Before a big holiday email, make sure pages are cached, the landing page is light, the plan's limits are known, the email goes out in batches, and the host's support number is at hand.

Nine in the morning, sale day

The holiday email goes out at nine. By ten past, a few thousand people have opened it on their phones, and many of them tap the button at once.

On a normal day the website serves a visitor every minute or two. Now it is being asked for hundreds of pages within a few minutes.

Pages slow to a crawl, then an error appears: the site is unavailable, or a resource limit has been reached. Customers who were ready to buy close the tab.

The same can happen after a mention on the radio or a story in the local paper, without the warning a scheduled email gives.

Why a small plan struggles

A basic hosting plan is sized for ordinary traffic, and its limits are rarely mentioned in the advertising.

Simultaneous processes are the limit sale days usually hit first. Only so many pages can be built at the same moment, and every visitor beyond that waits or sees an error.

What each visit costs

On a site built with WordPress or a similar system, every page is assembled when someone asks for it. The server runs code, queries the database and stitches the result together.

That takes a fraction of a second, which is nothing for one visitor and a great deal for two hundred arriving together.

Carts and checkouts are the heaviest pages of all, because they differ for every customer and cannot simply be reused.

Caching does most of the work

Caching means saving a finished copy of every page and serving that, rather than assembling the page afresh for each visitor.

A properly cached sale page can be served to a great many people with little effort from the server, which leaves the heavy work for carts and checkouts.

Most sites have a caching plugin or a cache provided by the host. What matters is that it is switched on, configured for the shop, and actually serving the sale pages.

Get that confirmed in writing by the person who maintains the site before the email is scheduled, not on the morning itself.

Make the landing page light

The page the email links to will be the busiest on the site, so it deserves the most attention.

Resize its photographs to the size they are shown at. Remove anything loaded from elsewhere that is not needed that day, such as social feeds, chat windows and video backgrounds.

Keep the number of products on it sensible. A page listing two hundred items is slow for everyone, not just on sale day.

Check the email's own images too. If they are stored on your website, many of the opens ask your server for them.

Send it in batches

Some mailing services can send a campaign gradually, in batches over an hour or two, rather than to everyone at the same moment.

Spreading the sends spreads the visits. The same number of people arrive, but not in the same five minutes.

If yours cannot, split the list into a few segments and schedule them half an hour apart.

A worked example

A chocolate maker that sells from its own shop front and online sends one holiday email a year, announcing its Christmas boxes to everyone who has ordered online or signed up in the shop.

Last December the email went out at nine on a weekday. Within minutes the site slowed, and then visitors saw an error saying the account had exceeded its resources.

The site sat on an entry-level shared plan with no caching, and the email linked to a page showing every product with full-size photographs.

Nobody in the shop knew which company hosted the site. The login was in the inbox of the person who had built it, and the error lasted until the rush faded on its own.

This year the site has page caching that has been tested on the sale pages, resized photographs, and a landing page of twelve boxes rather than the whole catalogue.

The email is set to go out in batches over two hours. The host's support number and the account details are on a card by the till, and the plan can be raised for the month with one call.

Know the plan before the day

Find out which plan the site is on and what its limits are. The control panel usually shows recent usage, and support can say whether the site has hit its limits before.

Ask whether the plan can be raised temporarily for December, how quickly, and at what cost.

Tell the host about the sale in advance. Some will watch the account or suggest changes, and at worst the conversation happens before the problem rather than during it.

Who to call at nine on sale day

Write down, in one place the whole team can find, who hosts the site, the account number or support PIN, the support phone number and hours, and who looks after the site day to day.

Have someone watch the site for the first hour after the email goes out, on a phone and a computer, with permission to make that call.

Agree in advance what happens if it falters: pause the remaining batches, raise the plan, or switch the landing page to a simpler version.

The counter-case

A business with a few hundred subscribers, or a site already on a well-configured plan with caching, may never come near these limits.

A permanently bigger plan is not always necessary either. Many sites need extra capacity for a few days a year, and caching plus batching covers most of it.

But a business that does not know its plan or its host should find out before the email, not after. Cache the pages, lighten the landing page, send in batches and keep the number at hand.

The week before the email

  1. Find out who hosts the site and on which plan.
  2. Ask about the plan's limits and temporary upgrades.
  3. Confirm caching is serving the sale pages.
  4. Resize the photographs on the landing page.
  5. Schedule the email in batches.
  6. Write down the support number and account details.
  7. Name someone to watch the first hour.

Step one has to happen before any of the others. A business that does not know who its host is cannot ask about limits, cannot upgrade, and cannot call anyone when the error appears.

A site that is fine but unreachable for a different reason is described in when a DNS provider goes down.

Frequently asked questions

Why does a big email slow the website?

Because many readers click within minutes, and a basic plan can build only a limited number of pages at once. Visitors beyond that limit wait or see errors.

Does unlimited bandwidth mean unlimited visitors?

No. Bandwidth is about the total data sent over a month. On sale day the limits that bite are processor time, memory and the number of pages built at the same moment.

How does caching help?

It serves visitors a finished copy of each page rather than assembling it again every time, leaving the server free for carts and checkouts, which cannot be cached.

Should the email go to everyone at once?

Not if the list is large. Send in batches over an hour or two, or split the list into segments scheduled half an hour apart.

Do I need a bigger hosting plan?

Not always permanently. Ask your host about the plan's limits and a temporary upgrade for December, and fix caching and page weight first.

What should be ready on sale day?

The host's name, account details and support number in one place, someone watching the site for the first hour, and an agreed plan if it falters.

West Coast Media Solutions Inc. provides web design, web development, hosting, digital marketing, and business consulting to organisations across Canada, drawing on more than twenty-five years in the field.

Big holiday email going out soon?

Send us the site address and the send date. We will check the plan, the caching and the landing page.

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