Cold Email Deliverability Checklist

📧 Email Content

• ✓ No ALL CAPS in subject or body
• ✓ No more than 1 exclamation mark per email
• ✓ No words like FREE, URGENT, LIMITED TIME in subject
• ✓ No excessive use of emojis (max 1–2 in body)
• ✓ No broken grammar or spelling errors
• ✓ No dollar/euro amounts in subject line
• ✓ No misleading "RE:" or "FW:" prefixes in subject
• ✓ Subject line under 60 characters
• ✓ No excessive punctuation (!!! ???)
• ✓ Personalised subject line or first line
• ✗ No attachments in cold emails
• ✗ No URL shorteners (bit.ly, tinyurl)
• ✗ No links to recently registered domains
• ✗ No image-only email body
• ✗ No "click here" or "buy now" language

🖥️ Sending Infrastructure

• ✓ Dedicated sending domain (not Gmail or primary domain)
• ✓ Domain age: at least 30 days old before volume
• ✓ SPF record configured and published
• ✓ DKIM signature configured and active
• ✓ DMARC record set (p=quarantine minimum)
• ✓ Custom tracking domain (not shared)
• ✓ Sending from a real company domain
• ⚠ Volume ramped correctly: start at 10–20/day, increase 10–20% daily
• ⚠ New domains warmed up for 2+ weeks before volume
• ⚠ No more than 50 emails per sending domain per day initially
• ✓ Inbox rotation: at least 3 from-names, 3 subject lines per campaign
• ⚠ Daily volume varies slightly (±10–15 emails)
• ✓ Google Postmaster Tools set up for your domain

🎯 List Quality

• ✓ Bounce rate under 3% (hard bounces removed within 24h)
• ✗ No purchased or rented email lists
• ✓ Email addresses verified via API before first send
• ✓ List cleaned monthly — bounces and unsubscribes auto-removed
• ✓ All contacts are individual people (not role-based: info@, hello@)
• ✓ Unsubscribe processed within 24 hours
• ✓ Unsubscribe link included in every email
• ✓ Data sourced from verified tools (Apollo, Sales Nav, RocketReach)
• ✓ ICP-defined prospect list — not scraped at random

📊 Metrics & Monitoring

• ✓ Pre-send test: 5 emails to Gmail, Outlook, Yahoo — check spam folders
• ✓ Domain checked on MXToolbox for blacklists
• ✓ Email tested at mail-tester.com — score 8+/10
• ⚠ Complaint rate tracked: if >0.08%, pause immediately
• ⚠ Bounce rate tracked per domain — threshold: >1% hard bounce = stop
• ✓ Reply rate benchmarked: if <3% for 2 weeks, review subject + timing

⚠️ Red Flags — Fix These Before You Send

• ✗ Same email sent to 1,000+ people simultaneously
• ✗ Image-only email body with no substantive text
• ✗ Subject line with misleading RE/FW prefixes
• ✗ Links to domains registered in the last 30 days
• ✗ High complaint rate (>0.08%): treated as spam by Gmail/Outlook
• ✗ No valid unsubscribe mechanism (CAN-SPAM / GDPR violation)
• ✗ Attachments in a cold email (PDF, ZIP, executables)
• ✗ Sending at exactly the same time every day
• ✗ URL shorteners in the body (bit.ly, tinyurl)
• ✗ Monetary values in subject — financial spam trigger
• ✗ New domain going straight to 200+ emails/day (volume spike = flag)