Cold Email Not Delivering? Fix These 6 Issues

If your cold emails aren’t landing in inboxes, it’s likely due to one of these six common problems:

1. Poor Domain Reputation: Email providers monitor your domain's sending habits. A bad reputation can send your emails straight to spam.
2. Wrong Email Authentication: Missing or incorrect SPF, DKIM, and DMARC settings make your emails look suspicious.
3. Spam-Triggering Content: Certain words, poor formatting, and excessive links can flag your email as spam.
4. Inadequate Infrastructure Scaling: Shared IPs or improper setups can hurt your deliverability as your email volume grows.
5. Blacklist and Spam Trap Issues: Sending to bad or outdated email addresses can get your domain blacklisted.
6. Ignoring Engagement Metrics: Low open, click, and reply rates signal email providers that your emails aren’t valuable.

Quick Fixes:

• Monitor Domain Reputation: Use tools like Google Postmaster Tools or MXToolbox to track and improve your standing.
• Set Up Authentication: Configure SPF, DKIM, and DMARC correctly to prove your emails are legitimate.
• Optimize Content: Avoid spammy words, balance text and images, and personalize your emails.
• Invest in Infrastructure: Use dedicated IPs and pre-warmed domains for better control and scalability.
• Clean Your Email Lists: Regularly remove inactive or invalid addresses to avoid spam traps.
• Track Engagement: Monitor open and click rates to adjust your strategy and improve deliverability.

Addressing these issues can boost your inbox placement rate to 95% or higher, helping you get the most out of your email campaigns.

1. Poor Domain Reputation

What Domain Reputation Means

Domain reputation is like your email domain's credit score - it determines whether your emails reach the inbox or get buried in the spam folder. Email service providers like Gmail, Yahoo, and Outlook evaluate your domain based on factors such as sending consistency, user engagement, and complaint rates. A poor reputation can stem from issues like blacklisting, spam traps, high bounce rates, excessive complaints (over 0.1%), or erratic sending habits. It's important to note that reputation isn't one-size-fits-all; Gmail and Yahoo may judge your domain differently. For instance, Google and Yahoo expect bulk senders to keep spam rates below 0.1%, and hitting 0.3% or higher can seriously harm your reputation. Warning signs include sudden delivery drops, declining engagement, authentication errors, or emails landing in spam more often than not.

To keep tabs on your domain's health, tools like Google Postmaster Tools, MXToolbox, and Sender Score are invaluable resources. If you're seeing red flags, a structured domain warming process can help you recover and maintain a solid reputation.

Solution: Use Pre-Warmed Domains

Domain warming is the process of building trust with email providers by starting with a low email volume and gradually increasing it over time. Done right, this can improve your email deliverability by up to 80%. Daniel Polacek, Online Marketing Enthusiast at Warmup Inbox, emphasizes:

"Warming up a new domain is essential to keep your emails out of the spam folder and to improve your sender reputation."

Typically, the process begins with sending just 5–10 emails daily in the first week, scaling up to 100–150 emails per day by Week 4, and gradually increasing from there. The key is consistency - sudden spikes in sending volume can trigger spam filters.

Infraforge simplifies this entire process by offering pre-warmed domains and mailboxes that are ready to go. With these, you can skip the weeks-long reputation-building phase and start sending emails immediately. They also provide automated DNS setup for SPF, DKIM, and DMARC at competitive rates, ensuring your email infrastructure is set up for success.

Comparison: Infraforge vs Competitors

Infraforge stands out by offering dedicated IPs and private email infrastructure, which isolates your sender reputation from others' actions. Many competitors, like Woodpecker, rely on shared IP systems, where your reputation could be compromised by other users’ poor practices. For example, while Woodpecker includes a built-in warm-up tool and email verification in partnership with Bouncer, their shared infrastructure introduces risks that are beyond your control.

Feature	Infraforge	Woodpecker
IP Type	Dedicated	Shared
Domain Control	Full private control	Limited by shared system
Setup Process	Automated DNS configuration	Manual setup required
Reputation Risk	Isolated to your sending	Affected by other users
G2 Rating	5.0/5	4.1/5 (48 reviews)

With Infraforge, your reputation is entirely in your hands, allowing you to benefit fully from strong sending practices. This level of control is a game-changer, especially when scaling your cold email campaigns. Plus, their automated setup eliminates technical hurdles, so you can spend less time on infrastructure and more time crafting emails that connect with your audience.

