Should you pause all sending immediately?

Pause decision framework:

Pause all marketing if:

Major blocklist listing

Severe reputation collapse (Gmail "Bad")

Complaint rates over 1%

Active abuse incident

Selective pause if:

Problem isolated to specific segments

Only certain providers affected

Moderate reputation decline

Continue transactional if:

Transactional streams not affected

Using separate IP/subdomain

Critical business operations depend on it

Consider:

Continued bad sending makes recovery harder

Total pause may cause business disruption

Balance risk against operational needs

Pausing buys time for diagnosis without making things worse.

Stop the damaged ship from sailing further. Decide which cargo must still move.