Cold Email Delivery Protocol

📩 Land In the Inbox Every Time

Welcome to The Outbounder 👋 A reimagined newsletter (previously advanced client). While sticking to our core we feel like this change reflects the best possible outcome for all of our subscribers. You can expect our weekly guide on the latest outbound news, strategies and insights from industry professionals to land in your inbox every Friday. This week’s edition will cover the best protocols for landing in the inbox in Q3 2023 and moving forward into 2024.

Let’s dive in 👇

Cold email crackdown?

Is this the end of cold email as we know it?

Well, let me answer it like this…

Yes & No.

With recent updates, crackdowns and attention from Google (and other service providers) on cold email, what worked easily a few months ago is struggling to work today and won’t work in 2024.

Cold email became easy and accessible to businesses in the last few years with tools like Instantly paving the way for automation.

Early adopters saw huge boosts in pipeline & deal flow without the usual overheads associated with scaling sales teams.

As more and more businesses start deploying cold emails to their prospects the more their inboxes are filling up with irrelevant spam.

The bombardment prospects are experiencing is increasing market sophistication and how jaded they are becoming.

But does this mean cold email is dead?

Yes if you plan to spray and pray your offer with irrelevant emails and bad deliverability protocols.

No, if you follow my guide below:

The Outbounder Cold Email Deliverability Protocol.

Sponsored by advancedclient.io 

1. Technicals

   I can’t believe I’m typing this in 2023… DO NOT use your primary domain and email account for cold outreach. Only use secondary domains and email accounts. My go-to set-up is 20 domains with 1 inbox each. Ensure all domains are set up correctly with DMARC, DKIM, and SPF protocols and that they all forward to your main domain.

2. Warm-up

   You should be warming your secondary domains and email accounts for a minimum of 14 days (more is better). Warm-up should never be turned off.

3. Sending volume

   Start at 20 emails/day/domain then increase by 5 each week until you hit a max of 40.

4. Copy

   Conversational copy is a must, write like a human, not a robot (post coming on this soon…). No links at all in your first email, this includes website links, signatures, whatever… Remove all spam words (use mailmeteor.com/spam-checker) from your copy. Spintax everything you can without compromising the power of your message. Use soft CTA’s that remove friction for replies.

5. Relevancy

   Ensure before you send a campaign that your leads actually have a need and use case for your product and service. This alone will reduce the number of your emails that get marked as spam by irritated prospects. Break your audience down into segments and create personalised campaigns for each one.

6. Clean data

   If you plan on using variables like company name in your campaigns, clean this before sending. Company Name LLC —> Company Name. This adds to the natural conversational nature of your campaigns.

7. Verified data

   Run your data through a list verifier like Neverbounce to clean your emails and ensure deliverability. Doing this should keep your bounce rate below 3% which is the high limit for danger. You can also recover Accept-All’s and Unknowns by using Google Sheets (post on this soon).

8. Easy opt-out

   No this doesn’t mean an unsubscribe link. Add a small message under your signature letting prospects know how they can opt out of messaging, this will reduce the amount of prospects who mark you as spam. You can also spintax this message with multiple options.

9. Do not contact the list

   Set up a list of leads who have told you they want to opt out, once added to the list you don’t contact them again. Tools like Instantly automate this for you.

These 9 steps are the core of deliverability for cold email. That being said… if you don’t have a proven offer or good product market fit, the best cold email system in the world won’t work for you.

Anything you think I missed? Reply to this email with your suggestions.

🤝 Our recommendations

• Advanced Client - Would an additional 2-4 high-quality sales calls with your ideal client profile benefit your business (Without long-term contracts or expensive monthly retainers)? Talk to our team today.

• Instantly - need a tool to launch highly volume cold email campaigns without headaches? Claim a free trial here.

• Waalaxy - Automate your LinkedIn outreach and grow your account with ease. Get a 1-month free trial here.

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See you next week 🫡