Pausing and Resuming a Campaign

Postigo provides the ability to pause and resume email campaigns. This feature is essential for quickly responding to technical issues, changes in mailing metrics, or other unforeseen circumstances. In this article, we will look at when it is advisable to pause a campaign, where to find the corresponding button in the Postigo dashboard, what happens to emails that are already in the process of being sent, and how to properly resume a campaign from the same point where it was stopped.

When is a Campaign Pause Necessary?

There are several situations where immediately pausing a campaign becomes critical to maintaining sender reputation and mailing effectiveness:

Problems with the SMTP Server

Problems with the SMTP server are one of the most common reasons for pausing a campaign. If you are using your own SMTP server or a third-party service such as SendGrid, Amazon SES, or Mailgun, temporary failures in their operation can lead to email sending errors. For example, if your SMTP provider is experiencing technical difficulties, you may see a significant increase in the number of delivery errors (bounces) in the campaign analytics. In this case, immediately pausing the campaign will avoid sending emails through an unstable server and prevent your domain's reputation from deteriorating.

High Bounce Rate

A high bounce rate is a signal of problems with the quality of your mailing list. If the bounce rate exceeds 5%, this is a serious cause for concern. The reasons can be different: outdated email addresses, typos in addresses, blocked domains. Continuing to send with a high bounce rate can lead to being blacklisted and your domain being blocked. Pausing the campaign will allow you to analyze the mailing list, remove invalid addresses, and improve its quality. Postigo offers email address verification tools to help you clean up your list and reduce the bounce rate.

Unexpected Increase in Spam Complaints

A sharp increase in the number of spam complaints is a critical indicator of problems with content relevance or mailing list quality. If the percentage of spam complaints exceeds 0.1%, this can negatively affect your sender reputation. The reasons may be related to the fact that your emails are perceived as unwanted, or that you are sending emails to people who have not consented to receive mailings. Pausing the campaign is necessary to review the content of the email, segment the audience, and verify that your mailing complies with GDPR and other regulations. Use AI reply classification in Postigo to analyze replies to your emails and identify potential problems.

Unforeseen Changes in Campaign Results

Sometimes, even if all the rules are followed, campaign results can change unexpectedly. For example, the open rate or click-through rate may decrease. This may be due to changes in the algorithms of mail services, seasonal fluctuations, or other external factors. Pausing the campaign will allow you to analyze the situation, make adjustments to the content of the email or sending strategy, and resume the campaign taking into account the new data. Consider using AI content rotation to optimize your emails.

Where is the Pause Button in Postigo?

The campaign pause button is located directly in the Postigo dashboard, in the "Campaigns" section. To pause a campaign, you must:

1. Go to the "Campaigns" section.
2. Find the campaign you want to pause.
3. Click the "Pause" button (usually indicated by the "||" icon).

After clicking the "Pause" button, the campaign status will change to "Paused".

What Happens to Already Launched Emails?

When a campaign is paused, Postigo stops sending new emails. However, emails that are already in the process of being sent (for example, in the queue to be sent via the SMTP server) will be sent. This is because Postigo cannot interrupt the process of sending an email that has already been initiated. Therefore, after pausing the campaign, it may take some time before the sending of emails completely stops. Keep this in mind when planning a campaign pause.

How to Resume a Campaign from the Same Index?

Resuming a campaign in Postigo happens from the same point where it was paused. This means that emails will be sent to recipients, starting with the address that was next in the queue at the time of the pause. To resume a campaign, you must:

1. Go to the "Campaigns" section.
2. Find the paused campaign.
3. Click the "Resume" button (usually indicated by the ">" icon).

After clicking the "Resume" button, the campaign status will change to "In Progress" and the sending of emails will continue from the same point. Postigo automatically saves the index of the last sending, which ensures a smooth resumption of the campaign without duplicating emails.

Recommendations

• Monitoring: Regularly track the key metrics of your campaigns (bounce rate, spam complaints, open rate, click-through rate) in the Postigo analytics dashboard.
• Testing: Before launching a mass mailing, test on a small segment of the audience.
• Segmentation: Divide your audience into segments based on interests, demographics, or behavior. This will allow you to send more relevant emails and reduce the risk of spam complaints.
• Verification: Regularly check your mailing list for invalid addresses.
• Authentication: Make sure your domain is configured using SPF, DKIM, and DMARC to increase trust in your emails and reduce the risk of being marked as spam. Read more about setting up SPF, DKIM, and DMARC.
• Warm-up: If you are using a new SMTP server, start with a small number of emails and gradually increase the sending volume. This will help you establish a good sender reputation. Use the SMTP warm-up feature in Postigo.

Using the pause and resume campaign feature in Postigo allows you to quickly respond to emerging problems and maintain the high efficiency of your email mailings. Do not forget about regular monitoring, testing, and audience segmentation to achieve the best results.