Importance of IP Warmup

There are several factors that one needs to take into account so that they can capture the attention of their customers as well as attract new ones. While email marketing is a simple process, it is the building of effecting email campaigns that make the process quite difficult. IP warming is an area that can take your email marketing to the next level by enhancing the deliverability, but it is one area that proves quite problematic for many companies.

What is IP Warming?

If you have been subscribed to receive emails from several companies, you will realize that there are those that end up in the junk or spam folder and there are others that come straight to your inbox. The main reason why this happens is because of the strength of IP addresses behind the emails. IP addresses have reputations, or rather they are ranked by ISPs depending on their trustworthiness.

Hence, most companies end up sending emails even before their IPs have gained a good reputation. This means that all that mail always ends up in the junk folder of the customers which greatly reduces the promotion capability of your email. To ensure that your email marketing promotion is successful, one has to be patient as they create a good reputation for their IPs.

IP warming is not necessarily conducted on new IP addresses but also IP addresses that have not been used to send any messages for the previous weeks.  While IP warming may improve your sending reputation, it is not perfect unless you ensure to apply the best practices in email marketing such as flexibility and appealing customization. Such practices are easy to follow once you are accustomed to utilizing the benefits associated with email marketing.

The Requirement of IP Warming and why IP Warming is Important

In order to begin IP warming, you first need to have your own dedicated IP address. If you are relying on marketing services that send your emails like Amazon SES, MailChimp, Sendgrid, Mailgun, Mumara Campaigns Go etc, you may not need IP warming, but yes it applies in some cases. If you are sending less than 10,000 emails each month, then IP warming should not concern you.

Once you have your IP address, there will be two types of IP warming available to you. One is where you have a new IP address, and the other is where you want to renew an old IP. This process is important because not only does it allow you to send a large number of emails, it also increases the probability that your emails are read. Failure to do so will result in multiple of your mail being dumped in the Junk folder.

Eventually, ISP may even block you from sending any more emails if you stick with your poor reputation. To ensure that you do not get to this point knowledge of effective marketing will come in handy beginning with IP warming.

How to Begin IP Warming

Setting up a subdomain should be the first step simply because with each subdomain you create you get a separate reputation of sending mail. This is useful when dealing with a large amount of mail. Strategizing on a plan to send emails is advisable as this is what will build you a good sending reputation. Rather than just sending out emails to your whole email list, just send them out in chunks.

A sending plan should not worry you as there exist template and instructions on how to ensure your sending reputation is intact. The last step should be the management of the email campaign where you assess the deliverability of the emails. This is a critical step as it allows you to get rid of inactive subscribers that may be responsible for your low rankings.

IP wrapping can also be done manually or automatically. IP warming offers you a unique opportunity to engage with your customers and will educate you more about their needs. This warm-up period may seem like a lost opportunity to beginners of email marketing but actually offers you the chance to rectify problems that may occur during this stage.

Black Hat Technique That I Never Appreciates

There is another short cut of quick warmup by disguising recipients servers by making two way communication forcibly.

Thinking how…?

Make a short list of your own seeds or the people who have previously replied to your emails or showed some activity e.g clicked on the links inside your emails you have sent them in past. Once you know that these people are not problematic and they will most probably reply to your email, just send them a slow motion broadcast asking them a short question with short subjects and content in rotation. Yes, I asked to rotate the content and subject lines so you’ll not be tracked as sending spam.

The question could be…

Hey Joe, I’ll be late at gym tomorrow. Let me know if you want to reschedule!

Sent from my iPhone

Now the messages similar to the above message will make the recipient think that this message was mistakenly sent to him due to a typo in email address and he’ll most likely be replying to your email notifying you that he isn’t the right guy or something.

So the game starts and continues, that keeps proving the two-way communication and rapid fire your IPs reputation.

Conclusion

IP warming creates a foundation upon which a company or an individual can adequately use email marketing to promote their products. At first, the process of IP marketing may appear to be complicated especially if you are new to email marketing. However, once you start to learn the process by which you can improve your sending reputation, it becomes very easy.

Ignoring IP warming is sure to ensure that the brand that you are trying to implement fails. The best thing about IP warming is that it takes less amount of time. If you compare the success of a company using IP warming and one that just sends emails without a plan, the difference will be clear to see.