Email Service Administration & User Guide Last updated on: December 29, 2020

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Contents Introduction ..............................................................................................................................5 Deliverability .............................................................................................................................5 Email Address Collection ............................................................................................................6 Reputation ................................................................................................................................6 Using Your Own Domain ............................................................................................................7

Add and Authenticate Your Own Domain ............................................................................7 Rich Content ............................................................................................................................ 10 Sending Frequency and Timing................................................................................................. 10 Sunset Policy ........................................................................................................................... 11 IP Pools ................................................................................................................................... 11 Reports ................................................................................................................................... 12

Reports Column Descriptions............................................................................................ 15 Summary ................................................................................................................................. 17 Resources ................................................................................................................................ 17

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Introduction At ICE Mortgage Technology, we want our clients to get the most out of our products. When it comes to marketing emails, our mission is to ensure the highest Inbox delivery and open rates. While there is no way to control what email providers like Gmail, Yahoo! and Microsoft do with emails that are sent to their subscribers, ICE Mortgage Technology has upgraded the Velocify email system in 2020 to improve your ability to reach your recipients’ Inboxes successfully. New tools are available to detect which leads are engaging with emails, which can help inform how you decide to whom you should send emails. Better visibility to email performance across different templates and web mailbox providers lets you see how your email campaigns are performing. Improving email Inbox delivery rates can sometimes be more of an art than a science. There are multiple factors that impact your Inbox rates, and every mailbox provider is different. ICE Mortgage Technology provides clients access to industry-wide best practices that experts recognize as the most likely methods to gain an email advantage. By following the recommendations in this guide, you will be increasing the probability that your leads will read and respond to your emails. The best overall approach uses a combination of methods and practices to achieve gradual improvement. It can often take 90 days or more to see a noticeable change, but it could be quicker depending on various factors. The bottom line: don’t expect radical improvement overnight; do expect incremental improvement over time.

Deliverability Successful email deliverability is your email arriving in the Inbox of your recipient as intended. Failed email deliverability is when your message is either routed to the junk/bulk/spam folder or is completely blocked by an Inbox provider. Maintaining consistent, successful email deliverability is a constant challenge facing any business that relies on email communications. Unfortunately, most companies don’t think about email deliverability until they experience a major issue—like when thousands, or even millions, of emails fail to arrive. Businesses falsely assume that an email is delivered if they don’t receive a bounce notification; the reality is very different. According to Return Path’s 2018 Deliverability Benchmark Report, 85% of global recipient mail is delivered to the Inbox, while only 83% of mail from the United States makes it to the Inbox. This means 15% of global email, and 17% of United States email, doesn’t make it to its intended Inbox- even though recipients are looking for it! You might think these statistics only reflect marketing emails or spam messages, but that’s not the case. In fact, these statistics reflect ALL email. Messages like:

o Membership confirmations o Password resets o Shipping notifications o Monthly or weekly newsletters o Opt-in confirmations o Marketing emails sent to interested parties

Imagine all the time and effort put into crafting email content, subject lines, and a great design, just for the Inbox provider’s filter to block your message!

Getting to the Inbox requires a lot of attention and effort from any sender. Not only does your sending reputation greatly impact delivery, but your email authentication and infrastructure can make or break even the best email program. ICE Mortgage Technology’s Velocify email upgrade automates as much of the email workflow as possible to get you the best results, out-of-the-box, with minimum attention required. This guide arms you with all the knowledge you need to navigate the deliverability landscape and get your messages to the Inbox.

Email Address Collection Even before sending emails, it is important to ensure that the email addresses you are collecting are from bona fide prospects. Talk to your lead providers and ascertain that they are using best practices to prevent bots from registering dummy leads with fake emails. If you do end up sending to bogus email addresses, this can raise the attention of mailbox providers, and it will be critical to remove those leads as soon as possible.

If you have your own website where leads express interest in your products, we recommend you take all the steps you can to capture legitimate leads and reject fake ones. A best practice is to use a Captcha in your web application forms, such as Google Recaptcha.

