I Dedicate This IP Address To You, Warmly Your ESP

If you watch baseball, you know Baseball players’ warm-up prior to their game, in fact most athletes do warm-up exercises to get into the swing of things, to limber up and to ready themselves before the big event.

Google defines the warm-up as:

One that prepare for physical exertion or a performance by exercising or practicing gently beforehand.  “The band was warming up”

Synonyms; limber up, loosen up, stretch, work-out, exercise, prepare, and rehearse:  “I run in place a bit to warm up.”

Can you Warm UP an IP Address?

Just like the athlete who warms up before the big event, you can warm up a dedicated IP address by progressively increasing the sending volume of email over time.  Notice the Google definition indicates warm-ups are a gentle exercise to prepare oneself for the run, the game or the contest to get the best results: analogues is the email marketer on a new dedicated IP who wants to gently prepare it before sending volumes or emails that may damage their reputation.

The process of warming up and IP address, helps establish your legitimacy among ISP’s as a reputable email sender.  Most, if not all ISP’s do not readily trust a new ‘kid on the block”, in this case a new IP address, sending huge volumes of email.  Their first thought: SPAMMER.

The better way to send on a new dedicated IP address: work your way up the volume ladder, start out by sending a low, reasonable amount of email, perhaps to 10,000 members, on a schedule, until you can send to your complete list of, for example 750,000, successfully while maintaining a good email reputation.

Does low volume sending always work in your favor, well, no.  Other factors always come into play such as sender’s reputation to the rules of email you’re following: Best Practices.  Low to high sending is not necessary if:

• Your subscriber base is generally 10,000 members or less
• You are on a shared IP address

Before you start to warm up your IP address make sure:

• Your SPF record has been correctly confirmed
• Plan: do not start with your oldest unresponsive list.  You want your best and most dynamic subscribers that bring you high delivery rates
• Verify the domain name associated with your IP address using forward and reverse DNS lookup
• Always have an existing website linked to your sender information
• Have feedback loops in place
• Set-up an easy to use unsubscribe link
• Plan to send messages both formatted for html and text

And there is so much more to consider, such as using the best email practices, not hiding where your email is from to email rending and spam filter content.

In conclusion if you’re running on a dedicated IP address, take the time to maintain it by monitoring your sending reputation.  The better the reputation the higher the deliverability rate the happier you will be.