The satisfactory way to ensure that your email approach brings the best results for your business is to gain credibility with your subscribers. It’s not always an easy task, but that’s exactly what IP warm-up is for. You’re in the right place to get all the answers you need. We’re here to help.
There are three reasons why your IP may need some warming up. Firstly, you’re starting a new business with a new email domain and sending messages to your new customers. Secondly, you’ve recently changed your email provider and need to migrate contact lists without losing deliverability rates. Lastly, you have a trusted list of contacts, and your business is the same, but you haven’t sent them anything for a while, so your internet service provider may become suspicious of your return.
In each case, a regular IP warm-up strategy will help you engage your subscribers, improve your email’s performance, and build credibility with ISPs, the inbox providers we all rely on. When your emails exit, their contents, your from address, your email domain address, and the list of contacts are all carefully analyzed because the system is trying to determine whether or not your message can be useful for the intended audience. The IP warm-up process ensures that with time, more of your communications are perceived as beneficial and important. As such, four events are involved once you begin sending emails from a cold IP: the senders (your from address), your email service provider (the platform you use to deploy your email marketing campaigns, including GetResponse), the recipients’ inbox provider (which will process your email upon sending – Gmail, Hotmail, or Yahoo), and the recipients themselves (who will decide whether or not to interact with your email).
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Their inbox provider lets it through in the first place. When you start sending emails for the first time or after a long break, your default sender status is set on medium based on how your communications are received by your target audience. The inbox provider decides whether you deserve to move up or down the rating scale, and it’s important because your sender reputation directly affects not only if your messages are delivered but also where they end up. A low reputation typically means most of your emails will land in the spam folder with a narrow chance of your subscribers ever finding them.
Of course, some emails may end up in spam folders initially anyway, but by following the very best IP warm-up practices we’re going to provide for you soon, your messages will only land in the desired primary inbox. There are two main elements to a successful warm-up strategy: slow sending volume growth and careful contact segmentation. Be consistent with your sending volume – most inbox providers recommend starting with around 1,000 emails sent on your first day, then gradually increasing the number as you move along your campaign. In most cases, adding 20% of new subscribers every day is a safe way to go.
Here consistency is key – if your warm-up system is doing well, you can’t stop in the middle of it, and you can’t risk rushing it up. When it comes to segmentation, you might have heard that personalization works wonders for conversions, but did you know it’s equally important for deliverability rate? Here we recommend segmenting your contacts based on two distinct criteria enabled simultaneously: most recent interest and inbox providers – those ISPs. When you track your contacts’ activity, it’s easier for you to exclude those who are inactive and tailor more engagement-structured communication for those who engage with your emails the most. Internet service or inbox providers are responsible for tracking email traffic and analyzing subscriber activity stats.
They’re particularly cautious of new senders and large sending volumes. All ISPs handle these processes, but each may focus more on different metrics. For example, one inbox provider will focus more on the open and click rates, while others scrutinize email content more closely. This means that your reputation on Gmail may be higher than on Yahoo.
We’ve included links to the most popular inbox providers’ policies for successful mailings in the description of this video along with other helpful resources to get you started with IP warm-up. Remember, CAS: consistency of your mailing, authenticity of your message, segmentation of your recipients, and your emails will land directly in your subscribers’ primary inbox without delay.
