This article outlines how to build up the reputation of your Dotdigital sending address, also known as ‘warming up’ or ‘ramping up’ your Dotdigital account.
Before starting, you should be familiar with:
There are two sets of instructions in this article:
- Warming up a Dotdigital account for organisations with new Dotdigital accounts.
- Ramping up a Dotdigital account for organisations who are already using Dotdigital, but plan to send an unusually high number of emails. This can also apply to organisations who take long breaks between email sends, such as annual festivals.
Why warm up or ramp up a Dotdigital account?
Warming up a Dotdigital account
If your organisation is new to sending emails through Dotdigital, you will need to gradually increase the number of emails you send before sending emails to large numbers of Customers.
This is because when your email domain is new or has no sending history, abrupt spikes in sending volume can hurt your sending reputation and affect email deliverability.
Your sending reputation will dictate whether your emails are flagged as untrustworthy or spam by your customer's ESPs (email service providers, such as Gmail, Microsoft and Yahoo). Your sending reputation can also dictate if your emails land in secondary folders such as promotions or sales.
If an ESP chooses to block you, your Customers may never receive any emails from your Dotdigital account in the future.
This is why it’s advisable to take steps to increase your sending volume slowly before sending out a large number of emails.
Take a look at Dotdigital Email Deliverability for more information.
Ramping up an existing Dotdigital account
If your Dotdigital account is not new, you should also gradually build up your sending whenever a spike in your sending volume is planned. We refer to this as ramping up.
For example, if you usually only email 25% of your total mailing list size and you plan to send a one-off announcement to your full mailing list.
Large spikes in sending behaviour can have your account flagged as untrustworthy, and therefore decrease the number of emails which are delivered.
To ramp up your Dotdigital account, follow the steps in the Ramping up a Dotdigital account heading of this article.
How to warm up a Dotdigital account
To ‘warm up’ an email domain, you must steadily increase the volume of emails you send. This helps to gradually establish a positive reputation with ESPs, so that your domain is acknowledged as legitimate.
The first step is to check how many Customers you have permission to email. Then, follow the warm-up plan based on this number of Customers.
WARNING: Your warm up plan should be unique to your organisation as every organisation’s needs are different. The guidance provided in this article is generalised to meet the needs of what we would recommend as a minimum plan, that would work for most organisations.
Before starting, you will need:
- A Dotdigital account
- One or more Contact Preferences, set up in Spektrix and linked to Dotdigital.
You will then need to carry out these steps:
- Measure the size of your database
- Create the Email Campaigns you will use in your warm up plan
- Send the emails out in accordance with your warm up plan
How to measure the size of your database
Create a new Customer List to count the number of customers you have permission to email.
Name the Customer List something that will indicate it is for use in your warm up plan.
Add a Pre-filter of:
- “Yes to Email”
AND
- “Has email address”
Click Update count. This will give you the number of Customers that you have permission to email. Make a note of this number as you will need it to work out how many Customers to email in your warm up plan.
Create your Email Campaign
Next, you’ll need to create the Email Campaigns that you will send as part of your warm up plan.
It’s important that this email engages your audience and encourages them to click a link within the email. The more Customers interact with your emails by clicking links, the more this will improve your email domain reputation. In turn, this will also improve the likelihood of your emails being delivered in the future.
This email campaign will need to:
- Include a link with a clear call to action. Make sure the link is something that your audiences are likely to click on. For example, you could include a link to an exciting announcement or a special Offer. This link should be more than a social link or generic footer link.
- Use your organisation’s branding (logo, colours) and be recognisable to your audience.
- Use a reply address that is recognisably associated with your organisation.
- Use a friendly from name that is recognisable as your organisation.
- The email must contain an unsubscribe link. For users in the US and Canada, you will need to include the $SENDERADDRESS$ field in both your HTML and Plain Text versions of your email.
- Be relevant to your Customers. Review your previous email campaigns and look at what has worked well for your audience in the past. For example, emails containing information such as announcements and Offers can be popular. Using Personalisation and Dynamic Content can also increase engagement.
