Why are emails to active, known contacts getting throttled?

I recently sent an email broadcast to my entire list (over 4,000 contacts) and 85% of the emails were throttled and sent after business hours at 11pm! Contacts that got throttled included customers with WON Opportunities and multiple accepted quotes. In fact, my email broadcast featured new customers, and it’s kind of funny (or not) that one of the featured customers was throttled. Does anyone know how to avoid so many contacts being throttled? Is it better to send multiple duplicate email broadcasts to smaller list segments?

Hi Matt! The throttling mechanism is solely looking at the last time an email was sent to each contact. It puts a temporary hold on cold contacts only, which are contacts that have not been sent an email from your app in 4+ months. The warm contacts (received an email from your app in less than 4 months) should’ve gone out immediately.

To avoid email throttling going forward, it’s best to set up a welcome email once they sign up for your emails, and then ensure they’re sent an email at least every couple months so they do not become cold in the system. Of course only send them this many emails if they signed up and agreed to this email frequency :slight_smile:.

More importantly than avoiding email throttling though, is that keeping your contacts up to date and engaged helps your deliverability and email reputation. Our Help Center article on Cold Email Throttling goes into a bit more detail. Check it out and let me know here if you have any other questions!

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Thanks Katrina! Very helpful response!

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Also, opportunity results will have absolutely no bearing on email activity.