agent-playbooks/falah-store-campaign-deliverability-sop.md

🧪 Empirical Campaign Pre-Flight & Canary Test Report

Date: October 13, 2026
Store URL: https://store.falahos.my
Methodology: Zero-Assumptions Empirical Validation (Code assertions, Seed Inboxing, MX Probing, and 25-Lead Canary Batch)

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1. Executive Summary: What the Tests Proved

By transitioning from gut-feel dispatches to a rigorous Empirical Test Protocol, we uncovered the exact technical mechanisms that previously sabotaged campaign telemetry and deliverability:

flowchart TD
    A[Cold Email Campaign] --> B{Pre-Flight MX Verification}
    B -- "No MX (Dead Domain)" --> C[SKIPPED: Saved Sender Reputation]
    B -- "Valid MX" --> D{Recipient Mail Provider}
    D -- "Google / Gmail / Workspace" --> E[250 OK: DKIM Signed & Delivered]
    D -- "Microsoft / Outlook / O365" --> F[550 REJECT: Spamhaus IP Filter Blocked]
    E --> G[Sample Preview PDF Download]
    G --> H[Polar 30% Pre-Applied Checkout]

Key Empirical Findings:

1. The Tracking Black Hole Explained: Previous scripts called raw wp_mail() without FluentCRM's tracking pixel (?fluentcrm=1&route=open) or click redirection tokens. Thus, FluentCRM showed 0 opens and 0 clicks purely because telemetry was never instrumented.
2. Microsoft / Office 365 Blocks Server IP: Recipient domains hosted on Microsoft Exchange / Outlook (e.g., yale.edu, corporate domains) reject emails from host 13.140.161.244 via Spamhaus (550 5.7.1).
3. Google Workspace & Gmail Accept 100%: Postfix DKIM (s=default, d=falahos.my) signs every message, and Google MX (aspmx.l.google.com & gmail-smtp-in.l.google.com) accepts them with 250 2.0.0 OK in under 0.8 seconds.
4. List Quality Filter: 10 out of 10 sampled synthetic sisters domains in List #47 had dead DNS MX records. Our pre-flight verification successfully caught and skipped all 10, preventing reputation penalties.

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2. Pre-Flight Verification Matrix

Test Component	Target / Route	Verification Method	Result	Status
Interior PDF 1	/wp-content/uploads/samples/falah-budget-planner-sample.pdf	HTTP HEAD curl (3,642 bytes)	HTTP 200 OK	PASS
Interior PDF 2	/wp-content/uploads/samples/amanah-home-sample.pdf	HTTP HEAD curl (3,511 bytes)	HTTP 200 OK	PASS
Discount Checkout 1	/buy/budget-planner	302 -> Polar API session	$9.09 (was $12.99, 30% off)	PASS
Discount Checkout 2	/buy/amanah-home	302 -> Polar API session	$20.99 (was $29.99, 30% off)	PASS
Seed Control Delivery	wanjauhari@gmail.com	Live SMTP transmission	250 2.0.0 OK (0.75s latency)	PASS
DKIM Authentication	s=default, d=falahos.my	OpenDKIM milter log	Added signature field	PASS

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3. Canary Batch Execution (Campaign #18 — 25 Contacts)

A controlled 25-contact canary run was executed with throttled delivery (3.0s delay between sends) and full FluentCRM pixel instrumentation.

Breakdown of the 25 Canary Contacts:

• Total Evaluated: 25 contacts
• Dead MX Skipped: 10 contacts (100% of tested synthetic @muslimmama* domains caught prior to transmission)
• Delivered (250 OK): 11 contacts (Google Workspace / IIUM students)
• Bounced by Outlook Filter: 4 contacts (yale.edu Microsoft Outlook tenant via Spamhaus)
• Hard Errors / Crashes: 0

Live Server Postfix Telemetry Log:

# Google Workspace Delivery (Clean 250 OK):
postfix/smtp: to=<nasser@iium.edu.my>, relay=aspmx.l.google.com[142.251.127.27]:25, 
delay=0.88, status=sent (250 2.0.0 OK 1791876704 ffacd0b85a97d-48de23b567esi4479714f8f.243 - gsmtp)

# Microsoft Outlook Delivery (Spamhaus Filter Block):
postfix/smtp: to=<natalie.mcdonald@yale.edu>, relay=yale-edu.mail.protection.outlook.com[52.101.9.84]:25, 
status=bounced (550 5.7.1 Service unavailable, Client host [13.140.161.244] blocked using Spamhaus)

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4. Empirical Scaling Rules

Based strictly on the data gathered from this test, future campaigns must adhere to the following empirical rules:

1. Provider-Aware Routing:
   • Filter lead batches to target Gmail and Google Workspace addresses (gmail.com, aspmx.l.google.com), where our DKIM/SPF setup has 100% acceptance.
   • Route Microsoft/Outlook/Hotmail recipients through an external authenticated SMTP relay (such as Mailgun or cPanel authenticated SMTP) instead of the bare IP.
2. Mandatory MX Pre-Filtering:
   • Any list before dispatch must pass automated checkdnsrr($domain, "MX") to eliminate non-existent synthetic addresses.
3. Always Include Native Tracking:
   • All email dispatches must use Helper::injectTrackerPixel() and tracked link URLs so telemetry is captured in real time.