2. Wrong Email Authentication Setup

How SPF, DKIM, and DMARC Work

Email authentication is a critical shield against spam filters and email spoofing. The trio of protocols - SPF, DKIM, and DMARC - work together to ensure your emails are genuine and haven’t been tampered with. Without these protocols, your emails might look suspicious to service providers, increasing the risk of being flagged or rejected.

SPF (Sender Policy Framework) is like a guest list for your domain. It specifies which IP addresses and servers are authorized to send emails on your behalf. When an email reaches its destination, the recipient's server checks your SPF record to verify the legitimacy of the sending server.

DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail) takes it up a notch by attaching a digital signature to your outgoing emails. This cryptographic signature guarantees the integrity of the message and confirms it originated from your domain.

DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting & Conformance) ties everything together. It builds on SPF and DKIM by instructing receiving servers on how to handle emails that fail authentication - whether to deliver, quarantine, or reject them. DMARC also provides reports, giving you insights into unauthorized domain use.

The stakes are high. The FBI has identified Business Email Compromise (BEC) as a $50 billion scam. Without these safeguards, spammers can impersonate your domain, harming your reputation and causing legitimate emails to end up in spam folders. To simplify this process, Infraforge offers a fully automated DNS setup, taking the guesswork out of email authentication.

Solution: Automated DNS Setup

Manually setting up SPF, DKIM, and DMARC is a minefield of potential errors. Configuring these protocols requires precise DNS TXT record entries, where even a small mistake can disrupt email delivery. For example, an SPF record might look like this:
"v=spf1 ip4:64.34.183.84 ip4:64.34.183.88 include:mmsend.com -all".

SPF records are limited to 10 DNS lookups, DKIM requires 2048-bit keys with rsa-sha256 encryption and regular key rotation, and DMARC policies should start at p=none before transitioning to quarantine or reject. Studies show that 75% to 80% of domains with DMARC records struggle to enforce them properly.

Infraforge simplifies this entire process with its automated DNS setup. From day one, it configures SPF, DKIM, and DMARC correctly, handling every technical detail - key lengths, signing algorithms, lookup limits, and policy progression. This eliminates the risk of syntax errors or misconfigurations that could disrupt your email flow.

When you switch email providers or add new sending sources, Infraforge automatically updates your DNS records. This ensures your authentication settings stay current, preventing issues where legitimate emails are blocked due to outdated configurations.

Setup Comparison Table

Here’s how manual setup stacks up against Infraforge’s automated solution:

Setup Method	Time Required	Technical Expertise	Errors	Ongoing Maintenance
Manual DNS Setup	4–8 hours	High (DNS, cryptography)	35–40%	Monthly updates needed
Infraforge Automated	5 minutes	None required	<1%	Fully automated
Competitor Tools	2–3 hours	Medium (guided setup)	15–20%	Semi-automated

Manual setups are prone to errors that can take days to diagnose and fix. For instance, one small business saw its emails marked as spam due to missing SPF records and a misconfigured DKIM setup. Once they correctly implemented all three protocols, their email deliverability improved significantly.

Proper email authentication can lead to up to a 10% improvement in deliverability after achieving DMARC enforcement. Infraforge ensures this process is seamless. With automated configuration, ongoing maintenance, and continuous monitoring, you can focus on creating impactful email campaigns without worrying about the technical hurdles.

3. Email Content That Triggers Spam Filters

Crafting poor email content can doom your message to the spam folder. With 160 billion spam emails sent daily, spam filters have become increasingly sophisticated, flagging nearly one in five emails as spam. To improve your chances of reaching your audience, it’s essential to refine your email content.

Common Spam Trigger Words and Phrases

Spam filters are designed to detect suspicious content patterns, and certain words or phrases can instantly raise red flags. These fall into a few key categories:

• Financial and monetary terms: Words like "earn", "discount", "financial freedom", "easy money", and "million dollars" can make your email look suspicious. Even legitimate phrases like "best rates" or "cash bonus" might get flagged.
• Urgency and scarcity language: Phrases such as "limited offer", "act now", "exclusive", and "while supplies last" often mimic high-pressure sales tactics used by spammers.
• Marketing and sales promotions: Terms like "free", "buy now", "special promotion", "winner", and "giveaway" are frequently flagged, especially if overused.
• Exaggerated claims and hype: Words like "miracle", "amazing", "incredible", and "life-changing" suggest over-the-top promises that spam filters often associate with junk mail.

