If you frequently send marketing emails, you probably already know what needs to be done to keep your emails from landing in the spam folder. However, if the emails you send still end up in the spam folder, you might not have done a domain warm-up.
Is it important to do?
Warming up a domain helps improve the email domain's reputation because the domain's reputation is one of the factors used by Email Service Providers (ESP) to identify spam emails. That's why it's important to warm up your domain before sending marketing emails to customers, especially if you're using a new domain. Here are some facts about warming up a domain.
For new domains, there may be some issues with email delivery in the first week. This indicates that the domain's reputation is being built.
ESPs usually place emails with new domains in the spam folder to see if recipients will mark them as not spam or leave them as is.
On average, it takes 30 days to build a domain's reputation, and it can take longer depending on the number of emails sent, the quality of email contacts, and the frequency of email sends.
Read more about warming up a domain here
So how do you do it?
Start warming up the domain with only one email address. Only add another email address after one month. This means that when you start, begin with one email address for sending. Only after one month can you add another sender email.
Start sending emails in small volumes. Avoid sending many emails when you first start using a new domain. Start by sending 50 emails on the first day, 100 emails on the second day, 500 emails on the third day, or you can refer to the image below.
You can try sending manually to colleagues before sending emails to subscribers and ask them to mark the emails as not spam if they end up in the spam folder.
Add SPF and DKIM settings. Read here for setting up SPF and DKIM
Try sending test emails.
Monitor the results of the domain warm-up by seeing if emails still go to spam or bounce.
A domain needs warming up before it can be used to send large amounts of emails. It takes extra effort and a considerable amount of time to warm up a domain. But if it can keep your emails out of the spam folder, it's worth doing.