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Sending Reputation and Warming
To increase the likelihood that emails land in inboxes where recipients can engage with them, you need a consistent sending history and a good sending reputation. If a sender lacks these qualities, mailbox providers (MBPs) can slow down or block delivery of messages. Each time that you launch a new brand or start working with a new ESP, always schedule time to "warm up" your reputation by establishing a positive sending history.
Shared vs. Dedicated IP Addresses
Low-volume senders typically use shared IP addresses. While these addresses have an established history, warming is essential for your specific brand. Your actions as a sender impact every customer that shares the IP address. If your sends result in a negative impact to the shared sending reputation, Salesforce can suspend your account.
Salesforce also supports dedicated sending IPs and domains for customers with very large send volumes. As a high-volume sender, you maintain full control over your sending reputation. To explore if a dedicated solution is right for your volume, contact your account executive.
Reputation Warming
When you first begin sending emails, you must establish your reputation with mailbox providers. This process is called "warming," and it's required for all senders.
To build a strong sender reputation, gradually expand your audience based on email interactions. Send emails to only your most engaged recipients, including new sign-ups and anyone who’s engaged in the past month.
Increase your sending volume by 20% each day. After you reach a daily send volume of around 70% of your total audience, you can begin sending to your full audience. If you have millions of records, this process could take time.
If engagement rates drop or your sends are throttled or blocked during the warming period, pause sends at the current volume. Resume your warming plan when your metrics stabilize.
Be patient with your warming process. Rushing the process can trigger spam filters and damage your long-term deliverability prospects. Monitor bounce rates, complaint rates, and engagement metrics closely, and be prepared to slow down the volume if you see negative trends.
To encourage positive interactions during this warming period, target your most engaged recipients first.
- Identify engaged subscribers: Filter your data to find people who signed up for your emails or clicked links within the past 30 days.
- Target your sends: Send your initial small batches of email exclusively to this highly active segment.
Here’s an example of how you can break down the first ten days of high-volume email sending into a warming plan. To see a complete monthly breakdown of email sending up to 2 million, refer to Domain Warming: 30 Day Plan Example. However, every audience group is different, so remember monitor engagement frequently.
Ten Day Warming Plan Example.
| Day | Daily Maximum Value |
|---|---|
| Day 1 | 100 |
| Day 2 | 250 |
| Day 3 | 400 |
| Day 4 | 500 |
| Day 5 | 600 |
| Day 6 | 700 |
| Day 7 | 850 |
| Day 8 | 1,000 |
| Day 9 | 1,200 |
| Day 10 | 1,500 |
Maintaining a Good Reputation
After you build a good reputation, you have to maintain it. Here are five things that can help you stay on the positive side.
- Never use a purchased list.
- Only send emails to people who have explicitly opted in.
- Remove email addresses that hard bounced from your data immediately, and aim to keep bounce rates under 2%.
- Set reminders to remove stale data at least twice per year. You can find stale data by filtering records that are more than 2 years old and show no engagement in the past 6 months.
- Send professional, relevant content, and aim to keep spam complaints at or under 0.1%.
