Email warmup that starts every mailbox slowly

Why a new domain cannot send 200 emails on day one

A brand-new domain has no history. If its first day is a few hundred emails to strangers, providers treat it the way they treat every other new domain that does that, and the mail goes to junk. A slow start builds a track record first.

That is why pressing Start never emails every store at once. Your campaign is spread across days and weeks, on a schedule set when it launches.

The ramp, per mailbox

Every mailbox follows the same steps, counted on its own sending days:

• Sending days 1 to 5: 5 emails a day.
• Sending days 6 to 10: 10 a day.
• Sending days 11 to 15: 15 a day.
• Sending days 16 to 20: 20 a day.
• From sending day 21: 30 a day, the ceiling.

What counts as a sending day

A sending day is a day you chose to send on. If you send Monday to Friday, the first step takes a week. If you send only on Tuesdays and Thursdays, it takes about two and a half weeks. Weekends count when you pick them.

You also choose the hours, the time zone and the gap between emails, so each mailbox sends a handful spread through the morning rather than a block at 9 o'clock.

Pick the days your stores actually read email. Café owners often catch up early on a weekday before the rush; a bottle shop owner might read on a quiet Monday. Fewer sending days make the ramp take longer in calendar time, but each step still has the same number of sending days behind it.

The hold before the first email

A new domain sends nothing for 24 hours after its records go live. After that, the domain as a whole is held to the same steps, counted in calendar days from the day it went live, so a new domain cannot skip ahead whatever the schedule says.

Checked on every send

The ceiling of 30 a day per mailbox is checked as each email goes out. It follows the mailbox, not the campaign:

• A second campaign on the same mailbox does not double what it sends.
• A new launch does not send a seasoned mailbox back to 5 a day.
• When a mailbox is full for the day, its remaining emails are held over to a later day. Nothing is dropped or marked as failed.
• Replies you write yourself from the inbox never count, so you can always answer a store.

What it looks like across your mailboxes

With 10 sending mailboxes, the first five sending days are about 50 emails a day across the domain. On a Monday to Friday schedule, by the fifth week it is up to 300 a day. Over the first 20 sending days that is roughly 2,500 emails, which is more than most brands need while they find out which stores answer.

The first emails go to the contacts we are most confident in, spread evenly across the mailboxes. Use the slow weeks well: start with one city and one store type, independents before chains, and read every reply before you widen the search. Our guide to getting your product into stores covers where to start.