How does sending internal system notifications affect transactional email deliverability when using the same ESP?

Summary

Sending internal system notifications using the same ESP as transactional emails presents deliverability challenges. While not inherently catastrophic, the impact hinges on several factors. Mailbox providers assessing mail streams differently, proper email authentication (SPF, DKIM, DMARC), and maintaining impeccable list hygiene are critical. Internal notifications generating high spam rates, bounce rates, or SMTP errors can negatively impact sender reputation and domain/IP reputation, affecting transactional email deliverability. Segregating mail streams using dedicated IPs and different DKIMs, warming up IPs, and continuously monitoring IP/domain reputation are vital. Optimizing SMTP configurations is also beneficial.

Key findings

  • Mail Stream Recognition: Whether Google and other ISPs recognize internal and external streams as different affects deliverability; using DKIM can help.
  • Sender Reputation: Sending internal system notifications affects sender reputation, impacting transactional email deliverability.
  • IP Reputation: Low engagement with certain mail streams or poor sending practices from one mail stream can negatively affect IP and domain reputation of other streams.
  • List Hygiene: Poor list hygiene leads to high bounce rates and spam complaints, harming sender reputation.
  • Authentication: Improper authentication leads to emails being flagged as spam, impacting sender reputation.
  • SMTP errors: SMTP errors from invalid recipients can negatively impact sender reputation

Key considerations

  • Dedicated IPs: Using dedicated IP addresses to separate mail streams is a viable strategy for isolating reputation and deliverability issues.
  • Segmentation: Segment internal and external email sending to boost deliverability.
  • Email Authentication: Ensuring proper email authentication (SPF, DKIM, DMARC) for all email streams is essential for establishing trust.
  • List Management: Maintaining impeccable email lists by removing unengaged or bounced emails is crucial for high deliverability.
  • IP Warm-up: When launching new IPs, warming them up gradually is crucial to establishing a positive sending reputation.
  • Reputation Monitoring: Regularly monitoring IP and domain reputation through tools like Google Postmaster Tools and Microsoft SNDS is essential for identifying and addressing potential issues.
  • SMTP Configuration: Ensure you have the correct SMTP configuration to ensure emails send smoothly

What email marketers say
9Marketer opinions

Sending internal system notifications using the same ESP as transactional emails can negatively impact deliverability. Factors such as shared IP reputation, list hygiene, authentication, engagement, and sender reputation are all affected. High bounce rates, spam complaints, and unauthenticated emails from internal notifications can damage the sender's reputation and subsequently harm the deliverability of transactional emails. Proper email authentication (SPF, DKIM, DMARC), maintaining clean email lists, segmenting mail streams, using dedicated IPs, warming up IPs, and monitoring IP reputation are key to mitigating these risks. Correctly configuring SMTP connections can also improve deliverability.

Key opinions

  • IP Reputation: Sending different types of emails from the same IP can negatively impact IP reputation, especially if marketing emails have low engagement or internal emails generate spam complaints.
  • List Hygiene: Poor list hygiene for internal notifications, such as sending to old or invalid addresses, can lead to high bounce rates, signaling poor sending practices.
  • Authentication: Improperly authenticated internal notifications can be flagged as spam, negatively impacting the overall sending reputation.
  • Sender Reputation: Sending internal system notifications affects sender reputation, which is key to good deliverability.
  • Engagement: Low engagement with certain mail streams can negatively affect sender reputation of other streams.

Key considerations

  • Dedicated IPs: Consider using dedicated IP addresses to separate mail streams and isolate issues.
  • Segmentation: Segment internal and external email sending to increase deliverability.
  • Authentication: Ensure proper email authentication (SPF, DKIM, DMARC) for all email streams.
  • List Management: Maintain clean email lists by removing unengaged or bounced emails.
  • Warm-up IPs: When using new IPs, ensure they are warmed up slowly.
  • Monitor Reputation: Consistently monitor IP and domain reputation through tools like Google Postmaster Tools and Microsoft SNDS.
  • SMTP Configuration: Configure the system to have an adequate number of SMTP connections to prevent delays and avoid impacting deliverability negatively.
Marketer view

Email marketer from Reddit explains that poor list hygiene for internal notifications (sending to old or invalid addresses) can lead to high bounce rates. High bounce rates signal poor sending practices and can hurt your overall deliverability.

July 2024 - Reddit
Marketer view

Email marketer from Litmus Blog explains that proper email authentication (SPF, DKIM, DMARC) is crucial for establishing trust with mailbox providers. If internal notifications are not properly authenticated, they can be flagged as spam and impact your overall sending reputation.

April 2022 - Litmus Blog
Marketer view

Email marketer from EmailGeeks Forum explains that if you're using a shared IP, the sending habits of other users on that IP can affect your deliverability. If internal notifications generate spam complaints, it can hurt the reputation of the shared IP and impact transactional emails.

September 2022 - EmailGeeks Forum
Marketer view

Email marketer from Mailjet Blog explains that sending transactional and marketing emails from the same IP address can affect IP reputation. If marketing emails have low engagement, it can negatively impact the deliverability of transactional emails.

January 2024 - Mailjet Blog
Marketer view

Email marketer from SendGrid Blog shares that using a dedicated IP address is crucial for maintaining a good sender reputation, especially when sending different types of emails. Separating mail streams can help isolate issues and improve overall deliverability.

August 2023 - SendGrid Blog
Marketer view

Email marketer from Stackoverflow says that it is important to remove unengaged or bounced emails from your email lists to keep your deliverability high. Therefore ensure this is done in the internal emails as well as external ones.

September 2023 - Stackoverflow
Marketer view

Email marketer from MailerQ mentions that it is important to configure the system to have a certain amount of SMTP connections to ensure there are not any delays and that you are not negatively impacting your deliverability.

