IP pool
A group of sending IP addresses managed together, typically one pool per type of mail, so the reputation of one stream does not affect another.
What it means
AWS SES lets senders group dedicated IPs into dedicated IP pools. Its common example is one pool for marketing and another for transactional email, so a marketing campaign that draws many complaints does not affect delivery of transactional mail. SES also offers a shared pool used by all customers.
ESPs use pools in the same way at a larger scale. Microsoft 365 is an example on the outbound side: its high-risk delivery pool is a separate set of IPs used only for outbound mail judged to be spam, so the normal pool keeps its reputation and stays off blocklists.
Pools separate reputation by IP; DKIM signing domains and subdomains separate it by domain, which follows the mail if the IPs change.
Related terms
On this site
Sources
What this definition rests on. The wording is ours; the facts are theirs.
- Amazon SES: Creating dedicated IP poolsdocs.aws.amazon.com
- Microsoft Learn: High-risk delivery pool for outbound messageslearn.microsoft.com
All 432 terms in the glossaryThe wiki: blocklists and bounce codes