There are many reasons why a person may change his or her email routing platform. These reasons can be good, looking for new features, looking for a better price, ... or... not so good, an account deactivated because of bad practices, a leak because of deliverability problem, ...
In any case, changing routers should never be taken lightly. It is a process that must be prepared in advance.
Step 1: Retrieve your data regularly!
Using an outsourced marketing platform means entrusting a whole series of data to a third party. Mainly your contact list. But during the operation of your partner's routing infrastructure, you will generate a considerable amount of data. In order not to be caught unprepared, it is highly recommended to retrieve this data regularly. If you don't do this from the beginning, you risk being caught off guard and not being able to retrieve it.
Here is the information that you must have in your possession before changing routers:
- The list of all unsubscribes: It would be a disaster to start communicating with them again via your new router;
- All bounces (NPAI): Both hardbounces (permanent errors) and softbounces (temporary errors) must be recovered;
- Spam complaints: These are normally recovered via feedback loops from webmails and ISPs when they allow it;
- Click and open history: This is an essential piece of data for your email list. Try to have at least the date of the last interaction;
- Quarantines and other "suppression lists": Some routers set up internal repellents that are used to reject certain addresses at the time of sending. Try to get this file to analyze and use it to clean up your list.
Step 2: Get to know your routing environment
If they do their job of supporting you conscientiously, your new router may ask you a series of questions about your old routing environment. These questions will allow him to evaluate your practices, but also your reputation as a sender with ISPs and webmails.
Some examples:
- If you use dedicated IPs, what are these IP addresses?
- If you are in a shared IP pool, what is the type of other users in the pool? What are the IP addresses used by this pool?
- What are the domain names used to send your emails (FROM: field) and used in the tracking links?
- …
Step 3: Don't break your contract with your previous router too suddenly
It is rare that changing email platforms is a priority project in a company. Even if we can deplore it, it is a reality! For this reason, don't move too fast. Make sure the new platform is 100% operational (including the Warm-Up phase, see below) before you permanently break all relationships with your previous router. Having an old router cutting you off and a new email platform not yet fully operational can quickly turn into a disaster for your business.
Step 4: Bring your data back in-house and clean up
All the data you collect in point 1 should obviously be fed back into your own internally hosted email list. Passing this data directly to your new router would not make sense.
Therefore, it is important to ensure that:
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- mark all unsubscriptions correctly;
- clean all hardbounces;
- ensure that complainants are never contacted again;
- work on the data of the last interactions in order to to isolate the inactive and put them into a dedicated marketing program.
Step 5: Configure authentication
This is the first thing to set up with your new router. The configuration of your SPF and DKIM records will allow you to be authenticated and allow your new email router to send messages on your behalf.
If you are still sending emails with your previous sending solution, no problem. Your SPF record can contain references to multiple sending platforms at the same time and you can set up multiple DKIM records for a single domain name.
On the other hand, even if it is not strictly related to authentication, you should ask your new router if it is possible to use your shipping domain name to customize the tracking links that will be generated in your emails.
Step 6: Synchronize data with your new routing solution
Now that you have recovered your data from your old provider, and have done some cleanup work on the contact list you are hosting, it is time to synchronize your contacts with the new routing solution.
Synchronization means going back and forth. Not only do you need to send your email list to the new router, but also make sure to automate the retrieval of the various items mentioned in the first step. This will simplify a future migration, ... even if it's five years from now, and keep you in control of your data.
Step 7: Ask for information about the "WarmUp" phase
When you start sending email from a fresh IP address, webmails and ISPs have not yet had a chance to give it a reputation. For this reason, the filtering established in the first few weeks of the relationship between this IP address and the ISPs will be more aggressive. In order to start this relationship in the best conditions, it is recommended to "warm up" this IP address by making it send a constant volume of emails over a given period of time.
Each router should implement this type of strategy. It is therefore important that you ask the router for details so that the WarmUp goes smoothly. Do not hesitate to ask for an evaluation of the WarmUp phase before going to full speed.
Step 8: Don't rest on your laurels
You have passed the "deliverability" phase of your migration without a hitch. Now you'll have to redeploy all your email marketing programs on the new platform. And that's another story!
4 réponses
Very good post Jonathan 🙂
In step 2, I doubt that a client can/would answer these questions, or even that they ever had some of this information.
On the whole this is what should be done. In reality, we are still far from it 🙁
Clients often want to take advantage of a change of provider to do an accordion hit on the basics, just to bring back (from beyond the grave sometimes) a few more addresses. And then they are surprised that we hit them on the head 🙂
Hello Charles,
For step 2, we agree that very few people ask themselves this kind of question spontaneously. Nevertheless, with a few explanations, any advertiser quickly realizes that these are important elements on which he should invest some knowledge and follow up. There is more and more demand for deliverability training at the moment... it's not for nothing 😉
As far as bringing back old addresses from beyond the grave, those who dare do it once... but not twice 😀
A+
Hello Jonathan,
Thank you for your post.
In the warm up phase you specify that "webmails and ISPs have not yet had the opportunity to give a reputation to" the IP address because it is "fresh", but they also take into account data such as the domain name/subdomain name present in the sender address or in the links present in the newlsletter and this one has necessarily been used, so we can talk about reputation, right?
What do you mean by "heating up this IP address by making it send a constant volume of emails over a given period of time." ? What are the criteria you recommend?
Hello Jonathan
Once again, I would like to recommend the download of our "Change Emailing Solution" kit. https://www.message-business.com/changer-solution-emailing/ In addition to the information in your article: a specification to properly assess its functional needs. We also insist on the timing and in particular the breaking of the contractual link very often source of problem 🙂