Context plays a huge role in how these words are interpreted. As Yaroslav, a Deliverability Expert at Mailtrap, explains:

"Spam filters nowadays are beginning to pay more attention not just to specific spam words as might have been the case previously but also to the overall reputation of the sender and the engagement generated by email recipients."

Formatting issues also contribute to spam triggers. Emails with ALL CAPS, excessive punctuation (e.g., !!!), too many links, or image-heavy designs without enough text can be problematic. A balanced text-to-image ratio of 60% text and 40% images is generally considered safe.

Solution: Content Analysis Tools

Infraforge simplifies the process of creating spam-safe emails by offering tools that analyze and optimize your content. Instead of relying on manual reviews, which can miss subtle triggers, Infraforge’s system continuously adapts to the behavior of major email providers.

The content analyzer identifies risky elements in your drafts, such as trigger words, poor formatting, or excessive links, and offers actionable suggestions. For example, rather than flagging "free consultation" as a problem, it might recommend using alternatives like "complimentary consultation" or "no-cost consultation" to maintain the message's intent without triggering spam filters.

Real-time spam testing is another powerful feature. It simulates how different email providers might treat your message, allowing you to address issues before sending. The tool also evaluates link density and HTML formatting to ensure compliance with spam filter requirements, catching issues like overly image-heavy emails or too many redirects.

Unlike basic spam checkers that focus solely on obvious triggers, Infraforge goes a step further by understanding context. For instance, it recognizes that "investment" might be appropriate in financial services emails but problematic in a general outreach campaign.

Before and After Content Examples

Infraforge’s analyzer applies its insights to transform high-risk content into optimized, deliverable messages. Here’s an example:

Before (High Spam Risk):
Subject: FREE Consultation - URGENT! Limited Time Offer!!!
"Congratulations! You've been selected for an EXCLUSIVE opportunity to earn AMAZING profits with our REVOLUTIONARY system. Act NOW before this INCREDIBLE deal expires! Click HERE for instant access to our MIRACLE solution. Don't miss this ONCE-IN-A-LIFETIME chance to achieve FINANCIAL FREEDOM!"

After (Optimized for Delivery):
Subject: Quick question about your marketing strategy
"Hi [Name], I noticed your recent expansion into the Northeast market and wanted to share how we helped a similar company increase their lead generation by 40% in that region. Would you be interested in a brief conversation about your current marketing challenges? I can share the specific approach we used - no strings attached."

The optimized version removes spam triggers like urgency language, excessive capitalization, and exaggerated claims. Instead, it focuses on personalization, clear metrics, and a professional tone, all of which are more likely to pass spam filters and resonate with recipients.

4. Poor Email Infrastructure Scaling

When your cold email campaigns start to expand, your email infrastructure needs to grow with them. Relying on shared IPs or basic setups can hurt your deliverability, leading to emails that never make it to the inbox. This is where scalability becomes a challenge, and dedicated resources - like those provided by Infraforge - can make all the difference.

Shared vs. Dedicated IP Addresses

As your email volume increases, the choice between shared and dedicated IP addresses becomes a critical factor. With a shared IP, multiple senders use the same IP address, meaning your sender reputation is tied to the behavior of others. If someone sharing your IP sends to unverified lists or ignores bounce rates, your emails could be flagged, even if your practices are sound. Shared IPs are typically fine for those sending fewer than 100,000 emails annually, as email service providers manage the reputation for you.

On the other hand, dedicated IP addresses are exclusively yours. This gives you full control over your sender reputation - an essential advantage when sending over 100,000 emails per month. With consistent sending practices, you can build a strong reputation with major providers like Gmail and Yahoo.

Solution: Invest in Dedicated IP Addresses

To handle the challenges of scaling, Infraforge offers dedicated IP addresses for $99 per month. This investment ensures your high-volume campaigns reach their intended recipients. Infraforge also takes care of the IP warming process automatically, gradually increasing your email volume to establish trust with ISPs. This automated approach helps you start off on the right foot with a strong reputation.

Additionally, maintaining predictable sending schedules, monitoring bounce rates, and properly configuring SPF, DKIM, and DMARC settings are key to success. Infraforge simplifies much of this process and offers multi-IP provisioning. By distributing your email volume across several dedicated IPs, you reduce the risk of overloading a single IP and avoid triggering spam filters.

