Summary
Working with cold email senders and ensuring deliverability is complex, involving both technical and strategic considerations. A significant challenge is overcoming the inherent distrust associated with unsolicited emails. Experts often avoid cold email consulting due to these difficulties. Avoiding spam filters requires highly relevant, personalized, and valuable content. Building trust with mailbox providers involves warming up IP addresses, authenticating emails with SPF, DKIM, and DMARC, and closely monitoring sender reputation. Maintaining a clean email list is crucial, necessitating verification and removal of inactive contacts. Scalable personalization, legal compliance (GDPR, CCPA), and effective tracking and analysis are further hurdles. Robust complaint handling is essential, and non-compliance with guidelines leads to deliverability issues and blocking.
Key findings
- Expert Hesitation: Many experts avoid consulting on cold email due to its inherent challenges.
- Relevance is Key: Highly relevant, personalized, and valuable content helps bypass spam filters.
- Trust Building: Warming IPs and proper authentication builds trust with mailbox providers.
- List Maintenance: Regular list cleaning with verification tools protects sender reputation.
- Legal Adherence: Compliance with GDPR and CCPA is crucial for legal and ethical outreach.
- Complaint Management: Effective handling of complaints is crucial for preserving sender reputation.
- Authentication is Vital: SPF, DKIM and DMARC is key for all mail but vital for cold email
- Sender reputation: Sender reputation can have a major impact on the success of cold email
Key considerations
- Personalization Scaling: Finding a balance between genuine personalization and efficient outreach is a significant consideration.
- IP Warm-up: Implement a plan to gradually warm up new IP addresses.
- Continuous Monitoring: Regular monitoring of metrics like open rates, click-through rates, and bounce rates is necessary for optimization.
- Adapt to Guidelines: Stay informed on the latest google and major provider guidelines.
- Complaint Handling: Complaint handling systems need to be robust and complaints acted on.
What email marketers say
8 marketer opinions
Cold email deliverability faces numerous challenges, primarily revolving around building trust with mailbox providers and maintaining a positive sender reputation. Key hurdles include avoiding spam filters through relevant and personalized content, warming up IP addresses gradually, and authenticating emails. Maintaining a clean email list by verifying addresses and removing inactive contacts is essential. Scaling personalization and ensuring legal compliance with regulations like GDPR and CCPA also present significant difficulties. Finally, effective tracking and analysis of campaigns, along with swift complaint handling, are vital for continuous improvement.
Key opinions
- Spam Avoidance: Relevance, personalization, and value are crucial to bypass spam filters.
- Sender Reputation: Monitoring and maintaining a positive sender reputation are critical for deliverability.
- IP Warm-up: Gradually warming up IP addresses builds trust with mailbox providers.
- List Hygiene: Maintaining a clean email list through verification and removal of inactive contacts is essential.
- Email Authentication: Authenticating emails using SPF, DKIM, and DMARC improves deliverability.
- Complaint Handling: Complaint handling systems need to be robust and complaints acted on.
Key considerations
- Personalization Scaling: Balancing personalization with efficient outreach is a significant challenge.
- Legal Compliance: Adhering to regulations like GDPR and CCPA is necessary for legal cold email practices.
- Analytics: Effective tracking and analysis of campaign metrics are important for optimization.
- New IP Warmup: Gradually increase sending volume when using a new IP to build reputation.
Marketer view
Email marketer from Sendinblue shares that one of the main challenges of cold email deliverability is building trust with mailbox providers. They suggest warming up your IP address gradually, authenticating your email with SPF, DKIM, and DMARC, and consistently monitoring your sender reputation to ensure your emails reach the inbox.
11 Dec 2022 - Sendinblue
Marketer view
Email marketer from Mailjet explains that effective tracking and analysis of cold email campaigns can be challenging without the right tools and processes. They suggest monitoring key metrics like open rates, click-through rates, and bounce rates to identify areas for improvement and optimize your approach.
