Client Overview
A well-established loyalty program provider supporting over 100 enterprise clients and managing email communications for millions of end users. Each client's rewards program relies on timely, trusted email notifications — welcome sequences, account updates, reward reminders — all of which directly drive customer engagement and retention.
The client's environment included:
- 100+ active domains
- 4 dedicated IPs through SendGrid
- Hundreds of ongoing automations and transactional campaigns
- A mix of new and legacy sending infrastructure
They're a 20-year-old company with strong partnerships across energy, telecom, insurance, and financial industries — and their email channel is the core of their customer experience.
The Problem
Despite using reputable tools and strict opt-in programs, their deliverability had fractured.
- Dozens of domains were landing in spam or suffering degraded reputations.
- Bounce rates spiked unpredictably across different programs.
- Shared IP pools were overloaded and unevenly warmed.
- There was no centralized view of domain health, engagement performance, or authentication integrity.
- Email design, coding, and delivery processes were inconsistent between teams.
- Customers were missing critical transactional emails — a serious problem for a company built on loyalty communications.
The Approach
This was a high-complexity project requiring coordination, structure, and consistent communication across multiple stakeholders. The goal: stabilize, standardize, and scale.
1. Assessment & Mapping
- Conducted a full audit of all sending domains, DNS records, IP assignments, and deliverability performance.
- Classified each domain by volume, sender reputation, engagement score, and authentication health.
- Built a single master inventory of 100+ domains and their associated systems.
2. Infrastructure Strategy & Planning
- Designed a new logical structure to rotate domains across IP pools based on sending volume and reputation.
- Created warm-up and recovery frameworks for secondary domains.
- Reviewed and optimized SPF/DKIM/DMARC configurations globally, closing gaps across multiple registrars and DNS hosts.
3. Monitoring & Feedback Systems
- Implemented centralized monitoring (Google Postmaster, InboxAlly, GlockApps, MXToolbox) for cross-domain visibility.
- Built recurring reporting for deliverability, engagement, and IP health.
- Established alerting and feedback loops to proactively address anomalies.
4. Collaboration & Governance
- Set weekly strategy and progress meetings with internal team members to define roles and accountability.
- Provided technical training and documentation so their staff could maintain long-term control of the system.
- Guided the team through remediation workflows, warm-up schedules, and reputation management best practices.
The Outcome
Within 90 days:
- 50+ domains fully recovered from poor reputation to strong/neutral standings.
- All 4 dedicated IPs stabilized, warmed, and balanced across volume tiers.
- Bounce rates dropped dramatically; false positives became nearly nonexistent.
- Deliverability normalized across all clients, with consistent inbox placement and predictable engagement metrics.
- Clear, documented system for scaling new programs — including automated reputation tracking and proactive monitoring.
Today, their internal team can launch, monitor, and maintain email programs confidently, with technical governance built into every step of the process.
"We've engaged a number of professionals through Upwork, and I can confidently say John's the best we've ever worked with.
He helped us tackle an incredibly complex project — improving deliverability, optimization, and measurement across hundreds of campaigns and domains — and taught our team how to manage it moving forward.
Organized, proactive, and collaborative, John always went above and beyond. He showed real investment in our success and helped us accomplish every goal. Our results speak for themselves."
— Director of Technology, Loyalty Program Provider (Confidential)