What to Expect From This Use Case

Warmup Campaign is developed to efficiently build a strong sender reputation by regulating and gradually increasing the number of emails sent to each internet service provider.

The rationale is to initiate IP warm-up individually, eliminating the need for persistent support. After migrating to our services, you can effortlessly launch the Warmup Campaign and monitor it, thereby avoiding the pitfalls of greylisting or blacklisting. The process enhances the email sender's reputation and adds to the contact and customer base.

Use Case Items

With this use case, you’ll get a:

• 3 variants of an automated warmup email scenario
  • Variant 1 - simple sending with 1 template for warmup
  • Variant 2 - more advanced setup with multiple templates; every warmup day is flagged on the customer profile with separate property (WU_audience_day_1, WU_audience_day_2, .. etc.)
  • Variant 3 - more advanced setup with multiple templates, every day of warmup is flagged on customer profile in a single property (email_sending)
• Customer segmentation based on the email list health
• Detailed report looking at the deliverability data

How to deploy the Use Case

After downloading the use case, follow these steps:

Step 1: Meet the Requirements

Verify if the data in your project meets the requirements. Follow this step-by-step setup guide in case of problems.

Step 2: Understand the Use Case Logic

1. Import the historical engagement data

The campaign uses Email List Health segmentation, which segments subscribers based on their engagement recency. For this to work, historical email engagement data from previous email providers must be imported.

• You can do this either by importing "campaign" events with relevant "status" and "timestamp" attributes or by importing the "last_engagement" property with the most recent timestamp. Both options should work with the pre-built segmentation.

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Information

More information about these events and/or attributes can be found in the tracking document provided to you after the project kick-off.

Find more information about Importing data here.

2. Choose the variant that fits you best

You need to add your email content and design to the email node of the warmup campaign. There are two types (variants) of scenarios here. They both work on the assumption that they will be sent every day to speed up the warmup process:

• Variant 1
  Warmup uses one special email campaign dedicated to the warmup process. You can set up the content initially and then do not need to adjust the scenario. It will pick a different set of subscribers every day. This variant uses a catalog to calculate the correct volumes for specific days and providers. This variant uses a volume split per provider - e.g., Gmail receives emails faster than Hotmail. Please see 2.1 for more details.
• Variant 2
  It allows you to prepare all sending days in advance, flag the customers with specific sending day information, and then use that in a campaign. You can use this variant to export data from Bloomreach to another platform used in parallel for exclusion purposes. There is a bit more manual work involved for this variant. Warmup days are flagged in separate properties in the customer profile, and previous audiences are re-used for the next day.
• Variant 3
  It allows you to prepare all sending days in advance, flag the customers with specific sending day information, and then use that in a campaign. You can also export data from Bloomreach to another platform used in parallel for exclusion purposes. There is a bit more manual work involved for this variant. Warmup days are flagged in a single property in the customer profile, and previous audiences are excluded for the next day.

2.1 Import warmup plan as catalog for Variant 1

In Variant 1, the scenario uses catalog “warmup” to calculate the correct volume for a specific day and provider. The catalog needs to contain the following headers with examples listed below: “item_id,” “day1”, “day2”, etc. Item_id would be e.g. “Gmail”, “Microsoft”, “Verizon”, “Other” etc.

Provider selection might change for different markets. For example, you might include gmx.de and web.de instead of Verizon domains in Germany. Please make sure to update the segmentation and catalog header, too.

2.2 Set up preparation scenario for Variant 2

In Variant 2, you have two scenarios available. The preparation scenario needs to be started first. This will tag customers with specific sending days, which will be marked on their profiles. You will then use this data for the email-sending scenario, and you can export it for use on other platforms as exclusions.

1. Consent & email node: add the consent type.
2. Total audience node: Follow the warmup plan by selecting the Active and New segments first. Once the engaged segments are used, after a few days, add the passive and lapsing segments, too.
3. Past audience:
   1. day 1: Leave empty
   2. day 2 and later: Add customer attribute from the previous day, e.g., "WU_audience_day_1" has a value
4. Nodes Verizon, Gmail, Microsoft, Other - no action needed.
5. Customer limit nodes: Add daily volumes according to the warmup plan.
6. Set_attribute node: Change the sending day name to match the sending day in the warmup plan.
   1. day 1: WU_audience_day_1
   2. day 2: WU_audience_day_2
7. Set the trigger Now node and press start.

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Information

Once you have prepared the day 1, you can copy and paste this multiple times into the scenario, for following days. Scenario is prepared with 14 days as an example.

2.3 Set up preparation scenario for Variant 3

In Variant 3, you have two scenarios available. The preparation scenario needs to be started first. This will tag customers with specific sending days, which will be marked on their profiles. You will then use this data for the email-sending scenario.

