Should I split email sends to engaged users for better deliverability?
Summary
What email marketers say9Marketer opinions
Email marketer from Email Geeks asks if there are existing deliverability issues that prompted the idea. Later responds to clarification of the original question that it's probably not necessary for the extra effort if there are no existing deliverability issues.
Email marketer from Mailjet explains that segmenting and targeting engaged users can be a great email marketing strategy, but it doesn't directly influence deliverability. Deliverability is more related to your sender reputation, authentication (SPF, DKIM, DMARC), and list hygiene.
Email marketer from ActiveCampaign explains focusing on building a clean, engaged list, using proper authentication, and monitoring deliverability metrics are more critical than splitting sends to engaged users.
Email marketer from Quora answers that focusing on engaged users can give better engagement metrics, it won't solve fundamental deliverability issues. The most critical tactics are list hygiene, consent, and sending emails recipients value.
Email marketer from Litmus answers that prioritizing subscribers' preferences by using segmentation can lead to higher engagement metrics and indirectly improve deliverability, however, it's essential to focus on authentication and sending relevant content.
Email marketer from EmailOctopus shares that while sending to engaged users can boost engagement metrics, it doesn't inherently guarantee better deliverability. Focus on permission-based marketing, relevant content, and consistent sending practices.
Email marketer from Reddit shares that splitting sends only to engaged users isn't an effective long term deliverability strategy, build your sender reputation instead. A better approach would be to improve segmentation, cleaning lists more regularly, and personalizing email content.
Email marketer from StackExchange shares that the most common reason for emails going to spam is because of domain keys, rDNS or SPF. It is very important to have these properly set up.
Email marketer from Gmass shares that to ensure email engagement you need to ensure that you are using personalised and segmented emails. Using data to segment your emails based on engagement ensures that you are more likely to be read in the future.
What the experts say4Expert opinions
Expert from Email Geeks explains with a large enough audience, the email is still deploying after 30 minutes, negating the need to split sends.
Expert from Email Geeks shares that the strategy of sending to engaged users first to improve deliverability often comes from senders with poor permission practices and is unnecessary for senders with good permission practices. The ISP won't know it's a different send if done closely enough.
Expert from Word to the Wise explains that recipient engagement is good, but be sure the engagement is legitimate and not artificially inflated to trick filters. Sending to only engaged users is not a direct fix for underlying deliverability problems. If you have deliverability problems sending to engaged users may help warm up your IP faster but it won't directly fix your issues.
Expert from Spam Resource shares that although spam filters focus more heavily on large senders than small senders this is not because of any filtering rules. Instead small senders are less likely to be noticed or targeted for spam if they are sending less than 10000 emails per day.
What the documentation says6Technical articles
Documentation from SendGrid states that maintaining a good sender reputation by sending valuable content to engaged users is important, but it doesn't directly address splitting sends as a tactic for better deliverability. It's more about consistent and responsible sending behavior.
Documentation from Microsoft explains that maintaining the lists and keeping the bounce rates low is very important. Sending email only to a subset of users is not a recommended deliverability technique.
Documentation from RFC explains that having your rDNS set and PTR record setup will help prove that you are who you say you are and will help to stop being flagged as spam.
Documentation from SparkPost explains that consistently emailing engaged segments can help establish a positive sending reputation, which indirectly improves deliverability over time. They recommend starting with smaller segments of engaged users when warming up a new IP address.
Documentation from AWS shares that there are multiple ways to improve email engagement and it is not just about splitting send, one of the main areas is about ensuring a good user experience and to do that you should always be running spam checks.
Documentation from Google Postmaster Tools emphasizes the importance of authenticating your email with SPF, DKIM, and DMARC to improve deliverability. Also it shares to maintain low spam rates, send wanted mail, and use a consistent sending IP address.