MailerLite Deliverability Monitoring Plan

Date: March 2026 Related docs:

• MailerLite Accounts Spec
• Email Domain Migration Spec

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• Domains to Monitor
• Thresholds
• Data Sources
  • 1. MailerLite (primary — campaign and automation stats)
  • 2. Google Postmaster Tools (domain reputation)
  • 3. Slack alerts
• Monitoring Cadence
• Ad-hoc Monitoring via Claude Code
• Future: Automated Monitoring (optional)
• Observations
  • 2026-03-04 — First Sends from New Domains (IxDF News account)

Domains to Monitor

• power.ixdf.org
• power-for-members.ixdf.org
• news.ixdf.org
• news-for-members.ixdf.org

Thresholds

Metric	Target	Action if exceeded
Bounce rate	< 2%	Pause next warm-up batch, clean list
Spam complaints	< 0.3%	Investigate immediately, pause if not resolved
Unsubscribe rate	< 1%	Review email content and frequency
Open rate	≥ 15%	Compare to legacy baseline, investigate if lower

Data Sources

1. MailerLite (primary — campaign and automation stats)

Available via MailerLite API and MCP server. Check after every campaign send and weekly for automations.

• Campaigns: GET /api/campaigns/{id} → stats object contains open_rate, click_rate, bounce_rate, unsubscribe_rate, spam_complaints_rate
• Automations: MailerLite dashboard (automation-level stats are not fully exposed via API as of Feb 2026)
• Subscribers: GET /api/subscribers with filters — track growth, bounced/unsubscribed counts per group

Filter by segment to compare new domains vs legacy interaction-design.org sends.

2. Google Postmaster Tools (domain reputation)

Register all 4 subdomains at Google Postmaster Tools. Requires DNS TXT verification per domain.

Provides (with 24-48h delay, requires ~100+ daily messages to Gmail):

• Domain reputation: High / Medium / Low / Bad
• Spam rate: percentage of emails marked as spam by Gmail users
• IP reputation: reputation of sending IPs
• Authentication: SPF/DKIM/DMARC pass rates
• Encryption: TLS usage

Can be automated via Gmail Postmaster API (requires GCP project + OAuth).

3. Slack alerts

Use the Slack MCP server (or Slack API) to post threshold-breach alerts to the #mailerlite-migration channel (or similar).

Monitoring Cadence

Period	Frequency	What to check
Week 1–2 (≤ 500 subscribers)	After every send	MailerLite campaign stats, bounce/spam rates
Week 3–5 (500–5,000)	Daily	MailerLite stats + Google Postmaster (once data appears)
Week 6–7 (5,000–18,000)	Daily	All sources; compare new vs legacy domain open rates
Post-migration	Weekly	Google Postmaster domain reputation, MailerLite campaign trend reports

Ad-hoc Monitoring via Claude Code

Use the MailerLite MCP tools to pull stats on demand:

• list_campaigns → find recent campaigns
• get_campaign → get stats for a specific campaign
• list_automations → check automation status
• get_subscriber_count → track group/segment growth
• get_subscriber_activity → investigate individual delivery issues

Note: MCP is currently connected to the IxDF News account only. IxDF Power account stats must be checked via the MailerLite dashboard.

Future: Automated Monitoring (optional)

If manual checks become insufficient at higher volumes, build a Laravel Artisan command:

1. Pull recent campaign stats from MailerLite API
2. Compare bounce/spam/open rates against thresholds
3. Pull domain reputation from Google Postmaster API (if configured)
4. Post summary or alerts to Slack
5. Schedule daily via app/Console/Kernel.php

Observations

2026-03-04 — First Sends from New Domains (IxDF News account)

New domain campaigns (from news.ixdf.org):

Campaign	Sent	Opens	Open Rate	Spam	Unsubs	Date
Email 1: Announcement - Non-members - NEWS	24	10	41.7%	0	0	Mar 3
Nina testing (NEWS)	2	2	100%	0	0	Mar 3
Various test emails (NEWS)	~10	~10	100%	0	0	Mar 2–3

Total from new domains: ~36 emails. All clean — 0 bounces, 0 spam complaints.

Legacy domain campaigns (from interaction-design.org) for baseline comparison:

Campaign	Sent	Opens	Open Rate	Spam	Unsubs	Date
Announcement - Cancelled Members - LEGACY	91,862	33,289	36.2%	2	689	Mar 3
Announcement - Non-members - LEGACY	181,861	38,514	21.2%	0	283	Mar 3

New domain subscriber counts (segments):

Segment	Subscribers	Open Rate
🌲 News: Active Members	95	22.1%
🌲 News: Non-Members	34	30.2%
🌲 News: Canceled Members	0	—

Notes:

• Volume too low for Google Postmaster Tools data (need ~100+ daily emails to Gmail).
• Week 1 warm-up batch (200 members) has not been migrated yet — the 95 active members in 🌲 News are organic new subscribers since v5 launch.
• IxDF Power account stats not available via MCP — check dashboard separately.