What is Smart sending?
Smart sending is a setting that skips sending a message to a person who has already received another message within a set recent window.
It exists to prevent fatigue. If someone received a flow email an hour ago, a campaign scheduled for the same afternoon is skipped for them rather than stacking on top.
It is useful by default, but some messages should bypass it, such as a time-sensitive transactional-style update where the customer expects the message regardless.
Because skipped recipients are not an error, they can look like missing sends. When a campaign reaches fewer people than expected, smart sending is one of the first settings to check.
A worked example.
Suppose a gift shop sends a flash campaign on the same day many customers start checkout. Some of them already received an abandoned cart email that morning, so smart sending skips the campaign for them, and the shop sees a smaller delivered count than the list size suggests.
Common mistakes.
- Turning it off for every message without a reason
- Not realizing skipped recipients explain a lower send count
- Scheduling many campaigns in one day and expecting full reach
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