Does volume cause blocking?

There seems to be a never ending debate about volume and how it affects delivery and revenue. I regularly get questions asking if ISPs block senders just for volume.
The answer is no. Unless you’re actually sending enough mail to overwhelm the incoming infrastructure, something that’s difficult on today’s internet, you’re unlikely to be blocked due to simply sending a high volume of mail.
Sending mail recipients don’t want, or mail that looks like spam, that will get the mail blocked or filtered.

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Is volume a problem?

Volume in an of itself is not a problem. Companies sending mail people want can send multiple emails a day to every user. The volume isn’t a problem because the mail is wanted.
Many senders are confused and think volume is a filtering criteria. It’s not. Send all you want; just send it to people who actually want the mail.
A lot of companies in their growth phase find they do have delivery problems as their volume ramps up. But the problem isn’t the volume, the problem is that mail programs don’t scale. Companies mailing lower volumes can get away with sloppier practices. One because the chances of hitting bad addresses increases with the number of addresses you have. But the other is that filters do take volume into account. It’s not that the volume directly causes the filters to trigger, but volume causes the filters to look harder at mail. If the reputation and metrics are good, the mail is fine and hits the inbox. If they are poor, then mail hits the bulk folder or is filtered.
Overall, volume isn’t a problem, but increasing volume can expose fundamental problems in a mail program that result in delivery issues.
 

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Does mail volume contribute to blocking?

There are two extreme opinions I see among marketing agencies and email senders when it comes to volume.
One group seems to think that volume alone triggers blocks. Another group thinks volume never affects delivery.
As with many things in delivery reality is at neither extreme.
Sending lots of mail isn’t the problem. Sending lots of mail your recipients aren’t interested in getting is the problem. Last year during the US political elections the Obama campaign, for instance, sent lots and lots of mails. Their list was an order of magnitude larger than the Romney campaign and there were days they were sending 10s of mails per subscriber. It was a deluge. But they were smart, and they did a lot of data mining and they did it in a way that got recipients to act on the mail. That mail was a deluge, but it was a wanted deluge by most of the receivers.
For a lot of vendors, too, increasing volume does increase response and revenue and all the things you want to drive with email marketing. But there will be people who don’t like the increase in volume. If they’re not valuable customers, no great loss. If they are valuable customers, then the increase in volume may drive a decrease in revenue.
In terms of inbox delivery, it’s not the volume it’s how wanted the mail is. Send wanted, interesting and engaging mail, you can send dozens of times a day.
No, volume alone doesn’t contribute to delivery problems.

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The 5 stages of a Spamhaus listing

Courtesy of Spencer over at Experian.
The 5 Stages of Recovery

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