IP and domain warm-up for email sending
You cannot send a large mailing from a new address right away. Every day the Hub sends a little more mail from a “domain + address” pair to real recipients and watches how it was received.
Overnight the Hub decides: raise the volume, keep it as it is, or roll back a step. A plan is created as a draft and started with a separate button.
01 / How warm-up works
Mailbox providers do not know a new IP address and meet a large volume from it with rejections and the “Spam” folder. That is why warm-up goes gradually: every day the Hub sends a little more mail from a “domain + address” pair to real recipients. Overnight it looks at how the providers received the mail and decides whether to raise the limit, hold it or roll back a step.
Accepted well — the limit grows; a provider is holding mail back — it stays the same; most are rejected — roll back a step
On October 17 the Hub did not raise the limit for the Lumacart main pool: the day before, Gmail deferred more than 15% of the emails. On the plan’s chart this day is yellow.
On October 14, Gmail and Outlook both started deferring more than 40% of the Dailyquill newsroom’s emails, and the Hub rolled the pairs back one step. On the chart this day is red.
02 / Today’s sending
The “Today” bar shows how many emails of the warm-up plan’s daily limit have gone out, how many are left and whether the plan will finish before its sending hours end. The tick on the bar is where the plan should be now, so you see at once whether it is falling behind.
16,105 of 22,676 emails sent, 6,571 in the queue. The plan is on pace and will finish by 17:59 — with the last email in its queue.
15 pairs on seven PowerMTA servers, each on its own day: pairs were added as addresses were bought. Now 22,676 emails a day against a target of 75,000.
7,881 of 16,264 emails sent, 8,383 in the queue. Two sending windows a day; the plan is on pace and will finish by 18:59.
Fast pace, three pairs on MailerQ. One pair has already reached the target — 8,000 emails a day — so the pairs are on different days.
Spam is counted the same way everywhere: the share of emails rejected as spam is calculated one way both in the overall summary and for each mailbox provider. Over 7 days — 0.05% against a stop threshold of 3%.
03 / Warm-up plan status
Every warm-up plan says plainly what state it is in. A draft sends nothing, a paused plan says “paused”, and a finished one says there are no more emails. An empty bar never pretends to be a day that simply has not started yet.
The day’s bar, the next batch, the path to the target and a two-week chart: ramp-up, hold, rollback.
No emails go out; the last ones went on Oct 16 at 18:03, the next ones — after “Resume”. The pairs’ limit is kept.
There are no pairs yet, and the card says so. The readiness check is empty and does not light up green.
A break of up to a week costs nothing, but if no emails go out for seven days or longer, the Hub rolls the pairs back by a third of the way they have come. After a pause the chart shows “not sent” marks, not a red rollback: a person stopped the sending.
04 / New warm-up plan
A new warm-up plan is created in three steps: which IP addresses and domains to send from, who to email and how fast. A summary of the result stays in view on the right the whole time. The plan itself is created as a draft and started with a separate button after the checks.
Nothing goes out by itself: the plan is started with a separate button once the readiness check has passed
A plan emails one person no more than once every three days. So the form works out right away how many emails a day the list can take: the Corvalis list — no more than 8,298, though the target is 10,000.
Careful — start with 30 emails, +15% every 2 days, 85 days to 10,000 a day. Balanced gets there in 25 days, fast in 13.
05 / Interface in detail
Today, the figures, four plans in different states and the three steps of a new plan with the summary. Above each screenshot: why the screen matters. Below it: what it shows.
The warm-up plans page starts with what matters today: how many plans there are, how many recipients you can email, whether emails are going out and whether they will all go before the sending hours end. Below are the figures for the chosen period: sent, delivered, opens, spam and unsubscribes. The delivered share is counted from the nightly provider summary, so today’s emails get into it after the next nightly count.
The “Warm-up” section header is the line above all the plans. It tells you at once how many warm-up plans exist and how many recipients you can email: only engagement groups A and B count, without excluded addresses. Here is also the period switch — from today up to a year; it changes the figures below. On the right — links to the warm-up audience and warm-up messages, and the “+ New plan” button that starts the warm-up of a new IP address. If there are fewer recipients than expected, you can find out why on the “Warm-up audience” page: it shows the tiers and the excluded addresses.
