Domain management is all part of the service

Every e-shot customer is given a dedicated sending domain and IP address as part of your subscription. These  are two of the two technical elements of how your emails get sent - because they are unique to you, what you send and who you send it to will have a bearing on how cyber security and spam filtration software judge your emails, your website and your brand.

The IP address is part of our secure range, used to send emails via our secure UK-based infrastructure. Our data centres are all Tier 3 offering the highest security standards - required by our public sector clients.

We register a domain on your behalf and manage the different forms of verification needed including SPF, DKIM and DMARC.

To help protect your identity, e-shot continually monitors the reputation of both your domain and your IP address and you will be notified if problems occur.

We automatically process most bounce reasons and will also automatically unsubscribe contacts who mark your emails as Spam via their ISP.

If you are running multiple brands or send very high volumes of emails, then additional domains and IP addresses can be added to your subscription.*

You can also use your own domains via e-shot* as long as you configure it correctly and use the right security credentials.

Our experts can provide guidance on the best setup depending on your specific requirements.

*Additional charges apply  

The importance of a dedicated sending domain

Sending domains carry reputation just like your IP does and they are becoming a more and more important part of how mailbox providers decide whether or not your email lands in the inbox or the spam folder.

We have always advised our clients that sending your marketing emails from a different IP to your transactional and employee emails is best practice. If your marketing email generates enough negative feedback from recipients, and it is being sent from the same domain as your transactional emails, it can actually impact your ability to get your transactional messages delivered. So as part of the service we offer custom domain with every account, which we will set up and manage for you, to ensure that all your sending infrastructure is correct.

Warming a new IP

If you’re switching to a new dedicated IP, you’ll need to warm it up. IP warming is a process of gradually increasing send volumes over a number of days or weeks. This slowly builds up your sender reputation and improves deliverability and our team are there to support you all the way.

The IP warming process is your brand’s opportunity to build strong reputations with ISPs. But if you start sending large numbers of emails on a new IP and/or a new subdomain without showing that you’re reputable first, you’re asking to get labelled as a potential threat by ISPs. To avoid that, smart brands begin by sending emails to small groups (think 50 people) of highly-engaged recipients on exceedingly spotless email lists in order to demonstrate that their intentions are good—and that the people they’re messaging want to hear from them. Then they slowly increase the number of people they’re emailing until they reach their desired daily number of emails. If you go too quickly, you could shoot yourself in the foot and considerably delay the warming process. So take it slow and be sure you’re on the up and up.

During the warm-up period the more consistently and frequently you send and the lower your complaint and bounce rates, the faster you will establish a positive sending reputation with ISPs. If you send infrequently, it will take longer to build a positive reputation.