Red Flags: When to Stop Your Campaign

An effective email campaign requires not only careful preparation and segmentation but also constant monitoring of key metrics. Ignoring warning signs can lead to a deterioration of the sender's reputation, ending up in spam, and, as a result, losing potential customers. In this article, we will look at the main "red flags" that signal the need to immediately stop an email campaign, as well as the steps to take afterward.

Symptoms for Immediate Pause

There are situations when continuing an email campaign can cause irreparable harm. If one of the following signs is detected, the campaign should be stopped immediately:

1. High Bounce Rate – Over 5%

Bounce rate shows the percentage of emails that were not delivered to recipients. A high bounce rate indicates problems with your contact base. The reasons may be different: outdated addresses, incorrectly specified email addresses, inactive mailboxes, or problems with the recipient's domain. A bounce rate above 5% is a serious signal that can negatively affect your sender reputation in the eyes of email providers such as Gmail, Yahoo, and Microsoft.

Actions:

• Stop the campaign immediately.
• Analyze the types of bounces (hard bounce and soft bounce). Hard bounces (permanent errors) indicate invalid addresses that should be removed from the database. Soft bounces (temporary errors) may be caused by a full mailbox or temporary problems with the recipient's server.
• Check the validity of your database using specialized services such as ZeroBounce or Mailgun Email Verification.
• Make sure that the process of collecting email addresses complies with GDPR and other regulations.

2. Spam Complaints – Over 0.1%

Spam complaints are one of the most serious signals for email providers. If more than 0.1% of your recipients mark your emails as spam, this can lead to your domain and IP address being blocked. This means that all your subsequent emails will automatically end up in spam, even if they are sent to legitimate recipients.

Actions:

• Stop the campaign immediately.
• Analyze the content of emails that caused complaints. Perhaps they contain spam words or misleading headings.
• Make sure you have a clear unsubscribe link in every email. The link should be easily accessible and work correctly.
• Review the process of obtaining consent to send emails (opt-in). Make sure you only send emails to those who have explicitly agreed to receive them. Consider using double opt-in.
• Use Postigo's AI-powered reply classification to identify negative feedback and respond in a timely manner.

3. Sharp Drop in Open Rate – 2x from Baseline

Open rate shows how many recipients opened your email. A sharp drop in open rate, for example, twice as much as your usual rate (baseline), may indicate problems with the sender's reputation, ending up in spam, or the irrelevance of your content to the audience. The Baseline Open Rate is formed based on previous successful campaigns. For example, if the average Open Rate for your campaigns is 20-25%, a drop below 10% is a warning sign.

Actions:

• Stop the campaign immediately.
• Check if your IP address or domain is on blacklists. There are online services, such as MXToolbox or Spamhaus, that allow you to do this.
• Check the configuration of your DNS records (SPF, DKIM, DMARC). Incorrect configuration can lead to delivery problems. Read more about setting up SPF, DKIM, and DMARC.
• Analyze the subject line of the email. Perhaps it has become less attractive or misleading.
• Check if the spam filtering algorithms of email providers have changed.

4. Gunicorn Growth of FAILED Sends in Postigo Logs

If you notice a significant increase in the number of failed email sending attempts (FAILED) in the Gunicorn logs (the web server used by Postigo), this may indicate problems with your SMTP server or restrictions set by your provider. This may be due to exceeding sending limits, blocking an IP address, or authentication problems.

Actions:

• Stop the campaign immediately.
• Check the status of your SMTP server. Make sure it is working correctly and is not experiencing overloads.
• Contact your SMTP provider (for example, SendGrid, Mailgun, Amazon SES) and check if there are any restrictions on sending emails from your account.
• Check the correctness of SMTP settings in Postigo. Make sure you are using the correct credentials and ports.
• Consider using multiple SMTP servers to distribute the load and increase reliability. Read more about choosing and configuring your own SMTP.

What to do after the pause

After stopping an email campaign, it is necessary to conduct a thorough analysis to identify the causes of the problems and prevent them from recurring in the future. Here are a few steps to take:

1. Database Analysis

Conduct a thorough cleaning of your database. Remove all invalid, outdated, and inactive email addresses. Use email address validation services to check their relevance. Segment your database based on user activity to send more relevant content.

2. SMTP Server Check

Make sure your SMTP server is configured correctly and is working stably. Check the configuration of DNS records (SPF, DKIM, DMARC). Make sure your IP address is not on blacklists. Consider using a dedicated IP address to improve sender reputation. Explore the possibilities of SMTP warmup.

3. Warming up new accounts

If you are using a new SMTP account or IP address, you need to gradually increase the volume of sending emails so as not to arouse suspicion among email providers. Start with a small number of emails and gradually increase it over several weeks. Send emails only to the most active and engaged subscribers. Monitor delivery and sender reputation metrics.

Example of a warm-up schedule:

• Week 1: 50-100 emails per day
• Week 2: 200-300 emails per day
• Week 3: 500-700 emails per day
• Week 4: 1000+ emails per day

Remember that the success of email marketing depends on constant monitoring, analysis, and optimization. Regularly check key indicators, promptly respond to emerging problems, and constantly improve the quality of your content and database. Use the capabilities of Postigo analytics to track the effectiveness of your campaigns.