EnlargeA tier is the recipient’s engagement group: only people who read your emails go into the warm-up.
The “Today” bar brings the day of every running warm-up plan into one place. Plans have different sending hours, so the axis runs from the earliest hour to the latest, and each row is labeled with that plan’s hours. The light tick shows where the plan should be now: if the fill reaches it, the plan is on pace and will finish with the last email in its queue. A plan that falls behind is visible at once, with no math — in the example both plans are on time. Look here during the day to make sure emails go out on schedule. If the fill lags behind the tick, open the plan card below and see how many emails are still in the queue.
EnlargeThe reserve pool is not here: it is paused and sent nothing today.
Five warm-up figures for the chosen period show how mailbox providers accept emails from the addresses being warmed up. The delivered share is counted from the nightly summary, and the block says plainly how many emails are already in the summary: today’s will get there after the nightly count. The key number for decisions is the share of emails rejected as spam: over 7 days it is 0.05% against a stop threshold of 3%, so the warm-up is going smoothly. You switch the period in the section header: 7 days shows the trend, while today’s data is still incomplete. If the spam share gets close to the threshold, look at the plan charts below — which one is rolling back or sitting on “hold”.
EnlargeThe spam share is counted the same way here and for each mailbox provider — it is compared with the threshold at which the warm-up is stopped.
Next come the warm-up plan cards. Four examples show a running plan, a fast pace with a rollback, a paused plan and a draft. For each you see what is happening today, which step of the ladder it is on and how the warm-up went over the last two weeks. The color of the chart bars tells you at once where there was growth, where the Hub held the limit and where it rolled the pairs back.
The card of a running warm-up plan — “Lumacart · main pool”: balanced pace, warm-up in parallel with the store’s mailings, 15 pairs on seven PowerMTA servers. Read the card from left to right: today, the path to the target with a two-week chart, and the week’s totals. The chart shows how the warm-up went: days of growth and one yellow “hold” day — October 17, when Gmail deferred more than 15% of the emails and the Hub did not raise the limit. Open the card to see how far the plan still has to go and whether it is stuck. Yellow and red bars are a reason to check which provider was holding mail back; if the chart grows steadily, there is nothing to do.
EnlargePairs were added as addresses were bought, so each one is on its own day of the ladder.
The “Dailyquill · newsroom” card shows a fast warm-up pace on MailerQ: three pairs, warm-up emails only and two sending windows a day. This plan shows how the Hub responds to signals from mailbox providers. When Gmail and Outlook both started deferring more than 40% of the emails, the Hub rolled the pairs back one step — a red bar on the chart. When Gmail held mail back again, the limit stayed the same — a yellow “hold” bar. It is a useful example: a rollback is not a failure but protection of the pair’s reputation. The nightly cycle raises the limit again by itself once providers start accepting mail well — you do not need to do anything by hand.
EnlargeOne pair has already reached the target — 8,000 emails a day — so the pairs are on different days.
The “Lumacart · reserve pool” warm-up plan was paused on the morning of October 17, and the card says so in words: no emails go out, when the last batch went, and that the next one comes after “Resume”. After the pause the chart shows “not sent” marks, not a red rollback: a person stopped the sending, not the Hub. The pairs’ limit is kept, so a short break does not set the warm-up back, and you can resume sending with one button. A pause is handy when you need to sort out a domain or a server without losing the limit you have built up. The main thing is not to drag it out: the time after which the warm-up rolls back is given under the screenshot.
EnlargeA break of up to a week costs nothing. If no emails go out for seven days or longer, the Hub rolls the pairs back by a third of the way they have come.
A draft warm-up plan, “Lumacart · spring promo”: careful pace and a target of 3,000 emails a day, which will take 67 days to reach. The card says plainly what is missing: the plan has no addresses or domains. The readiness check — reverse DNS, signing keys, tracking — is empty and does not light up green, because there is nothing to check yet. Once pairs are added and everything is ready, you start the plan with the “Activate warm-up” button. It is handy to create a draft in advance, while addresses are being bought and DNS and tracking are being set up: the plan itself sends nothing. When the pairs are ready, the readiness check shows whether everything is set up.
EnlargeA draft sends nothing until it is activated.
