Implementing a warm-up strategy for Sitecore Send

Warm-up summary

Warming a new IP address instead of starting out sending at full volume lets you build up a good sender reputation. Email/Internet Services Providers (ESPs/ISPs) view email messages from your domain and from a new IP address as suspicious until they can determine a positive sending reputation. It takes several weeks to achieve maximum deliverability (depending on targeted volume and engagement). Warming might take longer if your email campaigns appear to be targeted at recipients who have not given their consent.

Dedicated IP address

For high volume senders, a dedicated IP address allows you to have full control of email campaigns sent from your own IP, and optimize your IP reputation to help ensure your email messages are delivered.

New domain name

If you use a new domain name for your email marketing campaigns, you must make sure that:

• Your recipients recognize you.
• All recipients on the list have provided their consent to receive messages from your domain names.
• Email authentication is set up: the Sender Policy Framework (SPF), DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM), and Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting and Conformance (DMARC) help protect email senders and recipients from spam, spoofing, and phishing. Sitecore Send lets you set up SPF and DKIM and verify DMARC on your sender accounts. I order to set up SPF and DKIM, you must share a public key in your domain’s DNS records.
• Split the traffic for each mail client: because ISPs do not accept receiving many email messages from a new domain name or IP from day one, you must implement a gradual warm-up to help your reputation to grow steadily as you increase volume. In order to decide whether to increase your sending volume or not, look carefully at:
  • Rejected messages
  • Delays
  • Reasons for email messages bouncing

Recommended warm-up plan

A good warm-up plan helps you ensure that both your domain name and the IP build a healthy relationship with the email providers, build trust among your subscribers, and increases your chances of successful delivery. At first, you can send only a small number of email messages, but you can increase volume gradually if you detect no deliverability or engagement issues.

The following table displays the daily volumes to consider when planning your warm-up. You must manually implement the warm-up plan.