7 Jan 2024 - Mailjet
What the experts say
4 expert opinions
Working with cold email senders presents deliverability challenges stemming from a disconnect between sender practices and recipient expectations. Experts often avoid consulting on cold email due to its inherent frustrations and the difficulty in achieving desired results. Many cold emails are destined for spam folders because of practices like acquiring names without consent. Effective complaint handling is crucial, as high complaint rates negatively impact deliverability. Authentication is essential for any email but particularly vital for cold email senders.
Key opinions
- Expert Aversion: Experts often avoid cold email consulting due to inherent challenges and frustrations.
- Spam Destination: Many cold emails, especially those sent to acquired lists, are likely to end up in spam folders.
- Complaint Handling: Effective complaint handling is essential to mitigate the negative impact of high complaint rates on deliverability.
- Authentication Importance: Email authentication is crucial, especially for cold email, to improve deliverability.
Key considerations
- Recipient Expectation: Understanding and respecting recipient expectations is key to successful cold email campaigns.
- List Acquisition: Acquiring email addresses without consent is a detrimental practice that leads to deliverability problems.
- Sender Reputation: Focus on building and maintaining a positive sender reputation.
Expert view
Expert from Word to the Wise explains that authentication is key to good deliverability. She recommends that if you are sending email, you need to authenticate it. If you are sending cold email, you REALLY need to authenticate it.
2 Feb 2023 - Word to the Wise
Expert view
Expert from Spam Resource explains that one critical challenge is effective complaint handling. He notes that high complaint rates directly impact deliverability, and cold email senders need robust systems for managing and acting on complaints promptly to maintain a good sender reputation.
26 Mar 2025 - Spam Resource
What the documentation says
4 technical articles
Working with cold email senders and ensuring deliverability requires strict adherence to technical standards and best practices. Google's guidelines for bulk senders emphasize authentication (SPF, DKIM, DMARC), proper list management with easy unsubscribe options, and low spam complaint rates. Non-compliance results in deliverability issues and blocking. SPF records are essential for email authentication, preventing spoofing, and improving deliverability by authorizing sending servers. DMARC policies protect against spoofing and phishing, instructing mail servers on handling emails failing authentication checks, thus improving deliverability. DKIM is crucial for cold email, as it adds a digital signature to legitimize messages and prevent them from landing in spam folders.
Key findings
- Authentication is Mandatory: SPF, DKIM, and DMARC are essential for authenticating email and avoiding deliverability problems.
- List Management: Easy unsubscribe options and proper list management are critical for compliance and deliverability.
- Spam Complaint Impact: High spam complaint rates can lead to deliverability issues and email blocking.
- SPF Role: SPF records prevent email spoofing and improve deliverability by authorizing sending servers.
- DMARC Protection: DMARC policies protect against spoofing and phishing, improving overall deliverability.
- DKIM for Legitimacy: DKIM adds a digital signature to cold emails, legitimizing them and reducing the chance of spam classification.
Key considerations
- Technical Setup Complexity: Proper configuration of SPF, DKIM, and DMARC requires technical expertise.
- Ongoing Monitoring: Continuous monitoring of spam complaint rates and deliverability metrics is necessary.
- Reputation Management: Proactive measures to build and maintain a positive sender reputation are essential for long-term success.
Technical article
Documentation from Microsoft explains that DKIM is a must for cold email because it adds a digital signature to your emails, letting email providers know your messages are legitimate. Without it, your emails are more likely to land in the spam folder.
18 Sep 2023 - Microsoft
Technical article
Documentation from DMARC.org explains how DMARC policies help protect your domain from email spoofing and phishing attacks, which, as a result, directly relates to deliverability. By implementing DMARC, domain owners can instruct recipient mail servers on how to handle emails that fail SPF or DKIM checks, reducing the risk of malicious emails reaching recipients' inboxes. This helps build trust with mailbox providers and improves overall deliverability.
26 Nov 2021 - DMARC.org
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