How to Prepare an Email Account for Cold Email Sending

Refresh Your Email Account When conducting a cold email campaign, email deliverability is critical. According to ReturnPath’s analysis, more than 20% of emails never make it to the inbox. At SalesHandy, we frequently see fresh email accounts used for cold email campaigns being stopped as soon as the campaign begins.

The issue is that the new email accounts are not being warmed up. With Google’s spam change in January 2019, it’s becoming more difficult to enter the inbox, as the majority of emails are now designated as spam. To avoid this, it is critical to exactly warm up your new email account before engaging in serious cold email outreach.

In this blog, I’ll describe how to warm up an email account prior to sending cold emails, ensuring that your message reaches the inbox rather than the SPAM folder.

What is a “Warm-up” email? The email warm up process is used to establish a fresh email account’s reputation and boost the email sending limit. The warm-up procedure entails sending emails from a new email account, beginning with a small number and gradually growing each day.

When a user establishes a new email account, the email service provider limits the user’s daily email sending. However, a new account will be unable to use it entirely. For instance, Google offers 2000 emails a day with a G Suite subscription. However, from day one, you are not permitted to transfer it all; you are given a reduced restriction. To fully utilize it, you must first establish a positive reputation, which may be accomplished through email warm-up.

Ideally, it should take between 8 and 12 weeks to achieve optimum deliverability. The email is prepared more quickly depending on the volume of emails and the level of participation during the warming process. If the recipient involvement level is too low, the email warming may take longer than planned.

Why is Email Warming Critical? Email warming is a process that must be followed in order to establish a reputation and increase delivery rates. It is critical to ensure emails land in inboxes when planning a large volume cold email campaign with a fresh account.

The first step in a cold email campaign is to reach the recipient’s mailbox. Once there, having a positive engagement can help you develop a more meaningful relationship. If the email is thoroughly warmed up prior to being sent cold, it will bypass the spam filter, arrive in the inbox, and have a better open rate.

Without further ado, let’s dig in and learn how to warm up an email account before sending cold emails in order to optimize your email account’s efficiency, sender reputation, and email deliverability.

How to Prepare an Email Account Prior to Sending a Cold Email

  1. Verify Your Account The first step in creating a new email account is account authentication. Authentication protects your account from SPAM filters and ensures that your emails get in the inbox.

There are four critical components to email authentication:

SPF SPF (Sender Policy Framework) is an authentication approach that establishes a record in your DNS (Domain Name System) that identifies all the servers permitted to send emails on behalf of a domain. When the recipient’s ESP detects SPF Authentication on the sender’s side, it gives the sender’s domain a clean bill of health.

DKIM DKIM (Domain Keys Identified Mail) is an authentication method that associates your domain with a digital signature, preventing email spoofing and ensuring that your email reaches the intended recipient.

DMARC DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting, and Conformance) records to use your SPF and DKIM records to reassure the recipient’s email service provider (ESP) that the email is not the result of deceptive activity.

Personalized Domain By including a custom domain in your emails, you may increase the authenticity of your links and documents. This requires both the sender and his ESP to verify the authenticity of the links and documents.

What are SPF and DKIM Records and How to Configure Them?

  1. Send Customized Emails The email warming method begins with manually sending emails to friends and coworkers in order to initiate a conversation. To begin, you should send ten to twenty separate emails from your new email account. Assure that the initial emails have constant engagement, as this will aid in increasing the volume of the emails. As the volume of interaction increases, your email service provider gains confidence in your authenticity and progressively prepares your email account for email campaigns.

Ensure that you are sending emails to a variety of email services during this manual procedure, including Gmail, Yahoo, Outlook, iCloud, Godaddy, Zoho, Aol, Exchange, and Yandex. This will assist you in establishing a positive reputation with all major email service providers’ spam filters.

PS: When using the manual approach, use a personalized subject line to ensure a better response.

