If your company uses an email service provider (ESP) like Mailchimp, Klaviyo, or Constant Contact, there's a good chance your emails share an IP address with thousands of other senders. This week we explore what that means for you.
This Week’s Lesson
Every email originates from an IP address. Receiving mail servers check the reputation of that IP address as one signal for whether to deliver your email.
Most ESPs put small senders on shared IP pools — meaning your emails go out from the same IP address as many other customers. If other senders on that pool have poor practices, your reputation suffers too, even if you're doing everything right.
Dedicated IPs give you full control over reputation — but only if you have the volume to build and maintain it. A dedicated IP with no sending history has zero reputation, which can initially hurt deliverability. IP warming is required to build a good reputation over weeks of consistent, low-volume sending.
Generally: if you send fewer than 100,000 emails per month, shared IPs are typically fine and often better than an unconfigured dedicated IP. Above that threshold, a dedicated IP makes sense.
Some ESPs offer 'dedicated IP add-ons' as upsells. Evaluate carefully — if you don't have the volume to maintain them, you may be paying for a liability rather than a benefit.
The alternative to a dedicated IP is ensuring you're on a quality shared pool with strong ESP policies that vet and monitor all senders.