1. Consent & email node: add the consent type.
2. Total audience node: Follow the warm-up plan by selecting the Active and New segments first. Once the engaged segments are used, after a few days, add the passive and lapsing segments, too.
3. Past audience excluded - this is only needed for the first few days when you are doing spillover - using one template on multiple days for different subscribers:
   1. day 1: Leave empty
   2. day 2 and later: add the value of customer attribute "email_sending" from all the previous days, e.g., "WU_audience_day_1"
   3. day X and later: Once you reach days without spillover, you can remove this condition
4. Nodes Verizon, Gmail, Microsoft, Other - no action needed.
5. Customer limit nodes: Add daily volumes according to the warmup plan.
6. Set_attribute node: Change the sending day name to match the sending day in the warmup plan.
7. Set the trigger Now node and press the Start button.

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Information

Once you have prepared the day 1, you can copy and paste this multiple times into the scenario, for following days. Scenario is prepared with 14 days as an example.

Step 3: Adjust the Use Case

3.1 Adjust the reports and segmentation to your project

Make the following changes that will reflect your project settings and tracking of the events:

• Email list health (customer segmentation) - adjust the correct consent by specifying “consent_category” in all segments. This applies if your project requires multiple consents.
• Email domain segmentation (customer segmentation) - adjust to match the top domains in your project.

3.2 Customizing the nodes within the scenario

Check the nodes within the scenario and make sure that all the events/customer attributes are matching your tracking:

• Please select the correct consent category from your project in the first condition node.

3.3 Email Settings

If you decide to customize the email settings, follow this detailed guide to make the adjustments.

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Warning

Make sure that Frequency policysetting will not impact the volumeof emails sent per day. Recommendation is to set ‘unlimited’ for warm up.

3.4 Design & Copy

Customize the email visuals and copy to align with your company's brand identity.

Otherwise, you can go through this guide for more information.

Follow this guide to adjust the email template with products in the email node.

Step 4: Test and Run the Use Case

When you are done adjusting the use case, we recommend to always test the use case before deployment. When testing, double-check if the use case design, copy, and settings work as preferred.

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Warning

You should only deploy a use case after testing. Testing prevents sending unfinished or imperfect campaigns to your customer base.

Run the use case once the testing is over. When you open the email, click the Start button in the upper right corner to launch the campaign.

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Information

If you used Variants 2 or 3, you will need to delete customer properties from the Data manager after the warmup process is done.

Step 5: Evaluate the Results

The use case comes with a predefined evaluation dashboard. Check it regularly to spot any need for improvements as soon as possible.

If you encounter any problems, read this article for insights on evaluating the use case.

Key metrics

The key metrics are delivery rate and open rate.

The delivery rate tells us if the emails were delivered to the server (not rejected because of, e.g., an invalid email address), and the open rate would give us some insight into inbox placement. If it is too low for a certain provider (e.g., a 5% open rate on Hotmail, while Gmail is reporting 20%), the most common cause is bad inbox placement - emails going into spam.

Firstly, please use the report “Emails sent per day - check” to confirm that you are following the plan and sending the correct volume on each sent day.

As a second report, use “Email reporting - last 14 days” to look at multiple metrics reported per day - mainly delivery rate, open rate, hard bounce rate, soft bounce rate, and spam complaint rate. You do not need to use other reports if there are no issues in the warmup.

If any of the metrics do not meet your expectations or benchmarks, please look into the “Email reporting—last 14 days—combined with recipient domain” to understand which domain is underperforming. Usually, the issue is with a specific provider, not all providers at once. Use this report to identify which provider reports lower metrics like delivery or open rates.

If you see a higher soft bounce rate or hard bounce rate, please use the reports “Hard_bounced messages [last 48 hours]”/”Soft_bounced messages [last 48 hours]” to look at error messages reported from specific providers. These error messages might help you identify the issue - e.g., content is flagged as spam, invalid email addresses, or that you have been placed on a block list.

Emailing metrics

There are two types of metrics in the evaluation: non-unique and unique. The non-unique ones count the number of events, and the unique ones count the number of customers who have taken the action. For example, one customer will open the email three times. Non-unique open metrics = 3, and unique open metrics = 1. Unique metrics are marked with ‘U..’

E-commerce Benchmark for emailing metrics

• Unique Delivery rate - 99% and above
• Unique Open rate - 20% and above
• Unique Click rate from opened -15% and above

Additional Resources

Warmup public documentation explains the importance of the warmup process and provides some do’s and don'ts.

Email deliverability tips public documentation provides more useful information about emailing.