Sending patterns depends on your business and industry. Follow the below best practices regarding the sending patterns related to email campaigns:

• To keep the IP and domain warm, send at least 1 campaign to active users per week.
  • You can send one campaign only to active users per week regardless so the engagement rates are higher.
• Send at least one campaign per month to the ramped-up volume.
  • Conversely, only ramp up to the volume you plan to send immediately and in the next 6-8 weeks.
  • Ramping up to a higher volume when you don’t plan to send such high volumes is a moot activity.
• Lower the sender patterns based on engagement. This is mostly related to the E-Com business.
  • For most active users: send as required or 2 per week.
  • For less active users: slightly lower than most active users; one per week.
  • For new users: follow the onboarding flow or treat them as less active users.
  • For other users, who are not active recently but are not inactive yet:  Send targeted campaigns based on their previous history.
  • For inactive users, who have not engaged in more than 9 months: Suppress permanently and do not send to them.

Sending Pattern Checklist

Evaluate Your Current Email Habits

The ideal sending frequency avoids overwhelming users while ensuring your brand remains present, adapting to individual preferences and content. Consider the following points to evaluate your email habits:

• • Segment your audience by interest/engagement: Different segments of your audience will have varying interests and levels of engagement. By segmenting your users based on their behaviors, preferences, and past interactions, you can tailor your email frequency to their specific needs.
  • Tailor frequency to content type: The nature of your email content should dictate its sending frequency. For example, you might send promotional offers more often than newsletters.
  • Set expectations at signup: When users sign up for your email list, clearly communicate what kind of content they'll receive and how often. 
  • Offer frequency control: Empower your users by allowing them to choose how often they hear from you. Implementing a preference center where users can select their desired email frequency (e.g., daily, weekly, monthly, or only specific types of emails) significantly improves user satisfaction and retention. 
  • Monitor engagement metrics: A decline in open rates or click-through rates, or a spike in unsubscribe rates, signals that your frequency might be too high or your content isn't resonating. Regularly reviewing these metrics allows you to adapt your strategy and maintain a healthy relationship with your subscribers.

Time Your Emails for Maximum Impact

Sending your emails at the optimal time can significantly impact your open and click-through rates. Consider the following points to ensure your messages land when they're most likely to be seen and engaged with:

• Understand audience time zones: Sending at your audience's local time is crucial for maximizing visibility and engagement.
• Utilize Best Time to Send (BTS): Leverage the BTS feature of MoEngage to intelligently identify and send emails when individual users are most likely to open them.
• A/B test send times: Experiment with different sending times, such as morning versus evening or weekdays versus weekends, to discover what resonates best with your audience.
• Consider day of the week relevance: Align your content with the day of the week. For example, professional content often performs better during weekdays.

Manage Your Email Volume

Controlling your email sending volume is critical for maintaining a healthy sender reputation and ensuring your messages reach the inbox. Consider the following points to manage your volume effectively:

• Gradual sending ramp-up (if new): If you're using a new domain or IP address, a gradual increase in sending volume is crucial. This process helps establish your sender reputation with email service providers. 
• Consistent schedule: Establishing a regular and predictable sending schedule helps build trust with both your subscribers and email providers. Consistency prevents your sending habits from appearing erratic or suspicious.
• Batch segmentation: Avoid sending large blasts to your entire audience simultaneously. Instead, segment your audience and send emails in batches. This approach helps manage server load and can prevent potential deliverability issues.
• Monitor sending volume: Continuously monitor your overall sending volume. Be vigilant for any sudden, unexplained spikes, which could indicate a compromise or an issue with your sending strategy.
• Minimal sending for warmth: To prevent your sending IPs and domains from "cooling off" and potentially impacting deliverability, ensure you send at least once a week. Consistent minimal sending helps maintain your sender reputation.

Segmentation: Send Relevant Messages

Effective segmentation is fundamental to delivering highly relevant emails that resonate with your audience, leading to increased engagement and conversions. By dividing your audience into smaller, more specific groups, you can tailor your messaging precisely. Consider the following points to send relevant messages:

• Segment by demographics: Group users based on demographic data such as age, gender, location, and other relevant characteristics to personalize content.
• Segment by purchase history: Target users based on their past buying behavior. This allows you to re-engage repeat buyers, cross-sell, or upsell based on previous purchases.
• Segment by website activity: Reach users based on their interactions with your website, such as products viewed, pages visited, or items left in a cart. This enables highly timely and relevant follow-ups.
• Segment by email engagement: Differentiate your messaging based on how users interact with your emails (e.g., opens, clicks, last engagement date). This allows you to reward active subscribers and re-engage less active ones with tailored content.
• Use dynamic segmentation: Leverage dynamic segmentation to ensure your audience segments are automatically updated based on real-time user behavior and attributes. This keeps your targeting precise without manual intervention. 

Suppression Lists

Effective management of your suppression lists is crucial for respecting user preferences, complying with regulations, and maintaining a healthy sender reputation. Consider the following points to manage suppression lists:

• Automatic unsubscribe handling: MoEngage automatically processes and removes users who have unsubscribed from your mailing lists. For more information, refer here. 
• Never import unsubscribes: Under no circumstances should you import a list of unsubscribed users back into your active mailing lists. This practice is not only illegal in many regions but also severely harms your sender reputation and can lead to blacklisting.
• Suppress inactive subscribers: Regularly identify and suppress subscribers who have shown no engagement (e.g., opens or clicks) over a prolonged period (e.g., 6-9 months). Keeping inactive users on your active list can negatively impact your deliverability and overall campaign performance.

MoEngage Features for Optimized Campaigns

MoEngage provides powerful tools to help you implement these best practices and achieve superior email campaign performance. Integrate these features into your strategy to maximize relevance, timing, and engagement:

• Utilize advanced segmentation: Leverage MoEngage's robust segmentation capabilities to create highly targeted audience groups based on demographics, behaviour, preferences, and engagement levels. For more information, refer here.
• Enable Send Time Optimization: Activate MoEngage's Send Time Optimization (STO) to automatically deliver emails to each individual user at their most optimal engagement time, based on their past behaviour. For more information, refer here.
• Run comprehensive A/B tests: Systematically test different elements of your email campaigns, including subject lines, content, call-to-actions, and send times, using MoEngage's A/B testing features to identify what resonates best with your audience.
• Track campaign analytics: Diligently monitor your campaign performance through MoEngage's analytics dashboard. Pay close attention to key metrics such as opens, clicks, conversions, and unsubscribes to gain actionable insights and refine your strategy.
• Implement preference centeRs: Set up and promote MoEngage's preference centers to empower your users to control the type and frequency of communications they receive from you, fostering trust and reducing churn.