What is the process and difficulty of switching from a shared IP to a dedicated IP address?
Summary
What email marketers say13Marketer opinions
Marketer from Email Geeks asks if you send a decent volume, because if your volume’s too low, it’s a challenge to warm up or even be noticed by the mailbox providers.
Email marketer from Mailjet explains that factors such as list hygiene, engagement, and authentication directly impact how smoothly an IP warmup progresses. High bounce rates or low engagement can slow down the process.
Email marketer from MailerCheck shares that cleaning your email list before starting the IP warmup is crucial. Removing inactive or invalid email addresses reduces bounce rates and improves engagement metrics.
Email marketer from Email on Acid explains that start by sending to your most engaged segments. This demonstrates positive sender behavior to ISPs and mailbox providers, helping build a good reputation faster.
Email marketer from Email Marketing Forum shares that typically, the warmup process involves gradually increasing the volume of emails sent over a period of weeks or months, starting with a small number of emails and gradually increasing the volume each day.
Email marketer from SendGrid Blog shares that moving to a dedicated IP involves warming up the IP address gradually, monitoring sending reputation, and ensuring proper authentication is in place. It requires careful planning.
Email marketer from StackOverflow answers that if you have low sending volume (less than a few thousand emails per week), a dedicated IP may not be worth the effort due to the difficulty of establishing a good reputation. Shared IPs are usually better in this case.
Email marketer from GlockApps shares that maintain a low bounce rate (ideally below 2%). High bounce rates during the IP warmup phase can significantly damage your sending reputation and lead to deliverability issues.
Marketer from Email Geeks explains that the difficulty is directly proportional to your data quality and sending practices. You’ll need to warm up the new IP, and if your ESP can manage the transition/warmup programmatically, it takes out a lot of manual effort.
Marketer from Email Geeks shares that it took about one month to see decent results, and was completely worth it as long as your data is clean.
Email marketer from Reddit shares that the benefit of dedicated IP is full control over reputation, but this also means full responsibility. If you mess up sending practices, there's no shared reputation to cushion the blow.
Email marketer from Litmus shares that proper email authentication (SPF, DKIM, DMARC) is more critical than ever when switching to a dedicated IP. Incorrect authentication can severely impact deliverability.
Email marketer from Postmark explains that closely monitor your deliverability rates during the IP warmup. Look for any signs of emails going to spam folders or being blocked. Adjust your sending practices if needed.
What the experts say2Expert opinions
Expert from Word to the Wise explains that IP warmup is crucial when transitioning to a dedicated IP. Starting with low volumes and gradually increasing sending helps establish a positive sending reputation with ISPs and prevents being flagged as a spammer.
Expert from Spam Resource explains that factors like list quality, engagement, and sending frequency play a critical role in establishing and maintaining a good IP reputation during and after the transition to a dedicated IP. Poor practices can lead to deliverability issues.
What the documentation says4Technical articles
Documentation from Microsoft explains that using SNDS to monitor your IP's health is essential when using dedicated IPs. This provides insight into spam complaints and other issues affecting deliverability to Outlook/Hotmail users.
Documentation from RFC explains that SPF is a critical email authentication method that allows domain owners to specify which mail servers are authorized to send email on behalf of their domain. This helps prevent spoofing and improves deliverability.
Documentation from Google explains that monitoring your IP reputation through Google Postmaster Tools is crucial during and after the IP warmup. This allows you to identify and address any deliverability issues quickly.
Documentation from SparkPost explains the importance of IP warming, stating that abruptly sending large volumes of email from a new IP can damage your sender reputation. Gradual increases are key.