TIP: If you’re new to setting up or designing a Dotdigital Email Campaign, follow the steps in the Setting Up and Designing an Email Campaign articles.
Create copies of the Email Campaign
Once you have completed the set up of your Email Campaign, you will need to create four copies.
-
- In Dotdigital, navigate to Campaigns > Email
- Check the box next to the Email Campaign you want to copy
- From the MORE ACTIONS dropdown menu, choose Copy campaign
- Give each Email Campaign a clear and descriptive name. For example, “Warm up email 1”, “Warm up email 2”, etc.
Executing your warm up plan
Your warm up plan will span three or more days. Ideally, these days should be consecutive, but you can send the warm up emails on alternate days if needed. Try to avoid leaving a gap of a large number of days between email sends.
Day 1
Return to the Customer List you created to measure your database. Take the total number of Customers on this list and divide it by 15.
For example: 25,000/15 = 1666 Customers.
This will be the target number for your first email.
- Using the Customer List you created to measure your database, go to the Main filter.
TIP: You will need to keep all of the pre-filter conditions you set when measuring the size of your database.
- Create a new Local Segment which looks for Customers who are likely to open your email. For example, you might want to include a Booking Segment looking for anyone who attended an Event this year.
TIP: If you already have data on your system, you can target Customers who are more likely to engage. For example, Customers who have recently clicked a link in another email, have Donated or are Members.
- Add or remove as many Segments as you need until your Customer List is the target number for your first email (the total number of Customers on your database, divided by 15).
TIP: Creating a Customer List that is around your target number will require some trial and error. Regularly click the Update count button to check the size of your Customer List.
You’ll then need to create a new Integrated Email Campaign to send to this Customer List.
- Give your Email Campaign a memorable and descriptive name which indicates that it is the first email in your warm up plan.
- Choose your Customer List and Email Campaign, then click Send. During the warm up period it’s best to choose to send the Email Campaign immediately and not to schedule it to send later.
Day 2
- Check the Dotdigital Campaign Report
For information on how to evaluate the Report, take a look at the How to Evaluate the Dotdigital Campaign Report heading below.
- If there are no concerns raised in the Report, return to your Customer List.
- Move on to the Main filter.
TIP: You will need to keep all of the pre-filter conditions you set when measuring the size of your database.
- Add a Mailing Segment which includes all Customers who received the first Email Campaign.
- Check the NOT box so that the filter removes the Customers who received the first Email Campaign.
- Using the AND rule, add or remove as many Segments as you need until your Customer List is around double the size of your first email.
TIP: Creating a Customer List that is around your target number will require some trial and error. Regularly click the Update count to check the size of your Customer List.
- Set up another Integrated Email Campaign with the name “Warm up email 2”
- Choose your Customer List and Email Campaign, then click Send.
Day 3
- Check the Dotdigital Campaign Report
For information on how to evaluate the Report, take a look at the How to Evaluate the Dotdigital Campaign Report heading below.
- If there are no concerns raised in the Report, return to your Customer List.
- Move on to the Main filter.
TIP: You will need to keep all of the pre-filter conditions you set when measuring the size of your database.
- Add a Mailing Segment which includes all Customers who received the first and second Email Campaigns. Check the NOT box so that the filter removes the customers who received the first and second Email Campaigns.
- If your database is less than 35,000, use the AND rule to add or remove as many Segments as you need until your Customer List increases to the number of Customers remaining on your database.
- If your database is more than 35,000 use the AND rule to add or remove as many Segments as you need until your Customer List is around double the size of your second email.
TIP: Creating a Customer List that is around your target number will require some trial and error. Regularly click the Update count to check the size of your Customer List.
- Set up another Integrated Email Campaign with the name “Warm up email 3”.
- Choose your Customer List and Email Campaign, then click Send.
Day 4
REMINDER: If the total number of Customers you have permission to email is less than 35,000, you do not need to complete Day 4.