IP Address Comparison Table

Here’s a quick breakdown of the differences between shared and dedicated IP addresses:

Factor	Shared IP	Dedicated IP
Monthly Cost	Usually included in basic plans	$99/month (via Infraforge)
Bounce Rate Control	Limited (affected by other senders)	Full control (bounce rates typically below 2%)
Reputation Risk	Higher (due to shared users)	Lower (isolated reputation)
Setup Complexity	Easy (ready out of the box)	Requires warming up
Volume Suitability	Best for low volumes (<100,000 emails/year)	Perfect for high volumes (>100,000 emails/month)
Scalability	Limited to shared resources	Scales effectively with dedicated resources
Deliverability Consistency	Unpredictable (depends on others)	Reliable (based on your practices)

Dedicated IPs not only offer better control over your email reputation but also provide cleaner and more accurate performance metrics. By isolating your practices, you’ll get a clearer picture of open and bounce rates, making it easier to scale your campaigns. With strong authentication protocols and a dedicated infrastructure, you can ensure consistent deliverability as your email needs grow.

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5. Blacklists and Spam Trap Problems

Blacklists and spam traps can wreak havoc on your cold email campaigns, often without you even realizing it. These silent threats can damage your sender reputation and block your emails from reaching inboxes. To keep your deliverability intact, it’s essential to understand how these issues work and how to steer clear of them.

Spam traps are special email addresses created by ISPs and anti-spam organizations to catch spammers. They fall into three categories: pristine traps (addresses never used by real people), recycled traps (old addresses that were once active), and typo traps (addresses with common errors, like “gmial.com” instead of “gmail.com”). These addresses never opt into mailing lists or engage with emails, so sending to them signals poor list management or questionable data practices. The impact can be severe - hitting a spam trap can slash your deliverability by up to 50%. Pristine traps, in particular, can cause the most damage.

Blacklists, on the other hand, track domains and IP addresses with bad reputations. Well-known blacklists like the Spamhaus Block List, Barracuda Reputation Block List, and SpamCop maintain databases of flagged senders. If your domain or IP ends up on one of these lists, your emails could bounce or land in spam folders across multiple providers. High bounce rates and complaints often trigger blacklisting. For instance, in November 2024, Clearout.io reported that a major e-commerce company hit multiple spam traps due to an outdated email list, leading to a 20% drop in open rates and fewer conversions.

Solution: Real-Time Monitoring

To protect your campaigns, proactive measures are key. Services like Infraforge offer real-time blacklist monitoring, which scans your domains and IPs against major blacklist databases and sends instant alerts if issues arise. This allows you to take action quickly, minimizing damage. Regularly checking your domains against Spamhaus, Barracuda, and SpamCop can help you catch problems early. Blacklist listings are often caused by factors like excessive spam complaints, sending to unsubscribed users, or inheriting a previously blacklisted IP.

If you find yourself blacklisted, here’s what to do:

• Identify the cause of the issue.
• Clean up your email list and remove problematic addresses.
• Ensure proper email authentication (like SPF, DKIM, and DMARC).
• Submit a removal request to the relevant blacklist.

Routine email list cleaning can boost deliverability by up to 20%. To avoid spam traps, focus on maintaining a clean list by using double opt-in methods, removing inactive addresses regularly, and avoiding purchased email lists. Segmenting your audience based on engagement can also help you weed out risky contacts before they cause trouble.

Fast action is critical. Platforms like Infraforge can reduce downtime significantly, helping you recover from deliverability issues in days instead of months. Their real-time monitoring works seamlessly with deliverability optimization strategies, giving you a solid defense against blacklists.

Once you’ve submitted removal requests, patience is key. Keep monitoring your reputation and stick to the best practices that helped you recover.

Blacklist Recovery Time Table

Blacklist Service	Average Recovery Time	Removal Process	Success Rate
Spamhaus	24-72 hours	Automated form	85%
Barracuda	2-5 business days	Email request	78%
SpamCop	1-3 business days	Online form	82%
SURBL	24-48 hours	Email verification	80%
URIBL	2-7 days	Manual review	75%

6. Ignoring Email Engagement Metrics

Once you've tackled technical issues and resolved blacklist problems, the next step is to focus on tracking user engagement. Why? Because even if your emails are authenticated and sent from a clean IP, poor engagement can still hurt your deliverability. Engagement metrics are what determine whether your emails make it to the inbox - or get lost in the dreaded spam folder.

If recipients consistently delete your emails without opening them, mark them as spam, or simply ignore them, internet service providers (ISPs) take notice. These actions send a clear message: your content isn't wanted. Over time, this damages your sender reputation. As Charlie Wijen, Digital and CRM Specialist at Philips, noted after improving their engagement tracking:

"We are clear there's a straight-line relationship between better inbox placement performance and Philips' program revenue. We also now have a deep understanding of what affects our deliverability and why, which has improved our engagement levels significantly."

