Is using an internal audience to artificially inflate engagement during IP warming a good practice?
Matthew Whittaker
Co-founder & CTO, Suped
Published 3 Aug 2025
Updated 16 Aug 2025
7 min read
When launching a new email program or migrating to a new IP address, IP warming is an essential process. It's how internet service providers (ISPs) learn to trust your sending habits and deliver your emails to the inbox, rather than the spam folder. The goal is to build a positive sender reputation gradually, by sending increasing volumes of email to engaged recipients over time. This mimics natural sending behavior and signals to ISPs that your mail is legitimate and wanted by its recipients.
However, sometimes brands face challenges during warming, such as emails landing in spam folders at major providers like Gmail and Hotmail. In such situations, I've seen clients propose a tactic to artificially inflate engagement. This typically involves creating an internal audience of volunteers who agree to open and click every email sent during the warming phase. While this might seem like a quick fix, it carries significant risks that can undermine your long-term deliverability efforts.
The illusion of artificial inflation
The allure of quick fixes
The idea behind using an internal audience is straightforward: to demonstrate high engagement to ISPs. The thought is that if a significant percentage of recipients consistently open and click, it will signal that the mail is desired, thereby improving inbox placement. This seems particularly appealing when legitimate engagement from your target audience isn't meeting expectations, leading to spam folder delivery during crucial warming periods.
However, this approach is fundamentally flawed. ISPs are highly sophisticated and constantly evolving their algorithms to detect manipulative practices. They look at a multitude of signals, not just opens and clicks from a small, consistent group. These signals include list quality, complaint rates, spam trap hits, and the overall sending pattern compared to the sender's historical performance and the behavior of similar senders.
Attempting to game the system with artificial engagement can create a short-term illusion of improved deliverability. You might see a temporary bump in inbox placement. However, this success is fragile and unsustainable, potentially setting you up for severe long-term problems once the artificial audience is removed or detected.
The repercussions of artificial engagement
Why artificial engagement backfires
ISPs are adept at identifying anomalous behavior. They can distinguish between genuine, organic engagement and forced, manufactured interactions. Factors like IP address, sending domain, content, and subscriber engagement history are all cross-referenced. If a small, fixed group of IP addresses consistently opens and clicks every email at specific times, while the broader audience remains unengaged or flags messages as spam, it's a clear red flag.
Once detected, the consequences can be severe. Your IP address or sending domain could be blocklisted (or blacklisted). This could lead to a sudden and drastic drop in deliverability, with emails going directly to spam or being outright rejected. Recovering from such a reputation hit is a lengthy and challenging process, far more difficult than warming an IP correctly from the start. It can also permanently damage your domain reputation.
Moreover, relying on an internal audience means you're not getting a true picture of your actual list's engagement. This can lead to skewed data and poor strategic decisions. When this artificial audience is eventually removed, the true engagement metrics will plummet, potentially triggering a negative response from ISPs who observe a sudden drop in positive interactions. This is why IP warming best practicesemphasize organic growth.
The risks of artificial warming
While an internal engagement strategy might offer a momentary boost during IP warming, it fundamentally misrepresents your true sender reputation. This can lead to a false sense of security regarding your email deliverability, as the metrics you're observing are not indicative of how your actual recipients interact with your mail.
Ultimately, ISPs are looking for consistent, organic engagement from a diverse, legitimate audience. Anything that deviates from this natural pattern, especially in a way that suggests manipulation, can trigger spam filters and result in long-term deliverability issues. It's crucial to understand that there are no shortcuts to building a solid sender reputation.
Sustainable warming strategies
Building genuine sender reputation
Instead of seeking artificial boosts, the focus should always be on legitimate and sustainable IP warming strategies. This means building a highly engaged subscriber list from the outset, ensuring your content is relevant and valuable, and meticulously segmenting your audience to send to your most active users first.
When you embark on IP warming strategies, prioritize sending to your most engaged subscribers who are already opening and clicking your emails. This natural engagement will send strong, positive signals to ISPs. Gradually increase your sending volume and expand to less engaged segments as your reputation solidifies. It's a slower process, but it builds a robust and trustworthy sender profile.
