What’s the ideal recovery cadence?
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So you're restarting your program after it cooled down. The biggest mistake people make is charging back at your old sending schedule. That's a recipe for tanking your reputation all over again.
Start with weekly sends. Pick a day and time, then stick with it religiously. Consistency signals trust to ISPs and subscribers alike. Your recipients expect you on Tuesdays at 10 AM? That's powerful. They don't know when you're showing up? That looks dodgy.
Why weekly, not daily? Daily sends during recovery makes ISPs nervous. They can't quite tell if you're serious or spammy yet. Weekly gives you breathing room. (Of course, every audience is different. If you're in tech or SaaS and your list expects frequent sends, you might shift to twice weekly faster. But stay conservative at first.)
Pile more weight on engagement than frequency. A small, highly engaged send beats a big, lukewarm blast every time. If your open rate is 20%, you're in great shape even at 500 subscribers. If it's 5%, that's a red flag regardless of list size. Before you even think about increasing how often you send, check your engagement. Small sends to your most engaged folks first.
Watch for these signs you're ready to increase: Engagement stable or climbing for three weeks straight? Bounce rates below 1%? No spam complaints trickling in? Now you can ease into twice weekly. Engagement tanking? Bounce rates creeping up? Slow down. Stay weekly longer.
Recovery is a trust-building phase. Predictability wins. Rush it and you're back to square one.
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