It’s no secret that LinkedIn sends a lot of emails, but what folks might not know is that we observe a set of dates on which we do not send certain classes of email (for example, invitation reminders). These dates are compiled on a per-country basis once a year by the BizOps team and reflect major holidays in those countries. We also observe a handful of blackout dates that are global as opposed to per-country, and there is one 8-day stretch in particular that is static/“fixed” every year - 12/24 through 12/31, and 1/1 (of the following year). Here’s what that looks like:
The reasons for this are both Members First - let our members enjoy the holidays without getting Yet Another Email from us - as well as metrics-related. For the most part, the emails that we would have sent on those dates are held back and sent out immediately following the blackout when folks are much more likely to both see and act upon those emails. In the absence of a blackout date click-through rate (CTR) would basically tank on, say, Christmas Day.
So…if you didn’t know before, you know now: not only do LinkedIn employees get a week of company shutdown during the end-of-year holidays, but so
does our email infra (at least in part).