Audience Activation Technical Launch Guide for Dealers – Fullpath Help Center

Overview

A short guide to basic performance knowledge and account warm-up expectations for dealers who have just launched Audience Activation.

Domain Warm-Up

All accounts launch with Graduated Engagement enabled — also known as Domain Warm-Up. Sending starts slowly and ramps up in batches by priority. This is done to:

Ensure deliverability
"Warm up" the email domain
Protect the dealer's reputation

How the warm-up schedule works:

Day 1 starts at 500 emails; the number doubles each day after that.
The 500/day figure includes both system and custom campaigns.
Sends start with the highest priority system campaigns first.

System campaigns get priority because their subject lines, content, and links are already established, formatted, and reputable — which protects the domain while it warms up. Custom Campaigns (Fixed or Dynamic) only become eligible to send after high-priority system campaigns have gone out.

Important: Don't send Custom Campaigns during the first 10 days of a newly launched account.

What This Means for Initial Performance

Expect engagement numbers to start slow and low, then climb as the account matures.
Almost all dealerships will still have email sent to their entire emailable customer base within the first 2 weeks, depending on contact base size./

Post-Launch Performance Basics

Engagable Contacts

Audience Activation builds Shoppers from your dealership CRM data, then places them into audiences for email and SMS campaigns. Read more about Shoppers here.

A contact is only engagable if it's:

A complete record (has an email and/or phone number)
Valid (not a typo, disconnected number, or full inbox)
Not marked Do Not Contact

Common dealership scenario:

CRM has 51,000 contacts.
39,000 of those have emails.
Of those 39,000: 13,000 are marked Do Not Contact, and 2,000 have invalid emails.
Result: only 24,000 emailable/engagable contacts.

Note: Your CRM's total contact count and our engagable contact count are different numbers. Expect engagement figures lower than your CRM total.

Learn more about eligible and engagable Shoppers when creating audiences and understanding performance.

Data Lag-Time

There's almost always a delay between:

A vehicle being sold
It being declared sold / marked DMS sold
That status reaching the dealership CRM, then Fullpath pulling it via SFTP or API (every 24 hours)

Important: This delay can range from a few days to about a week, depending on your dealership's process speed and system defaults.

Because of this lag, looking at only the first 15 days of performance data likely means missing 50% of actual sales (and some lead data too).

Best practice:

Look back at a full 30 days, not less.
The most recent 10 days of any range are likely not final yet — the same 30-day range will show more complete numbers if you re-check it 15 days later.

Attribution Window

Important: Audience Activation's sale attribution window is 90 days.

Within that window, we look for meaningful engagement that preceded a sale, such as:

Opened or clicked emails
Site visits that led to conversion
Test drive requests or other meaningful actions

These become the ROI records shown in reporting. If you only look at the first 30 days after launch, you'll likely miss leads and sales that get attributed later — once the sale is finalized and all actions are recorded. Keep this in mind when communicating initial performance to the customer.

Campaign Warm-Up

Campaigns like VDP Views or Price Drop rely on data collected from the on-site code. In the first 30 days after code goes live, there isn't much historical data yet on who viewed which VDPs or which vehicles had price drops. These audiences build up as the account matures.

Expect low engagement from these campaigns for the first two months after launch.

Weekend Engagement

Emails send daily, Monday–Friday, by default. No weekend sends unless the account is specifically configured otherwise in https://dashboard.fullpath.com/settings/nurture/general
Don't expect weekend engagement, and don't expect Monday-morning engagement for anything launched on a Friday.

Protecting Your Sender Reputation

Gmail sorts incoming mail by its content and by how each person interacts with the sender. Sales emails with offers and vehicle photos often land in the Promotions tab, no matter who sends them.

Note: Promotions isn't spam. Gmail ranks the Promotions tab by relevance and engagement.

The goal is to keep your sender reputation strong and help your relationship and service messages reach the Primary inbox.

What Fullpath Does for You

Authenticates your sending domain (SPF, DKIM, and DMARC) and verifies it before sending.
Warms up newly launched stores gradually and prevents sudden volume spikes (see Domain Warm-Up).
Stops emailing disengaged Shoppers (sunset Shoppers).
Automatically removes bounced and invalid addresses, along with addresses that have filed spam complaints.
Offers a preferences center, so Shoppers can opt out of a single category instead of unsubscribing or reporting spam. If it isn't set up for your account yet, your CSM can set it up for you.

What Your Team Can Do

Send from your own verified domain instead of the shared Fullpath domain. If you aren't already, your CSM can set this up for you.
Use plain-text templates, signed by a real person, for service and relationship messages.
Use a person's name as the sender (for example, "Mike at [Dealership]") and a Reply-To inbox that someone monitors and answers. Replies build your reputation and help placement in Primary.
Ask customers to add your address to their contacts at vehicle delivery and during service visits.
Keep custom templates light: one call-to-action, fewer images, and no ALL CAPS or "$$$" in subject lines.