Reputation The first step to better email deliverability is to ensure you are known as a good sender. Sender reputation is determined by a wide variety of factors, including:

o Recipient Engagement o Email Content o Spam Complaints o Spam Traps o Email Addresses

While each of these contributes to how Inbox providers perceive you, the best thing to keep in mind is how recipients are interacting with your emails. When your recipients are opening, reading, and clicking on your messages, Inbox providers know that your messages are wanted.

A strong sending reputation, like a great brand or personal reputation, is hard to earn, easy to lose, and built over time. The following are key factors that Inbox providers consider when determining your sending reputation.

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Using Your Own Domain There are good reasons to use a domain that you own for sending your Velocify marketing email to your leads. You can purchase a domain from your favorite Internet Service Provider (ISP). Alternatively, you may already be using your own domain for sending emails (sometimes referred to as “white labeling”). NOTE: Your leads may be suspicious if they do not recognize the domain from which your email is sent. Your best option from a familiarity point of view, is to use the domain that is synonymous with your brand, i.e. the one where you host your website. Consult with your IT and marketing departments before implementing this. If you want to use your own domain, you need to authenticate before you can use it to send your emails. After the email service upgrade, you can add and authenticate your domain in the Email Settings tab. NOTE: If you choose not to use your own domain, a domain will be set up on your behalf in the format <client-name>.securesend.org. The steps in this section only apply if you are using your own domain. Add and Authenticate Your Own Domain NOTE: Instructions documented in this section are primarily for Velocify LeadManager. In areas where there are discrepancies between LeadManager and LoanEngage, separate instructions for LoanEngage have been provided.

1. Log in as an administrator, click your name on the top right corner of the page, and from the Preferences menu, click Client Settings.

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For LoanEngage, log in as an administrator, point to the Menu tab, point to Preferences, and then click Client Settings.

2. In Client Settings, click the Email Settings tab.

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3. In the Domain column, type your domain name in the field, and then click Add.

4. In the Options column, click the Options link corresponding to your domain, and then click View DNS Records.

o For each DNS record, you will see a name, type, Host, and Data entry. The entries will be highlighted in red (as shown below) until the domain has been authenticated.

5. Log in to your ISP's website and enter the information for the five DNS (Domain Name System) records so that it matches the Domain Details from the Options link.

6. Back in the Email Settings tab, click the Authenticate link corresponding to your domain.

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After you successfully authenticate your domain, the Authenticate link will be replaced with a Verified label. (This is not an active link. Since the domain is authenticated, there is no additional action needed for this.)

Domain Details data will now display highlighted in green (as shown below) to reflect that the domain has been authenticated (i.e., DNS record was added on the ISP, and verified by Velocify).

NOTE: If something prevented the domain from completing authentication, the data will remain highlighted in red. In this case, confirm that you have entered all the information exactly as it appears in the Domain Details, and then try to authenticate again. If you continue to have trouble authenticating your domain, please contact ICE Mortgage Technology Client Support. Rich Content The new HTML email editor, introduced with the Velocify by Ellie Mae 19.4 release enables you to enrich the content of the emails you send to your leads. Research indicates that rich email content provides the following advantages:

o Leads are more likely to open, read, and engage with your rich content email. o Mailbox Providers (like Gmail, Yahoo!, and Microsoft) are more likely to deliver rich content email

to your lead’s Inbox. It is strongly recommended that you take advantage of the new email editor to create rich email templates that use graphics and links, as well as field tags, to personalize your marketing email. The richer and more personalized you can make your emails, the higher the likelihood you will connect with your intended recipient.

Sending Frequency and Timing It is recommended that you are aware of your sending frequency. If your emails are being automatically routed to Spam/Junk email folders, revise the sending frequency of your regular newsletter, special offers/announcements, and other marketing emails. Sending times can also be a factor. Web email providers are suspicious of emails that appear exactly at the top of the hour. Schedule email sends at odd times, not on the o’clock.

