Email marketing still remains one of the effective channels through which businesses can communicate with potential clients, nurture leads, and continue to have good relationships with current customers. However, with respect to email marketing, one of its biggest challenges is getting emails into the recipient's inbox rather than to their spam or promotions folder. And this is all possible through email warmup. In simple words, email warmup is the gradual process of setting up good reputation for your new email address or domain, with internet service providers.
In this article, you will learn the importance of email warmup, how it works, and why it’s essential for successful email marketing campaigns.
What is Email Warmup?
Generally, any new e-mail address, especially one for commercial purposes, is a clean slate without having any history of sending out e-mails. Email service providers like Gmail, Outlook, etc., are sensitive to the new e-mail addresses or domains sending a large number of e-mails immediately since it is one of the favorite tactics of spammers. If thousands of emails begin coming from an email address overnight, most ESPs will likely flag that as suspicious, and that email will no longer be delivered.
Email warmup is when a new account has emails slowly sent out from it. That helps warm a mailbox and maintain a good sending reputation. With time, if an email address continues sending emails which the recipients interact with by opening, clicking on a link or replying, then ESPs start to feel confident with the sender. Confidences lead to better delivery and ensure that a following email will likely reach the inbox.
Why Email Warm Up?
- Avoid Spam Issue
The biggest risk of sending emails from a new address is that it ends up in the spam folder. If your email campaigns get labeled as spam, it can really become an obstacle to your overall marketing campaign. It reduces this risk by helping to gradually build your reputation with other parties as a trusted sender.
- Boosts Email Deliverability
The goal of an effective email marketing plan is to put the email in the recipient's mailbox and not in the spam folder. A low delivery rate correlates with lost hours and resources. Warmup makes the recipient associate your emails with good reputation, meaning that your emails are not spam but seen.
- Do not land on an email blacklist.
There is also the risk that ESPs and ISPs flag lots of emails sent out from a new account without proper warmup. In the worst cases, it can even land your domain or IP address on an email blacklist. Being on such a list prevents your emails from getting to the intended recipient altogether. Warmup thus reduces this risk by making sure you build an email provider's healthy reputation gradually.
- Better Engagement
Warm up processes involve sending small numbers of email to engaged users who are likely to open, read, and engage with your emails. This good engagement further builds your sender reputation and may likely lead to better inbox placement and general campaign success.
- Long-Term Benefit
Once you email warm up, the benefits are gigantic in the long term. Your emails reach the inbox very consistently, and their engagement metrics tend to be open rates, click-through rates, and even conversions.
How Does Email Warmup Work?
Typically, a typical process of warming up an email account includes the following:
- Start Small
Start by sending a small quantity of emails to those who have a better chance of opening and clicking- that are existing contacts or highly engaged leads. This is because this way, you will get a positive interaction history.
- Gradually Ramp-up
Gradually increase the email number. For instance, if you have sent 20 emails per day in the first week, send 50 in the second week, and so on. The gradual increase prevents ESPs from flagging your account as suspicious.
- Engagement End
During warm-up, focus on targeting those recipients who are more likely to engage with your emails. Your content needs to be valuable, which gets them opened, clicked on, and replied to.
- Monitor Performance
Monitor deliverability metrics during warmup. Look for complaints and bounced rates and compare open rates to ensure everything is okay.
How Tools like Warmbox Can Help
E-mail warming can be very long, especially if done manually. Luckily, there are automated tools like Warmbox that take care of the whole process while ensuring your email address builds a good reputation efficiently and without hassle.
Warmbox is an email warming service that would help warm-up by automatically sending you through a network of real accounts that relate to the emails you'll have sent. This goes a long way in simulating real engagements so that your email address builds credibility more quickly. To learn how Warmbox works and its benefits, here's this detailed Warmbox review.
Conclusion
In the digital world of today, email marketing is still one of the leading marketing strategies for most businesses. Though an improperly warmed-up email address might spell disaster for your business with these emails ending up in spam folders or even blacklisted, if enough time is devoted to properly warming up your email address, you will increase your deliverability rates, improve your sender reputation, and consequently work your way to the long-term success of email marketing. Tools like Warmbox can make this process extremely efficient, helping to get you the most out of every campaign.
