Netflix and Amazon SES Case Study

Netflix needed an email solution that was flexible and affordable, highly scalable, had global reach, and promised excellent deliverability. "We believed Amazon SES could help us be elastic, that we could pay as we went along, and that we could stop worrying about optimizing settings for each ISP, and so we embarked upon a plan to test and migrate to Amazon SES," said Devika Chawla, director of engineering for Netflix's Messaging and Platform team.  

Netflix began by creating pools of dedicated IP addresses. Each of these pools was dedicated to sending a particular type of email. For example, transactional messages sent to existing customers (which carry a very low risk of being reported as unsolicited email) were sent from one pool of IP addresses, while marketing messages sent to potential or former customers (which carry a higher risk of being reported) were sent from another. By creating these dedicated IP pools, Netflix was able to isolate the reputations of different pools of IP addresses, thereby maximizing the delivery of its most critical communications.

Netflix then started routing small amounts of outbound email to Amazon SES, in order to help ISPs understand the type and volume of email they would be receiving from Netflix's dedicated IP addresses. After sending these messages, Netflix then evaluated the impact that sending from Amazon SES had on its bounce and complaint rates, its sender reputation, and its inbox placement rates. Once Netflix was satisfied that these metrics were within acceptable rates, they gradually started sending more and more email through Amazon SES. After repeating this send-and-evaluate process numerous times, Netflix was able to migrate its email sending activities to Amazon SES.  

To evaluate the effectiveness of using Amazon SES to deliver its marketing and transactional emails, Netflix worked with a third-party to gauge its inbox placement rates and sender reputation scores. The results of these analyses showed inbox placement rates exceeding 99 percent, and a reputation score of 97/100. "We felt very good given these rates and scores,” said Chawla. Delighted by these results, Netflix was able to shut down its in-house email solution and migrate 100 percent of its email sending activities to Amazon SES.

An additional benefit of Amazon SES is its ability to seamlessly integrate with other AWS services. "We are able to get feedback through Amazon SNS about deliveries, bounces and complaints. We integrated with the feedback API, took the data, and graphed it using our internal graphing systems, giving us real-time insight into our email delivery," noted Chawla.