sender domain. For instance, if your main domain is mydomain.com, you can apply for newsletter.mydomain.com as your marketing email sending domain. The reputation of the subdomain will not affect the main domain, providing data separation.
Use a trusted sender name
To ensure that your recipients trust your emails, use a genuine brand sender name, avoid suspicious or forged sender names, and refrain from frequently changing them.
Avoid using spam-trigger words
Each ISP will conduct a detailed content analysis of your emails, including the subject line and email bodies. Therefore, if you misuse certain words that are likely to trigger spam identification, your emails may be easily recognized as spam, hence impacting your sender reputation. For the latest spam trigger words, please refer to: https://snov.io/blog/550-spam-trigger-words-to-avoid/. It is advisable to avoid such vocabulary in both the email subject and content to maintain concise and reputable communication.
Maintain a reasonable text-to-image ratio
If the email content only consists of images, it can be marked as spam. Therefore, avoid excessive use of images and maintain an optimal text-to-image ratio of 8:2. This helps prevent triggering spam filters.
Send personalized emails
To prevent your emails from being marked as spam, avoid sending repeated content to recipients. Instead, provide content that interests them, such as recommending suitable products based on their purchase behavior. You can also incorporate personalized settings in emails, like using the recipient's name as a dynamic text in the subject line. For more info on SmartPush's personalized email features, please refer to "Even Emails Should Be Tailored? Double your open Rates with Clever List Segmentation".
Avoid using multiple colors, fonts, emojis, etc.
Using excessive emojis, uppercase letters, different fonts, and colors in email subject lines and content raises the risk of being marked as spam. It can also lead to a lack of trust from recipients, increasing the likelihood of complaints. It's advisable to use a consistent font, avoid uppercase characters, and refrain from using overly bright and saturated colors. If multiple colors are required, try not to use over two, keeping your email style consistent with your brand tone.
Cultivating sender reputation is a persistent effort. It's essential to regularly monitor your sender reputation level for any changes both in the initial sending phase and after starting mass email sending. Make adjustments promptly and continually optimize performance.
Comments