A new warm-up plan is created in a three-step form: which “domain + address” pairs to send from, who to email and at what pace. A summary stays in view on the right the whole time — what you will get and what is still wrong. The form works out in advance whether the list is enough for the target. The plan itself is created as a draft and sends nothing until it is started.
The first step of a new plan is choosing which IP addresses and domains to warm up, that is, the “domain + address” pairs. First you pick a server, then its pairs; each server shows how many of its pairs are already chosen. Pairs taken by another plan cannot be used — the row shows which plan holds them. Next to them you see the address’s reverse DNS and the email’s path: direct or through a proxy. At the bottom you set the sender — the name and the hello@ address on the pair’s domain. Choose pairs that have reverse DNS — you can see it right in the row, and the plan’s readiness check will look at it again later. Taken pairs are freed when their plan finishes: that is how tx-01 and tx-02 became free.
EnlargeA pair that sends “through a proxy” goes out from the proxy’s IP address: the warm-up and the reputation go to the proxy.
The second step is who gets the warm-up emails: your whole audience in the panel or only chosen lists. Only engaged recipients go into the warm-up, and a plan emails one address no more than once every three days. So the form works out right away how many emails a day the chosen audience can take and warns you if it is not enough for the target. You learn this before the plan starts, not halfway through the warm-up: in the example, the Corvalis list can take no more than 8,298 emails a day against a target of 10,000. If the list is not enough, there are two ways out: lower the target or add lists — you can add to the list on the “Warm-up audience” page.
EnlargeA plan emails one address no more than once every 3 days. Tier C and excluded addresses do not go into the warm-up.
The third step is the name, pace, target and mode of the warm-up. Three ready-made paces — careful, balanced and fast — show right away how many days it will take to reach the target, so you can choose by time rather than by percentages. The target is one of the ready numbers or your own. The mode decides whether only warm-up emails go through the pairs or regular mailings too. Your own open and click tracking and a visible unsubscribe link are also switched on here. Compare the time needed with the date when you will need the addresses for mailings, and choose the pace to fit it. The “in parallel” mode is for when regular mailings already go through the same pairs, as with the Lumacart main pool.
EnlargeThe List-Unsubscribe header is always kept: people do not see it, but mail servers check exactly this header.
The summary on the right stays in view the whole time you fill in the new warm-up plan form. At the top — how many days to the target and the volume growth chart; below — the pairs and their addresses, the sender, the list, the mode and tracking. At the bottom — what has already been checked and what is in the way: in the example the list cannot take the target, and the summary warns about it before the plan is created. The “Create plan” button creates a draft — not a single email goes out until the plan is started separately. Before clicking, look at the bottom block: checkmarks mean the name, pairs and target are set, and a warning means something on the previous steps is worth fixing — for example, the target is higher than the list can take.
EnlargeThe plan is created as a draft and started with a separate button after the checks.
06 / IP warm-up questions
In short: how volume grows, who gets the emails and what happens to a paused plan.
EnlargeToday, the path to the target and two weeks of warm-up progress: ramp-up, hold, rollback.
Mailbox providers do not know a new address and meet a large volume from it with rejections and the “Spam” folder. Warm-up builds reputation gradually — starting with small volumes to real recipients.
Every night it looks at how the emails were received. Accepted well — the limit grows; a provider is holding mail back — it stays the same; most are rejected — roll back a step.
A sending IP address together with the domain the emails are sent from. It is the pair that builds reputation, so each pair has its own step on the ladder.
Real recipients from your own list who read your emails: tiers A and B without excluded addresses. Tier C does not go into the warm-up.
A plan emails one person no more than once every three days. The form works this out in advance: a list of 24,894 addresses can take no more than 8,298 emails a day.
The pairs’ limit is kept, and a break of up to a week costs nothing. If no emails go out for seven days or longer, the Hub rolls the pairs back by a third of the way they have come.
Yes. The “in parallel with production” mode lets regular mail go through the pairs too; the “warm-up only” mode sends only warm-up emails.
The Hub builds the summary overnight from mailbox providers’ responses. Today’s emails get into it after the next nightly count.
07 / Next step
A warm-up plan emails real recipients from your own list. Who is in the warm-up audience and how many emails it can take is shown on a separate page.
Right next to it are the warm-up messages: what exactly recipients get while an address builds its reputation.
