New email domain deliverability

[Anonymous]

Hi, i wonder if anyone can share some tips on how to ensure Marketo emails are not being caught as spam and domain is not being black listed when using a brand new domain to send a mass email campaign?

Assuming that all steps covered in this guide Setup Steps - Marketo Docs - Product Documentation  have been completed and email recipients' consent has been obtained what else can be done to ensure email deliverability of a brand new domain? Would it be helpful to send the first few campaigns to a small batch of people and then gradually increase the distribution list? Are there any other suggestions? Please note that the instance is using shared IPs.

Thanks

[Steven_Vanderb3]

There is a pretty comprehensive blog post on what you should do to warm up your new domain Changing your Email Sending Domain or Brand .  You will want to give it a bit of time before sending full volume in order to establish your reputation under your new domain name.

[Anonymous]

Thanks, Stephen. One of the tips in this post is updating a feedback loop with Yahoo. Is this something that can be done through Marketo?

[Kevin_McMahon1]

Hi Olga,

Setting up a new IP properly is extremely important to avoid spam and blacklist traps. I highly recommend you do not send any bulk email for the first few weeks until the IP has been properly warmed.

Days 1-5: Less than 10,000 emails per day. Emails restricted to:

     - Most active subscribers in last 30 days (visited webpage, clicked link in email, had IM, filled out form, program successes, etc)

     - Customer account contacts

     - Active Paid license users

Days 6-10: Less than 25,000-50,000 emails per day. Emails restricted to (in addition to above):

     - Most active subscribers in last 90 days

     - Score greater than 0

Days 11-15: Less than 100,000-200,000 emails per day. Emails restricted to (in addition to above):

     - Most active subscribers in last 270 days

Days 16-20: Less than 300,000 emails per day.

     - Most active subscribers in last 365 days

     - Leads that came from a list purchase are included

Day 21+: normal activity

*Use the email sends/day numbers as a reference. If your database is small, I would recommend sending to smaller audiences.

Now I can't include every detail in here, but following a similar structure should help ensure your IP avoids being marked as spam. First impression is important! Only send to people who you know are real based on activity and are most likely to engage with your content. Slowly work your way to a larger send audience every few days for 3-4 weeks. After 3-4 weeks of warm up, your IP should be properly warmed and you are free to pursue normal activities.

[Dan_Stevens_]

These are all great tips for moving onto a dedicated IP.  But I don't think that's what Olga's doing.  Rather, it's a new domain/sub-domain that they'll be sending from.

[Anonymous]

Hi Kevin,

Our volumes are much lower than that however the intent is to send emails with high frequency which is why we are concerned about potential unsubscribes and spam blocks. Also, as Dan mentioned above our instance is on a shared IP pool, so we need to warm up the domain...

[Dave_Cunningham]

In my experience, the most effective thing you can do to avoid being flagged as spam or blacklisted, when sending emails from Marketo, is to purchase a dedicated IP address (on top of email deliverability best practices, of course). We quickly realized Marketo's general pool of IPs is pretty bad and then that even their "trusted" IPs are as well. We saw a notable increase in delivery rates as soon as we purchased and setup our own IP address. The delivery rates haven remained strong for the ~9 months we've been on the new IP address.

[Dan_Stevens_]

That's good insight, Dave.  We're currently on Marketo's "trusted" IP range - and our deliverability rates are very poor.  Sure, it shows that 9x% of our emails are being delivered, but they're not making into the user's inbox (e.g., they're placed in quarantine and then eventually deleted from the recipient's email server).  More and more companies are simply blocking emails sent from Marketo.  I also subscribe to MX Toolbox for blacklist notifications and noticed IPs within our trusted range are always being blacklisted by various spam filters.

[Dave_Cunningham]

I can relate with all of that, Dan. One other thing that has been helpful is the 250ok product that helps us monitor inbox placement rates, flag any blacklistings, etc. We purchased this in parallel with our new IP roll out and it has been helpful.

[Matjaž_Jaušove2]

Hi Dave, great comment. If possible, can you share what "notable increase in delivery rates" approximately means from your experience?

Thanks;m