One outbound sales agency owner booked a consult with me last week.
Their client accounts were in trouble – major deliverability issues.
Here are some of the points I suggested to get their campaigns performing again, that you can use as well to get more meetings purely thanks to landing in more inboxes!
Firstly, outbound email is a system, not just a writing exercise.
Most founders miss the other parts that actually make outreach work: deliverability, targeting, and robust infrastructure to stay away from spam boxes.
If you want a reliable stream of meetings, stop only focusing on your sales copy, and start fixing the plumbing.
I’ll show you four low-lift things I shared with them that you can implement today, and instantly improve your responses.
Before we get started…
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#1 Spread the risk
This is definitely the biggest gem I shared, one you can easily get done today.
Spam filters are getting more sophisticated and sensitive, so to make sure you land in the main inbox, you need to maintain an outstanding domain reputation.
As you scale outreach, don’t increase the number of emails sent per sender.
E.g. 10/day > 15/day > 25/day > 50/day…
This is a guaranteed way to burn that sender account and the whole sender domain.
(I am assuming you know that you should NEVER send cold emails from your main domain)
Keep sending volume low, ~10 emails/sender/day, and scale through buying more domains and sender email accounts.
Example:
Domain 1; 3 senders – each 10 cold emails/day + 25 warm up emails/day
Domain 2; 3 senders – each 10 cold emails/day + 25 warm up emails/day
Domain 3; 3 senders – each 10 cold emails/day + 25 warm up emails/day
etc.
Other critical element of de-risking: we recommend to keep the initial warm-up period active for 5-6 weeks, therefore substantially longer than the often sited 14 day period.
Once you launch your campaigns, never switch it off.
#2 Do frequent, detailed deliverability tests
I’ve audited dozens of campaigns that looked great on paper but never produced.
When I requested deliverability data, the sales team couldn’t produce anything.
Surprisingly, same with this agency owner.
It’s critical you constantly keep an eye on:
– Domain reputation, blacklists
– Individual sender deliverability scores (typically provided by your warm-up tool)
– Email service provider (ESP) placements, i.e. what % of emails sent to Gmail, Microsoft, Zoho or other recipient addresses are delivered in inbox vs spam
Especially the last point is important – it will inform you about ESP-specific or global deliverability issues.
Microsoft is notoriously difficult and sensitive, hence we recommend to have ESP matching enabled, where Gmail accounts are sending to Gmail accounts only, Microsoft to Microsoft, and so on.
#3 Not all blacklists are bad
Let’s be clear, most blacklists ARE bad for your deliverability, but not all.
If you notice that your responses drop, and your reputation audit shows the domain listed on a blacklist, it’s not always a reason for panic.
First, identify what blacklist, and trace the cause for inclusion.
This is important because some blacklists are harmless and don’t impact deliverability.
Some blacklists…
– List the domain because it’s newly registered. This has no direct impact on deliverability per se (but the actual age has)
– List domains as a safeguard against possible forum spamming (this usually gets resolved over time)
– And some blacklists will include your domain because of dodgy links on your main site or even a subdomain.
This will impact deliverability. However, this case is not a result of your sending history. If this happens, you need to take care of the dodgy links and request removal, and everything goes back to normal.
Main lesson here: if you notice you’re on a blacklist BUT the blacklist has no impact on deliverability, the problem is something else!
Go take care of the problem if you need to, and identify the real cause of decreased responses.
#4 Go back to basics
Deliverability is the foundation of any sales motion.
You can write the best email, but it will not matter if it lands in spam.
Make sure the basics are handled:
– Configure SPF, DKIM, and DMARC
– Warm your domain slowly
– No spam words
– No links
– Keep emails short (under 80-100 words)
– Validate your email list
– Keep bounces below 1-2%
– Domain reputation is more important than IP reputation
– Keep most of your emails unique with AI, manual research, or spintax text
– Be extra cautious about emailing Microsoft inboxes or enterprise accounts (they have their own deliverability filters)
– Provide value to get responses, but also to not annoy your prospects – so they don’t mark you as spam!
The sales agency owner didn’t stick to ALL these basics religiously, and surprise surprise, the deliverability and performance have suffered!
That’s it from me.
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