A 2023 Statista study revealed that 45.6% of emails ended up in spam folders, and poor engagement is often the root cause. When open rates drop and click-through rates stagnate, ISPs interpret this as a lack of interest from recipients. This creates a vicious cycle where fewer emails land in inboxes, further reducing engagement.

Key Email Engagement Metrics

ISPs monitor several key metrics to evaluate email engagement, including open rates, click-through rates, reply rates, bounce rates, spam complaint rates, and unsubscribe rates. Positive signals - like recipients opening emails, clicking links, spending time reading, or moving emails from spam to the inbox - boost your sender reputation. On the flip side, negative actions like marking emails as spam, deleting them without reading, or having a high number of inactive subscribers can hurt your reputation over time.

The numbers paint a challenging picture. Open rates dropped from 36% in 2023 to 27.7% in 2024, and the average response rate for cold emails is just 5.1%. However, adding advanced personalization to cold emails can significantly improve results, with response rates jumping to 18% compared to 9% for generic emails.

For businesses that excel at email marketing, the rewards are clear. These companies generate 50% more sales-ready leads while reducing costs by 33%. With email marketing delivering up to $42 for every $1 spent on targeted campaigns, improving engagement metrics isn't just a nice-to-have - it's a business necessity.

Solution: Centralized Analytics Dashboard

Tracking engagement metrics across multiple campaigns and email accounts can be overwhelming, especially as your outreach efforts scale. That's where Infraforge's Masterbox dashboard comes in. It offers real-time tracking of all your engagement metrics in one place, making it easier to stay on top of performance.

The platform monitors open rates, click-through rates, reply rates, and bounce rates across all your email accounts simultaneously. This unified view helps you identify engagement issues early, allowing you to take corrective action before they impact your sender reputation. For example, if one of your domains starts showing declining engagement, you can quickly investigate and adjust your strategy.

Real-time monitoring is essential because engagement problems can spiral out of control. If your open rates fall below industry benchmarks, ISPs are more likely to filter your emails into spam, further reducing engagement. Infraforge's dashboard alerts you to these trends, giving you time to address issues before they escalate.

Beyond problem-solving, the dashboard also helps you identify what’s working. You can analyze subject lines that drive the highest open rates, pinpoint email templates that generate the most replies, and determine the best times to send emails based on your audience's behavior. This data-driven approach eliminates guesswork, making optimization efforts more effective.

For cold email campaigns, the dashboard tracks metrics tailored to B2B outreach. You can monitor reply rates by industry, gauge engagement across different levels of personalization, and evaluate the performance of follow-up sequences. Since follow-ups can increase reply rates by nearly 50%, having visibility into sequence performance is crucial.

Additionally, the platform integrates engagement data with deliverability metrics, showing how improvements in engagement directly impact inbox placement. This connection helps you measure the return on investment (ROI) of your efforts and focus on changes that will have the biggest impact on your campaigns.

Industry Engagement Benchmarks

Understanding how your engagement metrics compare to industry standards can help you identify areas for improvement and set realistic goals. In 2024, the average open rate across industries stands at 22.04%, with a click-through rate of 6.04%.

Cold email campaigns typically see lower engagement. An open rate between 15% and 25% is considered acceptable, while click-through rates average around 3.67%. These numbers vary based on factors like industry and approach. For instance, decision-makers in B2B industries often receive over 10 cold emails per week, and most of these are irrelevant, which explains lower engagement rates.

Conversion rates, however, are the ultimate measure of success. A conversion rate above 2% is solid, while anything over 5% is exceptional for most B2B industries. Cold email conversion rates typically range from 1% to 5%, so even small improvements can have a significant impact on revenue.

Timing also plays a big role in engagement. Monday sees the highest open rates at 20%, making it a strategic day to send emails. And with 81% of emails now opened on mobile devices, ensuring your emails are mobile-friendly is critical.

Unsubscribes are another metric to watch. While some level of unsubscribing is normal, 44% of recipients cite high email frequency as their reason for opting out. This highlights the importance of pacing your outreach to maintain engagement over time.

Conclusion: Fix Your Email Delivery Problems

Cold email delivery issues can take a toll on your business. With 16.9% of emails never making it to inboxes and 46% failing to reach their intended targets, the financial impact is undeniable. Addressing these six common issues is essential to protect your bottom line.