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Sunset Policy A crucial factor that will determine your email deliverability is the ability to identify and stop emailing leads that are not opening and engaging with your marketing email. Velocify’s Sunset Policy feature tracks each lead’s level of interaction with your email and automatically sunsets (i.e., stops) the sending of email to unengaged leads. Email mailbox providers like Gmail and Yahoo! track this metric closely, so ensuring you are only sending repeated emails to leads who are engaged will improve the likelihood that all your emails will reach their intended recipients’ Inboxes.

It is recommended that you use the Automatic Sunset Policy Type, which is pre-set for you in the Email Settings. The average open rate of all your marketing email to all your leads is calculated automatically and used to calibrate how long to keep sending emails to leads. (30 days is the recommended default period for calculating average open rate.)

If you choose the Manual Sunset Policy Type, the average open rate is not considered. Instead, each lead is allowed the number of days you specify (60 is the recommended default here), and if a lead has not opened an email in that period, they will be sunset (i.e., no further emails will be sent to them).

If you decide you do not want to take advantage of the Sunset Policy feature, simply uncheck the Sunset Policy Enabled checkbox.

IP Pools Velocify has a total of 16 IP addresses for sending your emails. This is a relatively large number based on total volume and provides ample bandwidth for you. In the near future, dedicated IP pools for marketing emails will be assigned for the following:

o High pool for Velocify users whose emails have the best reputation and open rates o Medium pool for average o Low pool for Velocify users with the least engaging emails

Prior to this update, all IP addresses were shared and used for all emails, since there was no distinction between emails with varying performance metrics (how emails were being delivered and whether leads were engaging with the emails). With the upcoming email upgrade, all clients will be initially set up within the medium IP pool. As you continue to use the email service, you will be moved to a high, low or continue with the medium IP pool, based on your click through rates, and other engagement metrics. This will help ensure promotion of good email senders, and remediate other senders to improve success rates for all.

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Reports Two new standard reports provide insight into your email metrics. These reports are available after your upgrade.

o Email Engagement by Template: This report displays each email template you use and their performance in lead engagement. You can update your templates based on the metrics.

o Email Engagement by To: Domain (sending domain): This report provides you visibility into how each webmail inbox provider is handling your emails to your leads. You may find that mailbox providers vary in their reaction to your emails. You can also track how changes to your email content and frequency impact delivery and engagement rates.

Use the data in these reports to track and monitor email performance metrics such as how emails are being delivered and whether leads are engaging with the emails.

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NOTE: If your instance has not been enabled with these updates, the two new report tabs will still display but data for the reports will not. A Coming soon message will also be displayed.

To view the reports in LeadManager, admins should click their name on the top right corner of the page, and from the Reporting menu, click Emails.

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To view the reports in LoanEngage, admins should point to Menu> Reporting> Email Reports, and then click Email Engagement by Template, or Email Engagement by To: Domain.

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Reports Column Descriptions See the table below for details on column names used in the Email Engagement by Template and Email Engagement by To: Domain reports.

Column Name Description Email Template Name Name of the Email Template used to send the email. The Email

Engagement by Template report enables you to view delivery metrics for each template used to send email to your leads.

Email Template Subject Subject of the Email Template used to send the email. Recipient's Email Provider The name of the recipient's mailbox provider, aka the "To: Domain".

Some popular web mailbox providers include gmail.com, yahoo.com, hotmail.com, outlook.com, aol.com, etc. The Email Engagement by To: Domain report enables you to view delivery metrics for each mailbox provider.

Processed Send email request has been submitted, and was received and processed by SendGrid.

Delivered Email was delivered to the mailbox provider's server and acknowledged by the mailbox provider (e.g. Gmail, Microsoft, Yahoo). This does not necessarily mean the email was delivered to the recipient inbox. Mailbox provider determines in which folder the email is saved. Some mailbox providers, e.g. Gmail, do not notify SendGrid if the email was delivered to the Spam folder.

Delivered % Percentage of emails that were delivered. Unique Open Email was opened by the recipient.

