One of the common mistakes that companies make when transitioning between sending platforms is going too fast. Like when you move from one residence to another, the goal isn’t to haphazardly pack up your belongings as fast as you can, peeling out of the driveway as things fall out of the truck and breaking that fine china you’ve had in the family for thirty years.
If you want your clothes, furniture, and dusty collection of bowling trophies to remain intact, you wrap them, pack them, and treat the process with care. Moving email providers can follow the same approach, without the trophies.
While this blog post is intended to be a guide moving to Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) Email Delivery, any sender looking to transition from one platform to another can get some value with this information. Let’s talk about how to ramp your email from one provider to another: A crucial part of any transition and one that you shouldn’t ignore or dismiss.
The ramp
An email ramp is what it sounds like: A way to gradually transition sending from one sender to another, so you’re not pushing all your email chips into the middle of the new table at once. A ramp is so important because you need to start building a sending reputation on your new IPs. By making the transition slowly, receiving mailbox providers get used to your email coming from a new source.
As you transition more email, it doesn’t seem out of the ordinary to their algorithms, especially if your recipients have high engagement (opens and clicks). The alternative of making a hard cut with bulk or marketing campaigns means it takes much longer to build up your reputation, especially if you don’t have email authentication set up properly.
A ramp plan only applies to bulk or marketing email because the nature of traditional transactional email (one-to-one emails like receipts, verifications, and shipping notifications) means that most senders don’t need it unless the daily volume of those emails is high.
The schedule
A ramp schedule first starts with your timeframe: The number of total monthly emails you send and what your usual sending schedule is. Let’s use the following example.
- 5 million total emails sent per month
- Twice a week to a full list
- Transition time of three months
Based on this example, each send is 625,000 so the ramp builds toward that number.
Ramps always start with a low volume to give senders the ability to stop the process with minimal reputation impact if problems occur early. Send to your most engaged recipients first. This selection helps to build your reputation with your new email home much quicker.
Based on the following conservative schedule, you have 21 sends, twice per week multiplied by four weeks multiplied by nearly three months.
Conservative
| Send | Volume |
|---|---|
| 1 | 1000 |
| 2 | 1000 |
| 3 | 2000 |
| 4 | 2000 |
| 5 | 3000 |
| 6 | 3000 |
| 7 | 6000 |
| 8 | 6000 |
| 9 | 12,000 |
| 10 | 12,000 |
| 11 | 24,000 |
| 12 | 24,000 |
| 13 | 48,000 |
| 14 | 48,000 |
| 15 | 96,000 |
| 16 | 96,000 |
| 17 | 192,000 |
| 18 | 192,000 |
| 19 | 384,000 |
| 20 | 384,000 |
| 21 | 625,000 |
A more aggressive schedule completes in under two months with a higher volume at the start.
Aggressive
| Send | Volume |
| 1 | 10,000 |
| 2 | 10,000 |
| 3 | 20,000 |
| 4 | 20,000 |
| 5 | 40,000 |
| 6 | 40,000 |
| 7 | 80,000 |
| 8 | 80,000 |
| 9 | 160,000 |
| 10 | 160,000 |
| 11 | 320,000 |
| 12 | 320,000 |
| 13 | Full Send |
Evaluating progress
When doing a ramp, pay attention to every send and how the numbers are holding up. Ask yourself the following questions:
- Is the number of bounces higher than normal?
- What are the reasons given for those bounces?
- How does the open rate compare to your old provider?
By comparing the numbers at each step of the ramp, you can better understand how it’s going and whether your ramp can stay as planned, if it should be more conservative, or if it can be more aggressive.
The decision to go with conservative or aggressive comes down to your timeline and confidence in your email program. A more conservative approach typically yields better results, but high-quality email with a high domain reputation can be more aggressive and still have a successful transition.
Final thoughts
Moving email providers successfully requires thought and planning to ensure a seamless transition that avoids a lapse in deliverability. Following a ramp plan with a disciplined approach is a major component to success.
If you’re getting ready to send through Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Email Delivery service and have further questions, contact support. If you’re not yet sending through our Email Delivery service, begin your journey today with a free trial.