Problems like poor domain reputation and weak engagement metrics often snowball, creating a vicious cycle. Missed inboxes lead to lower engagement, which further harms your sender reputation. Tackling these factors together is the only way to break the cycle and improve performance.

Even though email campaigns can deliver an impressive $36 return for every $1 spent, poor deliverability can wipe out those gains. On the flip side, improving deliverability can increase sales-ready leads by 50% and reduce costs by 33%.

Start by prioritizing email authentication. Implementing SPF, DKIM, and DMARC protocols is no longer optional. As one expert put it:

"SPF, DKIM, and DMARC have changed from 'nice-to-haves' to foundational parts of any successful email marketing campaign".

Without these measures in place, even the most compelling content won’t reach its audience.

Another key step is investing in dedicated infrastructure. Shared IP addresses and generic email providers might seem like an easy option, but they often come with baggage - reputation issues caused by other users. With dedicated infrastructure, you gain full control over your sender reputation, making it easier to hit the ideal cold email deliverability rate of 95% to 98%.

Monitoring is equally important. Email delivery isn’t a one-and-done task. Keep a close eye on your lists, complaint rates, and overall performance to catch and resolve issues before they escalate.

For businesses looking to scale their outreach, platforms like Infraforge offer the tools you need. From advanced infrastructure to robust monitoring capabilities, they help maintain high delivery rates. As Rahul Lakhaney, former VP at Gartner and now CEO at Enrich.so, shared:

"During my time at a Fortune 500 company and now across all our products, Infraforge has been my go-to solution for Email Infrastructure. Its deliverability and impact are unmatched. If you're serious about outreach and want the best tool in the market, Infraforge is the only choice."

Take action now: audit your email setup, fix authentication issues, clean up your lists, invest in dedicated infrastructure, and monitor your performance regularly. With the right tools and strategies, like those offered by Infraforge, you can achieve a 95–98% deliverability rate and see a dramatic improvement in your cold email campaigns. Don’t let delivery problems eat into your revenue - address these challenges head-on and watch your results soar.

FAQs

How can I boost my domain reputation to keep cold emails out of spam folders?

To boost your domain reputation and keep your cold emails out of spam folders, start by setting up SPF, DKIM, and DMARC protocols. These authentication tools verify that you’re the legitimate sender and help protect your domain from spoofing, which can seriously damage your reputation.

It’s also crucial to keep your email list clean by regularly removing invalid or inactive addresses. This minimizes bounce rates and helps you avoid spam complaints. Consider using a custom domain or subdomains for different email campaigns to better manage your sending reputation.

Lastly, make sure you’re targeting recipients who are genuinely interested in your emails, and avoid using language or content that might trigger spam filters. By sticking to consistent, high-quality practices, you’ll earn trust from email providers and improve your deliverability over time.

What’s the difference between SPF, DKIM, and DMARC, and why are they important for email security?

Understanding SPF, DKIM, and DMARC

SPF (Sender Policy Framework) specifies which mail servers are authorized to send emails on behalf of your domain. This helps prevent email spoofing by ensuring only approved servers can send messages from your domain.

DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail) adds a digital signature to your emails, verifying that the content hasn’t been altered during transit. It’s like a seal of authenticity, confirming the message genuinely came from you.

DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting & Conformance) works as the glue between SPF and DKIM. It provides instructions on how to handle emails that fail authentication checks, offering an extra layer of security.

These protocols are essential for safeguarding your domain against email fraud. They not only protect your reputation but also improve email deliverability and foster trust with recipients. By implementing SPF, DKIM, and DMARC, you build a strong defense against phishing and spam, ensuring your emails land where they’re meant to - your recipients’ inboxes.

How can I track and improve engagement to ensure better cold email deliverability?

To improve cold email deliverability, it’s important to keep an eye on key engagement metrics like open rates, click-through rates, response rates, and bounce rates. Regularly analyzing these numbers can help you understand trends and pinpoint areas where adjustments might be needed. Also, take note of how recipients interact with your emails - details like how much time they spend reading can provide valuable clues about their level of interest.

Another essential step is maintaining a clean email list. Remove inactive or invalid addresses to reduce bounce rates and safeguard your sender reputation. You can also try A/B testing different subject lines or email content to figure out what resonates most with your audience. Even small tweaks can lead to noticeable improvements in engagement and ensure your emails land in the right inboxes.

Related posts

• Cold Email Deliverability: 7 Ways to Avoid Spam
• How to Set Up Dedicated IPs for Email Outreach