SendGrid inserts a small, transparent image into all emails that will be tracked. When a customer reads an email, their client application loads the tracking image which registers the open event with SendGrid. Not all email clients load images by default. Microsoft’s Outlook, Apple’s Mail.app, Mozilla’s Thunderbird, and Google’s Gmail do not load images. As such, there may be many occasions where recipients will have received a message, opened it, and it will never be counted as opened because there is no way to track the event. A recipient can open an email many times. Every time they open it, it counts as an "Open". Unique opens tracks how many unique individuals open an email. Typically, if an email is delivered to one recipient, as long as the recipient opens the email at least once, that will count as a unique open. Subsequent opens are not unique.

Unique Open % Percentage of emails that were uniquely opened. This is the total Unique Opens divided by total number of Delivered messages.

Click Email recipient clicked the link in the email.

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Column Name Description Click % Percentage of emails that had a link that was clicked. The “Clicks”

percentage is the total number of times your recipients have clicked on the various links within your emails, divided by the total number of Delivered messages. Note that every click is counted, even if the same link is clicked multiple times.

Drop Email was dropped by SendGrid. In certain cases, SendGrid will “Drop” a message to a specific email address to protect your sender reputation. SendGrid keeps Email Lists to track bounces, spam reports, and unsubscribes for each of our users. If you send a message to an email address that exists on one of these lists within your account, SendGrid will automatically drop the message (i.e., not send to the address).

Drop % Percentage of emails that were dropped. Hard Bounce A bounce is a message that is returned to the server that sent it.

Bounced emails are either a permanent failure to deliver the email or a temporary failure to deliver the email, based on conditions with the recipient mail server. Hard Bounces - A hard bounce is an email message that has been returned to the sender because the recipient's address is invalid. A hard bounce might occur because the domain name doesn't exist or because the recipient is unknown. If an email is on the bounce list, we will auto drop any future requests to this email address.

Hard Bounce % Percentage of emails that were hard bounced. Soft Bounce A soft bounce is an email message that gets as far as the recipient's

mail server but is bounced back undelivered before it gets to the intended recipient. A soft bounce might occur because the recipient's inbox is full.

Soft Bounce % Percentage of emails that were soft bounced. Spam Report The email recipient reported the email as spam.

Spam Reports are triggered when a customer clicks the Spam button or puts your email in their spam folder within their email client such as Yahoo, Outlook or AOL. Spam reports can only be gathered from Internet Service Providers (ISPs) that provide a Feedback loop. The Bulk Mail Folder is also called the “spam” or “junk” folder, the folder where questionable email is routed. There are many factors which determine whether or not a message lands in the Bulk Mail Folder. Each receiving mailbox server will use its own criteria to determine the quality of each message it receives. Note that this metric only counts emails that were manually moved to the spam folder, or marked as spam, by the recipient. Velocify does not get notified by mailbox providers when they automatically send emails to the spam folder, so this data cannot be reported.

Spam Report % Percentage of emails that were marked as spam by recipient.

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Summary Email delivery isn’t guaranteed. There’s no magic bullet that is going to get all of your email to an Inbox. However, most of the guidance provided in this document can be summarized with the principle:

Send the right message, to the right person, at the right time, with the right frequency.

As a sender, attempt to accomplish this with the following process:

o Right message: Send the types of messages your recipients are expecting to receive with the content they want.

o Right person: Send email to people who have explicitly asked to receive it. o Right time: Send messages when your recipients are expecting to receive it. o Right frequency: Don’t send too much email to your recipients or email them too frequently.

Resources ICE Mortgage Technology’s online help has how-to guides and documentation.

Here are a few other articles from the wide array of email information available on the internet: o Email Best Practice Guides o 5 Ways to Check Your Sending Reputation o Positive and Negative Engagement

If you have any questions about how your email is working, ICE Mortgage Technology is here to help.

Do not hesitate to reach out to our client support team. They can help you authenticate your domain, advise you on your content, assist you in optimizing your sunset policy, and review your email metrics.