Ideal send cadence for operational email going towards all clients, including non-marketable persons? | Community
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4
44MattWolf44
Level 3
October 15, 2025
Question

Ideal send cadence for operational email going towards all clients, including non-marketable persons?

  • October 15, 2025
  • 3 replies
  • 1087 views

Hi all! Would love to hear your thoughts on what an ideal email send cadence would be for an operational email going to all our clients, including non-marketable persons that we rarely reach out to? Details below:

There are about 68,000 recipients of an upcoming operational email, that otherwise rarely receive any Marketo outreach from us

What would be a low-risk way to make sure the operational email reaches these folks without risking a lowered sender reputation? Should we aim to send it to 5,000 people per day? Should we go even smaller, such as 1,000 people per day? If I end up using the number 1,000, is it risky to do 2 batches per day instead of just 1?

 

Thank you very much

3 replies

Miray
Community Advisor and Adobe Champion
MirayCommunity Advisor and Adobe Champion
Community Advisor and Adobe Champion
October 15, 2025

Hi , 

I’d recommend starting by analyzing the data behind your target audience. If you can identify hard bounces or inactive email addresses, it’s best to exclude those from your list to reduce risk and improve deliverability.

For the send cadence, batching 5,000 to 10,000 recipients per send is a safe and scalable approach.  The  wait between batches 6 hours to a full day can help ease the load on your sending infrastructure and reduce the chance of triggering spam filters.

4
44MattWolf44Author
Level 3
October 16, 2025

Thank you, I appreciate it! 5k - 10k is very doable

    uditmathur
    Community Advisor
    uditmathurCommunity Advisor
    Community Advisor
    October 16, 2025

    Hi @44mattwolf44 ,

     

    Operational emails are meant to be sent as a response of a definitive action performed by your customers & they are expecting a response from your end.

    The way its been described that many customer might even have unsubscribed & have not performed any action on your content, so this send can not be classified as an Operational Email & dilutes the very purpose of an Operational email.

    I will suggest & definitively advice against using this mail as operational.

     

    Regarding the send cadence for an "Operational Email" it should be immediate or to within a day's time as people are expecting a response & not receiving one can hamper the user expectation.

     

    Hope this Helps 🙂

      4
      44MattWolf44Author
      Level 3
      October 16, 2025

      Here is the specific use-case:

      My company's email address domain (not in Marketo particularly, but across the entire company and our individual email addresses) is changing to the parent company's name. Most of our clients may be unfamiliar with the parent company's name, so to minimize confusion we are sending out an operational email ahead of time explaining the change.

      There are likely many important contacts that aren't subscribed to us but should still be informed of this change.

      I value your opinion, do you think this is an inappropriate use-case for an operational email?

        SanfordWhiteman
        SanfordWhiteman
        Level 10
        October 17, 2025

        There are likely many important contacts that aren't subscribed to us but should still be informed of this change.

        I value your opinion, do you think this is an inappropriate use-case for an operational email?

        “Important” in what way? Do you have a separate legitimate interest in sending them email (i.e. because they’re customers)? What’s the specific reason that they must know your domain changed?

        Michael_Florin-2
        Michael_Florin-2
        Level 10
        October 16, 2025

        including non-marketable persons that we rarely reach out to

        One more thought which might apply to your scenario: The longer you haven't emailed these people the more likely it is that the email will bounce. And while bounces are not necessarily a problem, they become increasingly problematic if you send to too many unreachable people in one company. There are email servers out there that will shut you down if you just hit 5 non-existing email address in their domain, and then all other people in that company will be temporarily email suspended. So I'd certainly try to spread out your send by domains.

          4
          44MattWolf44Author
          Level 3
          October 16, 2025

          Will do, thank you. This is great advice, I wasn't aware domains could box you out entirely just for emailing non-existent inboxes

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