Dedicated Pools
A Dedicated Pool is a named group of your dedicated IPs. You don't pick individual IPs when you send. You pick a pool, and Mumara ONE spreads the email across that pool's enabled IPs.
Pools let you keep different kinds of email apart. The classic setup is one pool for marketing and one for transactional email. Newsletters and promotions can draw more complaints than receipts and password resets do, so with separate pools a bad campaign never hurts the reputation of the IPs that carry your transactional email.
Dedicated IPs and Dedicated Pools are part of the plans that include dedicated infrastructure. On other plans your email is sent from Mumara's shared infrastructure. See Mumara ONE pricing for what each plan includes.
Planning your pools
| Pool | What it sends |
|---|---|
marketing | Broadcasts, drip and evergreen campaigns, newsletters |
transactional | Order confirmations, password resets and account notices, sent through Bridges |
| One pool per brand or client | Mail for each brand you send for, so each one builds its own reputation |
A few rules shape how you plan:
- Each IP belongs to one pool at a time.
- A pool belongs to one zone, and only IPs from that zone can join it.
- A pool needs at least one IP to become Active.
If a pool carries traffic you can't afford to pause, give it at least two IPs. Then you can switch one off, for example while you look into a blocklist listing, and the pool keeps sending.
Viewing your pools
Go to Setup → Dedicated Pools.
| Column | What it shows |
|---|---|
| Pool Name | The name you gave the pool. Click it to see the pool's IPs. |
| Type | Dedicated |
| IP | How many IPs are in the pool |
| Zone | The zone the pool belongs to |
| Health | The average IP Health score of the pool's IPs, from 0 to 100 |
| Status | Active, Inactive or Underreview. See below. |
| Created on | When the pool was created |
| Sending Stats | Click the chart icon to see Total Sent, Total Delivered and Total Bounced for the pool |
| Action | Manage opens the pool's IPs, Order IP orders IPs for the pool, and Delete removes a pool that has no IPs |
| Status | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Active | The pool has at least one IP and can be used for sending. |
| Inactive | The pool has no IPs. A pool must have at least one IP address to be activated. |
| Underreview | You ordered IPs for this pool, and our team is still reviewing the order. |
While a change to a pool is being applied, a spinning gear replaces its Action menu. The Bridges button at the top of the page opens Transactional → Bridges.
Creating a pool
You can create pools once your account has at least one dedicated IP. Until then, the Add a pool button doesn't appear.
- Go to Setup → Dedicated Pools and click Add a pool.
- Enter a pool name you'll recognise, such as
marketingortransactional-eu. Use letters and numbers only, with hyphens (-) if you need them, and no spaces. - Under Select Zone, choose the zone for the pool. The list shows the zones where you have dedicated IPs.
- IP Selection Method is Random: each message goes out from a randomly chosen enabled IP in the pool.
- Click Add.
You'll see "Pool successfully created". The pool is then set up on the sending servers in the background. While that runs, the row shows a spinning gear, and Active Processes in the top bar shows "A new dedicated pool marketing is being created." See Tracking changes in Active Processes.
The new pool is Inactive until you assign an IP to it.
Assigning IPs to a pool
You assign IPs under Setup → Dedicated IPs.
- Find an IP that shows Unassigned in the Pool column.
- Click Unassigned, or choose Assign this IP to a pool from the IP's Action menu.
- In the Assign Pool dialog, choose a pool from Pools. Only pools in the IP's zone are listed.
- Click Assign.
You'll see "Assignment has been queued." When the assignment finishes, the IP shows the pool's name, and the pool becomes Active.
To assign many IPs at once, use Bulk Operations → Assign IPs. See Bulk operations.
Moving an IP to another pool
- In the IP's Action menu on Setup → Dedicated IPs, choose Reassign IP.
- Choose the new pool, then click Assign.
The IP leaves its old pool and joins the new one in a single step.
Unassigning an IP
- In the IP's Action menu, choose Unassign this IP.
- Confirm.
The IP stays on your account and shows Unassigned. It doesn't send until you assign it to a pool again. To give the IP back altogether, see Removing an IP.
If you unassign or move the last IP in a pool, the pool becomes Inactive and has nothing to send from. Before you do that, move the campaigns and Bridges that use the pool to another pool.
How long changes take
Creating and deleting pools, and assigning, unassigning and moving IPs, all run in the background on the sending servers. You can leave the page while they run.
- Most changes finish within a few minutes. Active Processes in the top bar shows each one until it completes.
- If the sending servers don't respond within 60 seconds, the change fails.
- A change that hasn't finished within 10 minutes is cancelled. The row's Action menu then comes back so you can try again.
See Tracking changes in Active Processes.
Choosing a pool for campaigns and Bridges
Campaigns
When you schedule a campaign, the list labelled Sending Nodes shows the pools your account can send through, by name. In Mumara ONE, these entries are your pools. Tick the pool the campaign should use. If you tick more than one, the campaign sends through all of them.
Bridges
Each Bridge sends through one pool. You choose it in the Pool field when you create the Bridge:
- Dedicated Pools lists your Active dedicated pools.
- Shared Pools lists any shared pools on your account.
Everything your application sends through the Bridge leaves from that pool's IPs. To send from a different pool, create a new Bridge on that pool and switch your application to its credentials. See Bridges.
Which pools are offered
Only Active pools appear when you schedule a campaign or create a Bridge.
| Pool state | What happens |
|---|---|
| Inactive (no IPs) | Not offered for campaigns or new Bridges. Existing Bridges on the pool have no IP to send from. |
| Underreview | Not offered for campaigns or new Bridges until the review of your order is finished. |
| Active, but every IP switched off | Still listed, but has no enabled IP to send from. Switch at least one IP back on. See Enabling and disabling an IP. |
| Disabled for your account by Mumara | Not offered. Contact support if you think this is a mistake. |
Deleting a pool
You can only delete a pool that has no IPs.
- Unassign or move every IP in the pool, as described above.
- On Setup → Dedicated Pools, choose Delete from the pool's Action menu.
- Confirm.
You'll see "Your request is placed successfully and is under process". Active Processes shows "The dedicated pool marketing is being removed.", and the row disappears when it's done.
To delete several empty pools at once, use Bulk Operations → Pools Delete. See Bulk operations.
A deleted pool can't be restored. Before you delete one, create new Bridges on another pool and switch your applications over to them, so nothing is still sending through the pool you're removing.
Next steps
- Dedicated IPs: order more IPs or give some back.
- Managing Dedicated IPs: reverse DNS, enabling and disabling IPs, and bulk operations.
- Bridges: connect your application to a pool.