Editor's note: this is one of our original deliverability articles. For the current version of our setup (secondary domains, mailbox math, and modern sending limits), read How To: Set Up Cold Email Infrastructure That Actually Lands in the Inbox.
Improving Email Deliverability to Consistently Book 3-5 Qualified Sales Meetings Per Week
Most founders don't understand how to navigate the complex world of email deliverability (if they even know that it's a problem to begin with).
Mastering email deliverability is frustrating, as the factors that impact delivery are always in flux. Therefore, it's important to be monitoring your sequences for any unexplained changes in deliverability and response rates. These dips in performance are likely due to changes in either your sending reputation or an email provider's spam policies.
Assuming that you've nailed your messaging and targeting, a high performing sequence that lands in a prospect's inbox should look something like:
- 50%+ open rate
- 15-20% reply rate
- 3-5% booking rate
Anything worse than this could indicate that your messages are not landing where they're supposed to.
Currently I'm averaging around 4 meetings booked per week from email sequences, and with a closing rate of around 25% that means I'm averaging around 4 new clients closed per month (deal sizes ranging from $5-10k ARR). Paying close attention to deliverability and constantly working to improve it has had the biggest impact on the continued success of my sequences.
So in an effort to help you navigate this nuanced topic, here are the basics that you should pay attention to:
#1: SPF, DMARC, DKIM
Do you know what an SPF record is?
Neither do I, but what I do know is that setting it up is critical if you want your prospects to see your emails.
The same goes for DMARC and DKIM: most spam filters use these records to determine the legitimacy of your message. Emails sent missing one or more of these records are not likely to land in your prospect's inbox, and can put your account at risk of being disabled or banned.
To see if you have these set up, run a quick test at mail-tester.com. When you get your results, pay close attention to section three (titled "You are/are not properly authenticated"). Setting these up will require you to go where your website is hosted and update the existing DNS records.
Here's a guide on how to do that. The walkthrough is geared towards Namecheap users, but I've found it's a very similar process if your site is hosted elsewhere (GoDaddy, Wix, etc.).
#2: Email Warmup
Warmup tools automatically send messages from your email account and then positively engage with those emails on the other end. These tools help your emails appear more legitimate by opening, replying, and removing your messages from the spam folder. All of this works towards gradually improving your sending reputation.
The problem with sending cold emails is that they don't usually get high open and response rates, especially when you're experimenting with your approach. Having a low open and response rate will gradually decrease your sending reputation.
Most email service providers will begin to filter your messages into spam if your reputation falls under a certain threshold. This process can happen fast; sometimes just a few days of lower than average engagement rates is all it takes.
The good news is that this process is reversible, so long as you give your email address a rest and let email warmup do its job. Typically it takes 1-2 weeks to bring an address back from the dead; in extreme cases it can take up to 3-4.
It's for this reason that I recommend you invest in a second email address (per sales rep) if you're planning on sending cold email outreach. This gives you a backup in case your main address needs a rest.
Additionally, warmup tools help you understand where your deliverability is trending over time, through detailed reports tracking where your messages are landing. This allows you to be more proactive when it comes to improving your sending reputation.
It's good practice to always have email warmup running, even when you're actively sending cold emails (limit the activity on your warmup tool to around 10 emails sent per day in order to leave room for the 70-80 daily cold outbound messages).
The two best warmup tools on the market right now are Warmup Inbox and Lemlist. Warmup Inbox can be tricky to set up but works decently well and is reasonably priced ($9 per address). Lemwarm is a slightly better warmup service but is more expensive ($29 per address).
Currently I'm warming up 3 different addresses for my business using Warmup Inbox.
#3: Personalization + Activity Levels
Your email service provider doesn't like it when you send out a lot of templated messages with the exact same copy. Adding one or two sentences that are relevant to your prospect to the first email is usually all it takes to continue flying under the radar.
The subsequent follow up messages can be templated, but it's wise to only send a few of these (2-3 automated follow up steps maximum). This can seem counterintuitive, because there's a lot of sales literature out there claiming that most prospects tend to convert after the 7th outreach attempt.
This hasn't been my experience, however. Usually my strongest prospects (and best customers) are the ones who immediately resonated with my message. I could book a few more meetings if I persisted longer with my prospects, but I prefer to spend my time with prospects who are eager and interested.
Reducing the number of automated follow up steps will have a positive impact on your sending reputation over time. If you feel the need to add more steps to your sequence, try mixing in LinkedIn and cold calling instead of more automated emails.
It's also important to throttle your activity to ensure that you're staying below 100 emails sent per day (remember, warmup emails also count towards this total). Many email service providers will penalize you immediately if you exceed this limit (G Suite is notorious for this).
Once your account gets penalized for exceeding the 100 daily limit, your sending reputation suffers and it usually takes a few weeks of warmup to recover.
You can get around these limits by investing in other email service providers that don't enforce daily limits. But this usually comes with the tradeoff of having lower deliverability, as those services are typically associated with spammers (not recommended).
Instead, stick with an ESP that is a bit more strict (G Suite, Outlook) in order to maximize deliverability, and buy additional email addresses when you want to ramp up activity.
Conclusion
This is a fairly complex topic, as there are a lot of other factors that go into maximizing email deliverability. This article covers the basics but ultimately only scratches the surface.
Feel free to message me if you need anything clarified or want to discuss this topic further!