How to Fix Your Cold Email Deliverability
When it comes to cold email marketing, one of the biggest challenges is ensuring that your emails actually reach your prospects' inboxes. If you’re struggling with low reply rates or find that your emails are landing in spam folders, it’s likely you have a deliverability issue. In this guide, I’ll walk you through a straightforward approach to identifying and fixing these problems, based on years of experience and sending millions of emails each month.
Understanding the Fundamentals
First things first—let’s talk about the basics of email deliverability. The key is to follow some fundamental practices that ensure your emails are well-received and don’t get flagged as spam. Here’s what you need to know:
Product-Market Fit: If you have a great product-market fit, your emails are more likely to get positive engagement, which in turn signals to email providers like Google and Microsoft that your messages are legitimate. However, most businesses don’t have perfect product-market fit, which makes it even more important to follow best practices for deliverability.
Secondary Domains: Never send cold emails from your primary domain. Instead, purchase multiple secondary domains to spread out the volume of emails you’re sending. This reduces the risk of your main domain being blacklisted. Tools like Outlook make it easier to manage these secondary domains with fewer lockouts and bans.
Proper Setup: Ensure that your email setup is correct by verifying your domain’s DKIM and DMARC records. You can use tools like MX Toolbox to check if everything is in order. Additionally, limit the number of inboxes per domain to two—this helps maintain a high reply rate and prevents disconnections.
The Warm-Up Process
Once your inboxes are set up, it’s crucial to warm them up properly before launching full-scale campaigns. Inboxes that go through a thorough warm-up phase tend to perform better and last longer.
Duration: Aim to warm up your inboxes for at least two weeks. If possible, extend this period for even better results.
Volume: Start with a small number of emails (5 to 20 per day) during the warm-up and gradually increase the volume. This helps build trust with email providers.
Crafting Your Emails
The content of your emails plays a significant role in deliverability. Here are some tips to keep in mind:
Plain Text Only: In your initial outreach, avoid using links, images, or even signatures. Stick to plain text emails, which are less likely to trigger spam filters.
Turn Off Open Tracking: Open tracking can sometimes harm your deliverability. Instead, focus on reply rates as a more accurate measure of engagement.
Keep It Short: Avoid sending long, detailed emails. Short, conversational emails tend to perform better and reduce the risk of being marked as spam.
Short Sequences: Limit your follow-up sequences to just two steps. Long sequences can irritate recipients and increase the likelihood of being marked as spam.
Managing Your Campaigns
Effective campaign management is crucial for maintaining high deliverability. Here’s how to do it:
Monitor Bounce Rates: Keep your bounce rate below 2%. If it exceeds this threshold, stop the campaign, verify your leads with another tool, and remove invalid addresses.
Update Your DNC List: Regularly update your "Do Not Contact" list to avoid reaching out to people who have previously unsubscribed or responded negatively. This helps prevent future spam reports.
Scale Horizontally: Instead of sending a high volume of emails from a single inbox, spread your campaign across multiple inboxes. This reduces the strain on any one inbox and helps maintain a higher overall reply rate.
When to Start Fresh
If you notice that your reply rates are consistently dropping, despite following all the fundamentals, it might be time to start fresh. Rather than spending too much time troubleshooting, consider setting up a new domain and inboxes. Domains and inboxes are relatively inexpensive, and starting over can often be the quickest solution to deliverability problems.
Conclusion
Fixing cold email deliverability doesn’t have to be complicated. By following these fundamental practices, you can significantly improve your chances of reaching your prospects' inboxes and getting the responses you’re looking for. Remember, the key is consistency—regularly monitor your campaigns, update your practices as needed, and don’t hesitate to start fresh if things aren’t working.
If you have any questions or need further guidance, feel free to reach out. Good luck with your cold email campaigns!
