How to Warm Up Email Domains and Avoid the Spam Folder

Email marketing might be one of the oldest types of digital marketing, but it’s still one of the most effective ones. Having said that, there’s a pretty obvious caveat. For email marketing to be successful, your emails need to be seen, opened, and (ideally) clicked through.

But what if a large portion of your messages ends up in the spam folder? None of the above will happen, which means your email marketing efforts will go out the window. Don’t fret, though, because we have a solution to prevent this: it’s called “warming up email domains”.

Curious to find out more, and learn how to implement this process to ensure your emails always land in your recipients’ main inbox? Keep reading.

Warming Up Email Domains: What Does It Mean?

It’s no secret that email marketing is still one of the best tools for sales success. But, as we just mentioned, it only works when done properly.

And in a world where things like automation and personalization are increasingly expected by customers, any seasoned email marketer knows that it takes a lot more than putting together some nice-looking emails to succeed.

One of the main issues to consider in this case is email deliverability. After all, if your emails aren’t getting through to your recipients, how can you expect your campaigns to hit the mark? And that’s when the tactic of warming up an email domain comes in.

This approach requires establishing a positive reputation for your email domain so you can start sending out large quantities of emails without them being automatically directed to the spam folder. As you might expect, this is particularly important if you are a new business (or are using a new email domain).

Factors to Consider

While the definition of the warming-up process may seem quite simple, the process itself involves considering several factors, including:

• The content of your emails: This includes the quality of your email content (both visual and written) and the use of any spammy language.
• Your email bounce rate: This calculates the number of your emails that weren’t delivered to the relevant inboxes.
• Your email delete rate: This metric defines the number of users who moved your emails to the trash.
• Your email engagement rate: This involves the number of people who engaged with your email in some way, whether by opening it, replying to it, sharing it, or clicking on any of the links in it.
• Your spam reports: How many spam complaints does your domain get from users? This is a crucial factor to consider.
• Your unsubscribe requests: This is about the users who chose to unsubscribe from your list.

This is by no means an exhaustive list, as there are always new factors cropping up that might affect an email domain’s reputation. However, by taking care of these, you can set yourself up for success in the email marketing sphere.

The Benefits of Warming Up Email Domains

Before discussing the steps you should take to warm up your email domain, let’s talk a bit about the benefits. Below we list the top three ones to consider.

1. Improved Sender Reputation (and Recipient’s Trust)

The first benefit you’ll achieve after warming up your email domain is increased sender reputation. This is a type of metric that Internet Service Providers (ISPs) use to gauge how trustworthy a specific email sender is.

In general, a mailbox tends to trust a domain that it already has a relationship with more, which is why warming up your emails first is paramount. As you’ll see later when we explain the best practices for email warm-up, the first step you should take is to slowly increase the volume of emails that you send from your email address.

This will help the recipient become more familiar with your messages and, as a result, less likely to send them straight to the spam (or, worse, reject them altogether).

2. More Effective Cold Outreach

If you intend to use your email domain to perform cold outreach, you’re definitely going to benefit from warming up your domain first. This will help you dramatically increase your email open rate, and it might also enable you to improve other metrics, such as click-through and engagement rates.

3. Boosted Target Audience Engagement

At the end of the day, one of the most crucial advantages that you can achieve through warming up your email domain is establishing a loyal, genuine, and trustworthy relationship with your audience.

Warming up your emails will allow you to slowly and gradually build credibility, which in turn shows your recipients that you truly care about getting your message across in the best, most relevant, and most valuable way to them.

Warm Up Your Email Domains: Best Practices for Success

Whether you sell eco-friendly skincare products, sales intelligence software, or outdoor gear and camping supplies, warming up email domains will benefit your business 100%. Let’s explore five steps to enable this.

1. Configure Your Domain’s MX Record

After selecting an email domain from a trusted and reputable provider, you’re going to want to configure its MX record. This indicates to ISPs and mailboxes the origin of your message. If you configure this properly, you’ll ensure that the recipient’s email server recognizes the message and accepts it as a standard incoming email.

Skipping this crucial step may mean that your messages end up directly in the recipient’s spam, completely out of sight (and, alas, out of mind). But configuring your MX record is not the only thing you should do at this stage.

Once you’re done, remember to also set up your Sender Policy Framework (SPF) and your Domain Keys Identified Mail (DKIM) authentication. With these in place, you’ll strengthen the authenticity and trustworthiness of your email, proving that your messages come from an authorized source.

2. Understand and Respect Your Daily Sending Limit

It can be all too tempting to start your first email campaign by sending massive email blasts to hundreds of recipients. However, if you haven’t warmed up your email domain first, this will backfire.

Instead, start small. Find out how many emails you can send per day (known as your “daily sending limit”), and stick to that religiously. Slowly but surely, you will be able to increase this amount and build larger campaigns without the risk of emails bouncing back or being trashed.

3. Steer Clear from Spam-Sounding Words

As we said earlier, email content is one of the essential aspects to bear in mind when it comes to warming up your emails. After all, at a time when new types of cyber attacks continue to crop up almost daily, and the IT risk management process of many organizations is getting stronger than ever, ensuring that your emails are not seen as suspicious or malicious is vital.

These days, email spam filters are extremely elaborate and sensitive, and one of the things they look out for is spam-sounding content. You can easily find a list of spammy words online, but you should generally stay away from wording that sounds too urgent, like click-bait, or misleading.

4. Build a Small Campaign First

After configuring your email domain to increase its credibility, adhering to a specific number of emails per day, and creating high-quality content, your first email campaign should be ready to go.

One word of caution, though: don’t send your first message to a huge list of recipients. As we briefly touched on earlier, starting small is key when warming up your email domain. It’s a bit like meeting a new person and starting a friendship with them.

You don’t want to go all-in immediately, or you might appear as overwhelming and off-putting. Instead, you’ll want to get in touch with them every so often, offering valuable conversations and gradually showing them that you are a genuine person who cares about their friendship.

So, keep this approach in mind when you’re still in the early stages of email warm-up. Begin by sending only a small number of messages, keep track of the metrics we discussed above (engagement rate, bounce rate, unsubscription rate, etc.), and build on your strategy over time.

5. Look After Your Email Lists

Lastly, you’ll want to keep your email lists clean and up-to-date. This will allow you to keep open and click-through rates higher because you’ll know that the email addresses you’re targeting are actually used and active.

So, make sure you regularly monitor your email list closely, trimming it down when you realize that a specific recipient is no longer using an email address or is no longer interested in receiving your messages.

Warming Up Email Domains: Key Takeaways

Nurturing customer relations is vital for long-term business success, and it can be as simple as establishing a positive email relationship with a recipient. As we have discussed in this article, one of the best ways to achieve this is through a warming up process of your email domain.

By following the tips outlined in this guide, you’ll be well on your way to fostering your domain’s credibility, boosting your email engagement rates, and growing your business through authentic and profitable customer relations.