How to migrate without hurting your email deliverability?

As part of migrating your contacts to SystemeScale, several key steps must be followed to ensure a smooth transition from an external autoresponder.

This includes best practices for technical setup, legal compliance, GDPR-related consent, list hygiene, email warming, and marketing performance monitoring.

1. Preparation and audit of your current database

A well-prepared list is essential for a successful migration. Before importing your contacts, take time to audit your current database.

• Export your contacts in CSV format.
• Review the available data: first name, last name, email, status, registration date, tags, and other relevant fields.
• Segment your contacts based on engagement, such as active and inactive contacts.
• Avoid importing outdated email addresses.
• Identify recent activity. If you have sent emails recently, focus first on contacts who opened your messages in the last 30, 60, or 90 days.

2. Cleaning the database before import

Once your list is properly sorted, it is important to verify the quality of the email addresses it contains.

Recommended best practices:

• Remove duplicates, inactive contacts, and invalid addresses.
• Use filters in your previous email tool to clean your list.
• If your previous tool does not provide filters, use an email verification service to avoid risky addresses such as hard bounces and spam traps.
• Keep proof of consent or opt-in. The support or deliverability team may request it.
• Respect contact statuses. Do not reactivate unsubscribed or inactive contacts.
• Ensure that tags and segments are properly assigned before import.

It is also essential to import only contacts who explicitly consented to receive your emails. This helps you stay compliant and preserve deliverability.

3. Importing student contacts from your courses

If you are importing contacts who participated in your courses but have not received emails from you in a while, the import should be gradual.

Whenever a contact is added to a course in SystemeScale, an automatic email is sent with a login link to access their course area.

To prevent a sudden spike in bounced emails caused by inactive addresses, use staggered imports instead of importing all old student contacts at once.

4. Warming up your sending address or domain

When switching email providers, a warm-up process is necessary.

Email warming means gradually training email providers to recognize and trust your new sending behavior. This helps maintain a good sender reputation and avoid spam folders.

Key warm-up steps:

• Start by emailing your most engaged contacts.
• Gradually increase the volume of emails sent each day.
• Avoid sending large batches immediately, as this may trigger blocks or spam filtering by ISPs.
• Send test campaigns to small segments.
• Monitor open rates, click rates, spam complaints, and bounce rates.
• Avoid re-engagement campaigns to inactive contacts during the initial period.
• Adjust your content or deliverability settings if needed.

Example warm-up plan for a list of 5,000+ contacts

This process is important after migration or after changing your sending tool. The goal is to build a reliable sender reputation with major email providers like Gmail and Outlook.

Objective: Prevent your emails from going to spam or being blocked by ISPs by starting with the most engaged subscribers.

• Days 1–2: Send to 500 highly engaged contacts who opened or clicked within the last 30 days.
• Days 3–4: Increase to 900 contacts, still highly engaged.
• Days 5–6: Send to 1,500 contacts, including semi-engaged contacts who opened within the last 60 days.
• Days 7–9: Send to 2,500–4,000 contacts, including moderately active users.
• Days 10–14: Send to the entire clean list, excluding long-term inactive addresses.

Alternative 10-day warm-up format

Best practices during the warm-up

1. Prioritize your most engaged contacts

Start your email sends with contacts who recently opened or clicked your emails. This sends a positive signal to ISPs by generating higher open and click-through rates.

Use segments such as opened or clicked in the last 30, 60, or 90 days.

2. Craft high-quality content

Quality content directly supports deliverability. Follow these guidelines:

• Use personalized and engaging subject lines.
• Include clear and trackable links.
• Avoid excessive capitalization in subject lines.
• Avoid overpromising or overly promotional language.
• Avoid unnecessary attachments.
• Avoid excessive special characters or symbols in titles.

3. Monitor key indicators

Watch your campaign performance indicators carefully:

• Open rate: Above 20% is generally considered a good average.
• Click-through rate: Above 2%, depending on the type of campaign.
• Bounce rate: Below 2%.
• Spam complaint rate: Below 0.1%.

4. Remove problematic addresses

Regularly clean your list by removing inactive contacts to maintain high list quality.

Consider removing contacts who have shown no activity, meaning no opens or clicks, for more than 6 months.

In SystemeScale, you can clean contacts manually or automatically using segmentation, tags, and workflows.

5. Authenticate your sends

Make sure SPF, DKIM, and DMARC are properly configured for your domain. This step may be included in the migration process unless you choose to handle it yourself.

• Use a dedicated sender address, such as news@yourdomain.com.
• Create a Google Postmaster Tools account for your domain.
• Monitor domain reputation and delivery behavior after migration.

Recommended tools

These tools can help you validate emails and monitor deliverability during migration:

• Email validation tools: NeverBounce, BriteVerify, ZeroBounce.
• Deliverability monitoring tools: GlockApps, Mail-Tester, Google Postmaster Tools.

Related deliverability and migration guides

Use the related guides below to authenticate your domain, prepare your import, create tags, and improve deliverability after migration.