- Check the Dotdigital Campaign Report
For information on how to evaluate the Report, take a look at the How to Evaluate the Dotdigital Campaign Report heading below.
- If there are no concerns raised in the Report, return to your Customer List.
- Move on to the Main filter.
TIP: You will need to keep the pre-filter conditions you set when measuring the size of your database.
- Add a Mailing Segment which includes all customers who received the first, second and third Email Campaigns. Check the NOT box so that the filter removes the customers who received the first, second and third Email Campaigns.
- If your database is less than 100,000, use the AND rule to add or remove as many Segments as you need until your Customer List increases to the number of Customers remaining on your database.
- If your database is more than 100,000 use the AND rule to add or remove as many Segments as you need until your Customer List is around double the size of your third email. Then, repeat the Day 4 steps again, increasing the number of Customers by doubling the number of Customers you sent the last email to.
TIP: Regularly click the Update count to check the size of your Customer List.
- Set up another Integrated Email Campaign with the name “Warm up email 4”.
- Choose your Customer List and Email Campaign, then click Send.
Ramping up
You should ramp up your Dotdigital account whenever a spike in your sending volume is planned.
For example, if you usually only email 25% of your total mailing list size and you plan to send a singular large email to your full mailing list.
Ramping up is also recommended if you plan to increase your sending volume and sustain it.
Depending on if you plan to send a singular large email or a sustained increase in sending volume, there are different steps to take to protect your sending reputation.
Singular large email
If you are planning a one-off spike in your sending volume to send a specific Email Campaign, then you should send this email out in batches.
For example, if the total number of Customers you have permission to email is 100,000 Customers, send the email out to 25,000 Customers per day for four days.
To do this you will need to create four copies of your Email Campaign. Each time you send a batch you will need to exclude Customers who have already received any previous emails.
Sustained increase
If you are planning a sustained increase in your sending volume, then follow the warming up plan outlined for new Dotdigital accounts.
TIP: You do not need to send the same Email Campaign out on each day of the warm up plan. You can use different Email Campaigns as long as you exclude the previous Customers and gradually increase the number of Customers each day.
How to Evaluate the Dotdigital Campaign Report
During the warm up plan it’s important to monitor each Email Campaign you send out.
To do this you’ll need to use the Dotdigital Campaign Report.
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In Dotdigital go to Analytics > Reports. In the top right corner, click on display and add % hard bounces, % soft bounces, % unsubscribes to the list of fields.
You can then click into an individual campaign to see its Campaign Report and find the ISP complaint %.
After 24 hours of sending each Mailing, check the following metrics.
- Is the Unsubscribe rate above 1%
- Is the combined bounce rate above 3%
- Is the ISP Complaint rate above 0.2%
If your rates exceed these figures, contact our Support Team who can help analyse your sending data and work on a revised warm up plan.
WARNING: Repeatedly sending emails that are over the above rates may lower your reputation and may stop subsequent emails from being sent to Customers.
Monitoring replies
You should also monitor any replies you receive to emails sent during the warm up plan.
Replies will be sent to the Forwarding Address you set in the Campaign Details of your Email Campaign. If you do not provide a Forwarding Address, replies can be found on the More Reports option on the Campaign Report.
Protecting your sending reputation
Protecting your sending reputation is important for you to be able to reach all of your customers. After warming up, it’s important to maintain your reputation.
- Always respect Customer’s Contact Preferences
- Let Customers manage their own Contact Preferences
- Use double opt-in
- Segment your Email Campaigns so that you are only sending relevant information
- Avoid practices which can be misconstrued as spam
Dotdigital also uses a tool called the Data Watchdog which monitors the emails you send and will stop you from sending an email that might harm your reputation.
If one of your emails is stopped, you will receive an email notification from our Support Team who will prompt you to make edits to your Email Campaign and Customer List.
Further Reading
For more information about Dotdigital, take a look at the Communicate with your Customers section of the Support Centre.
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