"Throttled Send" Feature?

[user40172]

Is there a way to send an email to a list over a period of time?

With the increase in webmail bots generating link previews and security scans, our web servers are getting bumrushed when we send to a large list. The problem is that bots are automatically opening received email and scanning all the link contained therein. We get thousands and thousands of hits in the span of a minute or two.

We would like to feather out the sending rate to prevent this sudden traffic glut. Is there a way to do this besides manually splitting lists up?

[William_A]

Hello @user40172 ,

Depending upon how large of a list you're sending out to, it may trigger automatic staging. Staging is just the simple act of our system delivering in those increments to monitor bounces, unsubscribes, and spam reports. If your email sendout to all those contacts doesn't trigger staging, then they should all send right away / when you schedule the email.

Otherwise, if you're wanting to break down delivery of your email in specified increments, or you're sending to a list that wouldn't be large enough to trigger the staging, I'd recommend either:

• Splitting your contact list into smaller lists, then copying your email and scheduling those copies individually for each list with the time increment preferred
• Set your email up for Subject A/B testing, which will result in the later portioned contacts being sent to after the set time delay. 

[user40172]

Is there a specific number or size that triggers the staged-sending? It would be helpful if we knew how to split lists.

thanks.

[William_A]

It typically starts at 10k+ contacts in a single list, but there are other factors that can affect the staging - Compliance restrictions placed on the account, general email traffic for different networks, accounts with particularly large numbers of customers, etc.

If you'd like further insight on staging and how it works with your particular account, I'd recommend reaching out to the Delivery team directly.