What is the best way to send email campaigns to a large audience without being marked as spam by email providers?

Problem

Sending a large number of campaign emails at once can trigger spam filters. You want to send emails to a large audience but avoid being flagged as spam.

Solution

To minimize the number of emails sent, consider segmenting your customers by zone. Start by selecting specific zones for your initial campaign. Then, clone the campaign and update the cloned version to include the zones not covered in the first campaign.

Note: If needed, you can split the zones across more than two campaigns.

You can also stagger the campaigns so not all emails go out on the same day. This minimizes the risk of your emails being flagged as spam. We also recommend following the general email marketing best practices outlined in the Master email marketing: Automation, deliverability, and engagement for home services success article.

Set up the initial campaign

1. Go to the navigation bar and click Marketing.

2. In the side menu, select Campaigns > Pro Campaigns.

3. Create a new email campaign or edit an existing one.

4. Create a new audience for the campaign or use an existing one.

5. In the Audience Builder, add the following filter to your inclusion criteria:        

   1. Select the Location on the right to view the Location filter options.

   2. Select the zones you want to include in the Zone dropdown. For example, if you want to split the emails between two campaigns, select half of your zones. 

   3. When finished, click Continue.

6. Back on the Select Audience step of the campaign builder, select the desired audience in the list and then click Apply Audience.

7. Finish setting up the campaign.

Clone the initial campaign

1. Return to the Pro Campaigns screen in Marketing Pro.

2. Click More > Clone for the campaign you set up in the previous workflow.

3. Enter a Name for the campaign and then click Continue.        

   Note: We recommend selecting a name that makes it clear which customers are included. For example, Spring Maintenance (Zone B).

4. Click Edit for the Audience.

5. On the Audiences screen that opens, click More > Clone for the audience you used for the initial campaign.

6. Modify the Location filter to include the zones not included in the initial campaign. 

7. When finished, click Continue.

8. Back on the Select Audience step of the campaign builder, select the cloned audience in the list and then click Apply Audience.

9. Finish setting up the campaign.        

   Tip: Stagger the campaign launch dates to reduce email volume on a single day. This minimizes the risk of your emails being flagged as spam.