June 2023 - MailerQ
Marketer view

Email marketer from Gmass blog shares that using a dedicated IP can ensure deliverability of each type of email sent, but a shared IP is okay. Sending the right volume, being correctly authenticated, and the reputation of the sender are all key.

March 2022 - Gmass Blog
Marketer view

Email marketer from Hubspot Blog discusses that sender reputation will be affected by sending internal notifications and this will impact deliverability. Some of the core factors affecting sender reputation are IP address reputation, domain reputation, complaint rate and email authentication. Therefore it's important to segment your internal and external email sending to increase deliverability.

January 2025 - Hubspot Blog

What the experts say
4Expert opinions

Sending internal system notifications alongside transactional emails using the same ESP can impact deliverability, though it's not inherently catastrophic. The key is whether mailbox providers recognize the streams as distinct. Poorly managed internal lists and unwanted notifications can generate spam reports, harming sender reputation. Segregation of mail streams is advisable, especially if deliverability issues arise. Warming up a new IP address is essential for establishing a positive reputation when introducing new internal email systems.

Key opinions

  • Mail Stream Recognition: Deliverability impact hinges on whether mailbox providers recognize internal and transactional streams as distinct. DKIM can help differentiate.
  • List Management Impact: Poorly managed internal lists can cause increased spam reports and degrade sender reputation, affecting transactional email deliverability.
  • IP Warm-up: New IP addresses require a warm-up period to establish a positive reputation when sending internal emails.

Key considerations

  • Segregation: Consider segregating internal and transactional mail streams, particularly if internal notifications are frequently unwanted or if deliverability issues are observed.
  • List Hygiene: Implement rigorous list management practices for internal notifications to minimize spam complaints.
  • IP Warm-up: Follow a gradual IP warm-up process to establish a positive sending reputation before sending high volumes of internal notifications.
  • DKIM Differentiation: Use different DKIM settings for transactional and internal streams to signpost the different types of emails.
Expert view

Expert from Spamresource explains that a poorly managed list is a huge cause of spam reports. If a business' internal email list is poorly maintained, and emails are sent to addresses that are not expecting them, this can generate high spam complaints which will affect the sender's reputation and impacting transactional emails.

June 2022 - Spamresource
Expert view

Expert from Email Geeks explains that whether the different mail streams affect deliverability depends on if Google recognizes them as different. Different DKIM d= would be one way to explicitly announce they’re different. Also to fix badly handled internal campaigns.

January 2024 - Email Geeks
Expert view

Expert from Word to the Wise explains that to gain a good IP reputation you need to 'warm up' the IP by sending a moderate amount of emails before increasing it. Therefore if you set up a new ESP for your internal emails you need to slowly increase the amount of emails being sent.

December 2023 - Word to the Wise
Expert view

Expert from Email Geeks says that sending both user transactional email and internal system notifications from the same domain and IP is not terribly bad. However, it would be better to have them more segregated, especially if internal notifications are unwanted. Separating the two streams would be something to try if delivery issues are present, otherwise, gradually move towards separating them.

September 2022 - Email Geeks

What the documentation says
4Technical articles

Sending internal system notifications can affect transactional email deliverability through several mechanisms. SMTP errors from invalid recipients can harm sender reputation. High spam rates from irrelevant content or outdated lists in internal notifications negatively impact domain reputation with major providers like Gmail. Monitoring IP reputation via Microsoft SNDS is crucial, as issues with internal notifications can impact reputation with Outlook and Hotmail. Maintaining low bounce rates by promptly removing hard bounces and repeatedly soft-bouncing addresses from both internal and external lists is also critical for preserving sender reputation.

Key findings

  • SMTP Errors: SMTP errors from internal notifications (e.g., invalid recipients) can negatively impact sender reputation.
  • Domain Reputation: High spam rates from internal notifications damage domain reputation, especially with Gmail.
  • IP Reputation: Issues with internal notifications affect IP reputation with Microsoft's Outlook and Hotmail.
  • Bounce Rates: High bounce rates, if not promptly addressed, decrease sender reputation.

Key considerations

  • Error Monitoring: Actively monitor SMTP error codes to identify and resolve issues with internal notifications.
  • Reputation Monitoring: Regularly monitor domain reputation via Google Postmaster Tools.
  • IP Reputation Monitoring: Monitor IP reputation through Microsoft SNDS to understand how Microsoft views your sending practices.
  • List Hygiene: Promptly remove hard bounces and repeatedly soft-bouncing addresses from both internal and external lists to maintain low bounce rates.
  • Content Relevance: Ensure internal notifications contain relevant content and are sent to valid, engaged recipients to minimize spam complaints.
Technical article

Documentation from SparkPost explains that to maintain low bounce rates to keep a good sender reputation it is important to remove addresses that hard bounce immediately. Also it is important to remove emails that have soft bounced multiple times. This is important for internal and external lists.

March 2025 - SparkPost
Technical article

Documentation from Microsoft SNDS shares that monitoring your IP reputation is essential for understanding how Microsoft views your sending practices. Issues with internal notifications can impact your IP's reputation with Outlook and Hotmail.

April 2024 - Microsoft
Technical article

Documentation from RFC 5321 explains that understanding SMTP error codes is essential for diagnosing deliverability problems. When internal system notifications generate errors (e.g., invalid recipients), these errors can impact the sender's reputation and subsequent email delivery.

August 2022 - RFC 5321
Technical article

Documentation from Google Postmaster Tools shares that monitoring your domain's reputation is crucial for understanding deliverability. High spam rates from internal notifications (due to irrelevant content or outdated lists) can negatively impact your domain's reputation with Gmail.

September 2023 - Google