If your sending volume is inconsistent, or erratic, you will probably encounter delivery issues.
Anytime your volume increases dramatically, you can look like a spammer, and mailbox providers will treat your email as such.
Keep the following suggestions in mind as you create and maintain your email program schedule. These best practices are designed to help you manage your volumes consistently while still achieving your email marketing goals.
Maintain a consistent sending volume
Spammers tend to mail huge numbers of addresses at one time, so dramatic increases in email volume may incur a higher level of scrutiny. When your volume must go over your typical cycle, ramp up slowly and distribute the new emails over a period of time rather than sending all at once.
Create a warm up schedule for new IPs
When starting to send from a new IP, plan a warm up period where you start sending low volumes and add more gradually over a few weeks. This method gives you the ability to control your sending rate and volume when you run into delivery issues.
Avoid lulls in sending activity
Because complaint rates are measured daily, inconsistent volumes can create complaint spikes that make rates appear inflated. Long periods of volume inactivity can also cause an IP to be perceived as a new IP. Mailbox providers watch new IPs much more closely, and delivery problems are common because of the extra scrutiny.
Sending more is not better
Email subscribers are selective about the messages they read and respond to. Sending relevant messaging that subscribers are primed to interact with is essential when it comes to standing out from the competition and the rest of the inbox clutter. Sending more volume to subscribers that aren’t engaged with your email can hurt your reputation and result in deliverability problems.
Make sure you have configurable connection and throughput settings
Mailbox providers only accept so many messages at a time and may have volume limits for inbound email from any one sender. Large volume fluctuations that occur from too many connections or high sending rates can cause throttling. This can slow down the rate at which your subscribers receive email, or may lead to a block.
Send from the right amount of IPs
Load balancing is a common practice used by higher volume senders. This method involves spreading out volumes over a group of IPs, rather than sending all of your email from just one. While this is a useful practice for managing high volumes, it’s important to keep the number IPs to a minimum to avoid the appearance of snowshoeing. Snowshoeing is a technique used to send spam from a lot of IPs, often across different networks or IP ranges, so no single IP shows a very poor reputation.