  1. Keep Conversation Threads Going Email accounts are not just for sending messages; they should also receive responses. To maximize deliverability, it is critical to create engagement in your warm up emails. Therefore, initiate the dialogue by sending emails from your old accounts and responding to them from the new one.

Here, having some regular interactions is critical, as this is an ongoing process that lasts between 8 and 12 weeks. Therefore, if possible, incorporate your new email address into your website’s contact form and promptly respond to inbound emails to increase your conversation rate.

This straightforward procedure demonstrates to the email service provider that your email actions are genuine. The continuous email dialogue progressively builds your email sending quota and qualifies your account for mass emailing, such as sending 1000s of emails at once.

  1. Register for Newsletters If you work in sales, marketing, recruitment, or any other industry, you’re likely to receive weekly emails from a variety of publications. Subscribing to a minimum of 10-15 newsletters is a good start. Each newsletter requires confirmation; thus, return to your mailbox and complete each subscription. It will authenticate your account and boost your email inbox’s capacity. Receiving emails on a consistent basis is just as critical as sending emails to warm up your fresh email account.

  2. Preserve a time difference between two consecutive emails Each email service provider uses a unique algorithm to verify the delivery and receipt of emails. Therefore, demonstrate to those algorithms that you are not a robot by avoiding sending too many emails at once. If you send a large number of emails in a short period of time, this will have an effect on your domain’s reputation.

Therefore, the best method to avoid this is to maintain a significant time difference between two emails while warming up your new account. Avoid sending an excessive number of emails in a single session; this activity triggers spam filters, which may result in your account being temporarily or permanently blocked.

  1. Create a Customized Test Campaign (Using SalesHandy) After 12 weeks of human warming, SalesHandy will ready your account for automated email campaigns. Nonetheless, it’s prudent to begin small and uncomplicated. Begin with a modest list of 20-30 reliable receivers, supplemented by friends and coworkers to ensure a response.

Customize Your Email When your primary objective is to warm up your email account, you must convince your receivers to open and respond to your email. Personalizing your email will suffice.

Create as personalized an email as possible using SalesHandy Mail Merge. Additionally, design a customized subject line to get the highest open rate. The tailored message is crucial to eliciting responses.

warm-up-email-account-merge-tags FOR FREE, SEND YOUR FIRST PERSONALIZED EMAIL CAMPAIGN–TRY SALESHANDY Attempt to Avoid Spammy Content By including spam in your emails, you increase your account’s vulnerability to SPAM filters. Avoid utilizing terms such as FREE, GRAB, 50%, etc. in your emails, as these will draw the attention of SPAM filters.

Avoid sending anything that will have a negative impact on your sender’s reputation. To ensure the best delivery, keep the information clean, straightforward, and plain, with a limited amount of links.

Include an Unsubscribe Link Even if you’re sending a test email to a tiny list, it’s a good idea to include an unsubscribe link in the email. While you’re warming up your email account, you should eliminate any potential of the recipient spamming you. Even one spam report against a newly created account might have a detrimental effect on your reputation.

By including an unsubscribe link in your emails, you provide your receivers the option of receiving your emails or not. This function not only delights your recipients, but also protects your emails from SPAM filters.

  1. The Most Effective Bonus Practices Adhering to the best measures outlined above for warming up an email account prior to sending cold emails can assist you in activating your account’s vast list of cold email campaigns. I’ve included some additional bonus ideas below that can assist you in maintaining your sender reputation and email deliverability.

Write as a genuine human being would. Utilize restricted links in your email content and choose an email service provider intelligently based on your requirements Utilize a restricted number of media files, such as photographs, movies, and GIFs. Steer clear of automation during email warmups. Utilize an email campaign solution such as SalesHandy to ensure that your cold email campaigns are sent in the most effective manner possible.

Final Remarks The entire system is designed to weed out spammy stuff. Adhering to best practices demonstrates to algorithms that you are a genuine human being, not a spammer.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, remember that it is easier to develop a favorable reputation as a sender than it is to improve the reputation of a spammer.