What are best practices for warming up new IPs for transactional emails?
Summary
What email marketers say12Marketer opinions
Email marketer from Email on Acid recommends monitoring bounce rates and complaint rates closely during the warm-up process. High bounce or complaint rates indicate deliverability issues that need to be addressed immediately.
Marketer from Email Geeks suggests that using multiple IPs for the same sender can appear as obvious spam. Even if the mailings are legitimate, many sending IPs for the same content can raise suspicion.
Email marketer from Mailjet explains that warming up IPs involves establishing a positive sender reputation. Start with low volumes to engaged users, gradually increasing volume while monitoring deliverability metrics like bounces, spam complaints, and engagement.
Marketer from Email Geeks advises that a 0.5% spam threshold is too high, especially for transactional emails. Aim to keep it below 0.2%, as Gmail recommends staying below 0.3%.
Marketer from Email Geeks advises keeping IP warming slow and low, typically in the 2-10 range. Hitting the teens without prior history can trigger issues. Warming up 60 IPs all at once is likely a trigger.
Email marketer from Reddit explains that a good strategy involves segmenting your email list and gradually introducing the new IP to smaller, highly engaged segments first, increasing the volume slowly over a period of weeks.
Email marketer from StackOverflow shares that focusing on sending transactional emails during the initial warming period can be beneficial because these emails are typically highly anticipated and less likely to be marked as spam.
Email marketer from Gmass suggests a slow and steady approach is best for IP warming. Starting too fast can damage your reputation and lead to deliverability problems.
Email marketer from HubSpot shares that new senders should particularly focus on IP warming. They suggest starting with low volumes and gradually increasing sending, focusing on engagement and sender reputation to avoid deliverability issues.
Email marketer from SendGrid shares that IP warming means gradually increasing the volume and frequency of emails sent from a new IP address. This helps ISPs learn that your email is legitimate and not spam.
Email marketer from Email Marketing Forum explains that a gradual warmup schedule (e.g., starting with 500 emails on day 1, doubling every day, or every other day, over two weeks) helps build trust with ISPs without overwhelming their systems.
Email marketer from Litmus emphasizes consistent sending habits. They suggest scheduling your emails and sticking to that schedule to establish a sending pattern that ISPs can recognize as legitimate.
What the experts say4Expert opinions
Expert from Spam Resource recommends closely monitoring your sending reputation during the IP warming process. This involves checking blocklists, bounce rates, complaint rates, and engagement metrics to ensure your IP is building a positive reputation with ISPs.
Expert from Email Geeks explains that warming up 60 IPs at once is not advisable. If you don't have many customers, using too many IPs can make you look like a snowshoer. You can send 1,000,000+ emails per day per IP, so warming up only 2 IPs might be sufficient. Give new large customers their own dedicated IP and let them warm it up.
Expert from Email Geeks explains that one complaint within the first 20 messages results in a 4% spam rate, which may be an acceptable threshold for initial sendings. However, this is only valid if sending to ISPs that provide Feedback Loops (FBLs). Complaints alone shouldn't be the sole metric.
Expert from Word to the Wise answers to warm up ips gradually, by sending the right mail to the right users.
What the documentation says4Technical articles
Documentation from SparkPost details that IP warming allows you to build a sending reputation with ISPs. They advise starting with your best traffic—emails to engaged subscribers—and gradually increasing volume based on positive engagement. They also recommend tracking metrics like bounces and spam complaints.
Documentation from Amazon Web Services emphasizes sending small volumes of emails to recipients who actively want to receive your messages. They suggest monitoring your sending limits and slowly increasing the volume of emails you send over time.
Documentation from Microsoft underscores that maintaining a good sender reputation is critical for deliverability. They advise authenticating your sending domain, monitoring feedback loops, and adhering to best sending practices to avoid being flagged as spam.
Documentation from Google Postmaster Tools highlights the importance of a good IP reputation. To establish a positive reputation, ensure your emails are authenticated (SPF, DKIM, DMARC) and that you are sending wanted mail to engaged users.