Scheduling, Batching, and Delivery Pacing

When you send an email to your church, you can send it right away or schedule it for later. For big lists, Churchday also spreads delivery out on purpose so your emails keep arriving in inboxes instead of spam folders. This article explains what you will see and why.

Before you begin

You need permission to send email for your church.
Finish writing your email first. You can send yourself a test copy before this step.

Send now or schedule for later

Click Send in the email composer. The Send campaign window opens and shows who will receive it.
Review the recipients. Churchday shows how many people are eligible to receive this email.
Choose Send now or Schedule. These are the two buttons near the bottom of the window. Send now delivers it immediately. Schedule sends it at a future date and time.
Pick a date and time. If you chose Schedule, a Send date and time picker appears. A note reminds you that "Times are in your local timezone. Audience is resolved when the campaign sends."
Confirm. Click Send to [number] recipients for an immediate send, or Schedule to lock in your chosen time.

A scheduled email can still be edited

Once an email is scheduled, a blue banner appears above the editor that reads "Scheduled for [date and time]. Edits save until it sends," along with a Cancel schedule button.

Any edits you make before the send time are saved automatically.
Click Cancel schedule to stop it and return the email to a draft.
Because the recipient list is figured out at the moment it sends, anyone you add to the group before then is included automatically. You do not have to reschedule to catch new people.

Large lists are paced automatically

If your list is bigger than what can safely go out in one day, the Send campaign window shows a forecast that reads "We'll send over [number] days," with a breakdown of how many recipients go out each day.

This is deliberate. Sending a very large batch all at once can hurt where your emails land. Spreading them out keeps you in good standing with inbox providers like Gmail and Outlook.

If you would rather send everything at once, click Send everything today instead. A confirmation window appears explaining the tradeoff. Confirm there only if you are confident, since it can affect where future emails land.

Overflow routing for churches on their own domain

If your church sends from its own email domain and that domain's daily capacity is not enough for your list, you may instead see "Sending today via overflow routing." Churchday fills your own domain's capacity first, then routes the rest through the shared churchday.co backup address so the whole send goes out today. Recipients still see your church's name as the sender, and replies still come to you.

This only applies to churches sending from a custom domain, and only when Allow overflow routing is switched on in your email settings. When it is off, large sends spread across several days instead.

If sending is blocked

If your domain's sending reputation is unhealthy, the Send campaign window shows a red banner reading "Sending is paused because your domain reputation is unhealthy," with a score out of 100 and a list of reasons.

To fix it, go to your email settings (the Settings gear on the Email page) and open the Domain Reputation card to see the detailed metrics and what is dragging the score down. Once the issues are resolved, come back and try sending again.