Maintaining a clean and healthy email list is also paramount. Regularly remove inactive or unengaged subscribers to prevent negative feedback loops and reduce the likelihood of hitting spam traps. Pay close attention to bounces and suppress those addresses immediately. A high bounce rate is a strong negative signal to ISPs.
Furthermore, ensuring your email authentication protocols like SPF, DKIM, and DMARC are correctly configured provides a foundational layer of trust. These protocols help verify that your emails are legitimately from your domain, preventing spoofing and further strengthening your sender identity.
Artificial warming
Relies on a small, controlled group of users (e.g., employees) to open and click emails during the IP warming phase.
Perceived benefit: Attempts to quickly inflate engagement metrics.
Risk: High risk of detection by ISPs leading to severe deliverability penalties like being put on a blacklist (or blocklist).
Outcome: Short-term gains followed by potential long-term damage to sender reputation.
Genuine warming
Involves sending emails to your most engaged and legitimate subscribers, gradually expanding to broader segments.
Benefit: Builds real, sustainable sender reputation based on true audience engagement.
Strategy: Focuses on content quality, list hygiene, and adherence to email authentication standards.
Outcome: Ensures long-term inbox placement and avoids reputation pitfalls.
Monitoring and adapting
Ongoing deliverability strategies
Even after IP warming, ongoing monitoring of your email deliverability metrics is crucial. Keep an eye on your open rates, click-through rates, unsubscribe rates, and especially your complaint rates. Tools like Google Postmaster Tools (GPT) provide valuable insights into your sender reputation with Gmail, including spam rates and IP/domain reputation data.
Being listed on a public blacklist (or blocklist) is another critical indicator of deliverability issues. Regular blocklist checks and prompt delisting requests are essential for maintaining a healthy sending reputation. Proactive measures, such as implementing DMARC policies at quarantine or reject, can also help protect your domain from abuse and improve deliverability.
Metric
Significance for deliverability
Actionable insights
Open rate
Indicates subscriber interest and engagement.
Low rates might suggest poor audience targeting or irrelevant content. Focus on engaged segments.
Click-through rate (CTR)
Reflects content relevance and call-to-action effectiveness.
Higher CTRs signal strong positive engagement to ISPs. Optimize your content and calls to action.
Complaint rate
Crucial negative signal. High rates lead to reputation damage.
Keep below 0.1%. Monitor Postmaster Tools and promptly remove complainers.
Bounce rate
Indicates list hygiene issues and invalid addresses.
Minimize bounces by regularly cleaning your list and suppressing invalid addresses.
Views from the trenches
Best practices
Focus on gradually increasing volume to genuinely engaged subscribers.
Prioritize sending to your most active segments first during warming.
Maintain excellent list hygiene by regularly removing inactive or invalid addresses.
Common pitfalls
Attempting to artificially inflate engagement with internal audiences.
Sending to unengaged or old segments during initial warming phases.
Ignoring complaint rates or high bounce rates, which signal problems.
Expert tips
IP warming is a marathon, not a sprint. Patience and consistent adherence to best practices yield the best long-term results.
ISPs are increasingly sophisticated. They prioritize genuine user interaction over engineered metrics.
A small, highly engaged list is far more valuable for warming than a large, unengaged one.
Expert view
Expert from Email Geeks says many spammers utilize artificial engagement services, and various third-party companies will sell this tactic, which some dubious businesses also have employees do. Google has access to all data and is very aware of these methods.
2021-04-22 - Email Geeks
Expert view
Expert from Email Geeks says spam placement during a warmup is sometimes deliberately done by the provider to see if their users will move the email out of spam. It's important to understand actual spam rates.
2021-04-22 - Email Geeks
The path to genuine deliverability
Using an internal audience to artificially inflate engagement during IP warming is a risky strategy that I strongly advise against. While it might offer a fleeting sense of improvement, the sophisticated detection mechanisms of ISPs mean it's likely to be discovered, leading to severe and long-lasting damage to your sender reputation. This can result in your emails being blocklisted or consistently directed to the spam folder, undermining all your email marketing efforts.
The path to reliable email deliverability is built on authentic engagement, robust list hygiene, and adherence to email best practices. Focus on delivering valuable content to an engaged audience, and your sender reputation will naturally grow stronger, ensuring your messages consistently reach the inbox.
