How to avoid Gmail rate limits when sending essential communications to a large, infrequently mailed audience?
Summary
What email marketers say7Marketer opinions
Email marketer from StackOverflow user u/TechEmail shares that Throttling your email sending rate can help prevent overwhelming recipient mail servers and avoid being rate limited. Especially critical for large sends to infrequent recipients. Start slow and monitor response.
Email marketer from Reddit user u/EmailPro shares that maintaining good email list hygiene by removing inactive subscribers and those who haven't engaged with your emails in a while is essential. This helps improve your sender reputation and reduces the risk of being flagged as a spammer.
Email marketer from Sendinblue shares that segmenting your email list and targeting your audience with relevant content can improve engagement and reduce the likelihood of recipients marking your emails as spam, which impacts deliverability and can lead to rate limits.
Email marketer from Campaign Monitor shares that Creating engaging and relevant content that recipients find valuable can encourage them to open and interact with your emails, which improves your sender reputation and reduces the likelihood of being flagged as spam.
Email marketer from Litmus shares that complying with CAN-SPAM regulations, including providing a clear and conspicuous unsubscribe link and honoring unsubscribe requests promptly, is essential for maintaining a positive sender reputation and avoiding legal penalties.
Email marketer from Gmass shares that frequency capping involves limiting the number of emails sent to each subscriber within a specific timeframe. This can help prevent email fatigue and reduce the likelihood of recipients unsubscribing or marking your emails as spam.
Email marketer from Mailjet shares that it's crucial to warm up your IP address by gradually increasing sending volume over time. This builds a positive reputation with ISPs and helps avoid being flagged as a spammer, especially when sending to a large, infrequent audience.
What the experts say6Expert opinions
Expert from Email Geeks suggests re-evaluating the strategy of gathering email addresses without regular mailing, and if a monthly newsletter doesn't bring value, it might not be worth sending at all. He also notes that many "essential" communications can be delivered through other channels, like website or app interactions.
Expert from Email Geeks shares that some volume variation is acceptable, and that rate limiting is not just about unusual volume but about identifying potentially compromised accounts sending phishing mail. She suggests trying the send, as there's no reputation hit to being rate limited once in a while.
Expert from Spam Resource explains that building and maintaining a positive sender reputation is crucial for avoiding rate limits. This involves consistently sending high-quality, relevant content that recipients want to receive, and ensuring low complaint rates.
Expert from Email Geeks suggests questioning whether email is the right medium for infrequent communication. He advises considering if the audience is worth communicating with regularly, given the risk of stale data and reputation damage.
Expert from Email Geeks explains that sending bulk mail to recipients only rarely tends to trigger rate limiting from Google. He advises stepping back on sending and implementing a warmup-type ramping of volume. He also mentions that volume consistency can help, but negative reactions to unwanted mail will hurt.
Expert from Word to the Wise explains that focusing on engagement metrics is important. High open and click-through rates signal to Gmail that your emails are valuable, which can help you avoid being rate limited, even when sending to a large, infrequently mailed audience. Inactive users should be removed from the list.
What the documentation says4Technical articles
Documentation from Google Postmaster Tools explains that you should use Google Postmaster Tools to monitor your domain and IP reputation. This allows you to identify any issues that may be causing deliverability problems and take corrective action.
Documentation from RFC-Editor explains that implementing email authentication protocols like SPF, DKIM, and DMARC helps verify the sender's identity and improves email deliverability. These protocols help prevent email spoofing and phishing attacks, which can damage your sender reputation.
Documentation from SparkPost explains that properly handling bounce messages (both hard and soft bounces) is essential for maintaining a clean email list and a positive sender reputation. Removing invalid email addresses and addressing the reasons for soft bounces helps prevent future deliverability issues.
Documentation from Google Workspace Admin Help explains that senders should follow Gmail's bulk sending guidelines, which include authenticating email with SPF, DKIM, and DMARC, keeping low spam rates, and making it easy for recipients to unsubscribe.