Guide to Outbound Cold Email

UPDATED 9/12/###-###-#### switched from Smartlead to Instantly because of experience and reliability. Hello Everyone, Love the search community and I have a bit of a background in cold email. I have seen a bunch of questions about the topic with most replies saying to get your DNS (DKIM, DMARC, and SPF) settings right, and that’s kind of all you get. I wrote the following guide as a full walkthrough, at a very granular level, of how to set up a cold email system that will leave your primary business email address and domain’s reputation intact for more impactful correspondences. This whole process usually takes me 3-4 days for a large campaign, with no automation, and depending on how many emails I need to send. Make sure to follow CAN-SPAM and GDPR guidelines where applicable. I use GoDaddy (Domain registration), Google Workspace (email provider), Smartlead (outbound email tool), Apollo.io (list generation), and debounce.io (email validation). Comparable services for each include Cloudflare, MS Outlook 365, Instantly, Clay.com, and ZeroBounce. I use what I have experience with and am always curious about other tools that people have liked using. Cold email is just one tool in your toolbox. I would 100% also conduct outreach through other avenues like direct mailings, industry conference attendance, cold calls, and networking to find your target. I think it is still a very effective way to reach a target audience, especially when you have a message or value prop that you know is highly effective. I encourage you to put as much effort as possible into your initial lead list building and messaging so that you are not spamming the universe with “HVAC Coffee Chat Request”. I would say that search funders should have the capacity to cold email at least 100 new businesses per week in perpetuity (20 new cold emails per day), which means you should probably have double that capacity for follow-ups and parallel campaigns. So, you’ll need 2 inboxes and can probably get away with 1 domain, if sending 20 emails per day: 20 emails per day x 2 inboxes x 5 weekdays = 200 emails per week capacity. Two domains would be more conservative and allow better peace of mind that you’re evading spam filters. These domains are in excess of your primary domain that you conduct business with. The steps below outline how you can create an email tool that gives you the ability to reach a large number of businesses in time-definite windows. Happy to share templates, list-building frameworks, or compare notes if others are running campaigns. //////DOMAIN REGISTRATION////// 1) Go to GoDaddy.com to register your domains a. If you’re doing this, you likely already have a domain and google workspace / MS office set up. The next few steps are nearly the exact same process with a couple of extra steps that increase the deliverability of your emails 2) Register the number of domains you need a. Recommend only registering .com and .co domains b. I wouldn’t pay more than $20 per domain per year max c. Ideally, the name of the domain should be somewhat similar to your primary domain, but it does not really matter what the domain is. I have registered domains that are###-###-#### characters long and had replies and success. d. How many domains should you register? This depends on how much time you have and how much outbound you need to do. For example, I am currently working on a campaign where we need to run a full campaign to ~1600 businesses within###-###-#### days because we know that they are in a busy season that generates a high demand for the product we are selling. Assuming we send 3 emails to all 1600 businesses, that is 80 emails per day for 60 days. This is the kind of volume that will absolutely destroy your inbox and domain credibility, which will cause your non-cold emails to go to spam, and even get you suspended from Google Workspace / Outlook. I tend to be conservative with my campaigns, so I budget 20 emails per inbox per day. This means, at a minimum, I would need four inboxes to complete this campaign in 60 days. I put two inboxes on each domain (would not recommend more than three), so I would need two domains for this campaign. 2 domains x 2 inboxes per domain x 20 emails = 80 emails per day e. This math does not account for things that can decrease the amount of time you have for sending, like not sending emails on weekends, or second / third emails in a drip campaign, and any A/B testing you would like to do that might decrease the number of daily emails you would send. In reality, for this campaign, I registered 10 domains and put 2 inboxes on each domain so that I have capacity for 10 x 2 x 20 = 400 emails per day (domains x inboxes x # of emails). This gives me a lot of leeway to add to the campaign, run additional campaigns, increase / decrease number of emails sent as needed, etc. f. See the intro paragraph about my recommendation for searcher email capacity. I recommend capacity for 200 emails per week. //////EMAIL INBOX SETUP////// 3) Set up Google Workspace on each domain a. Make sure that you do this on incognito / private windows so that you can repeat the process. b. You should only need the lowest price tier for each workspace, which is most easily accessed through the “Pricing” tab of the workspace.google.com homepage (you have to start there, not with the “Get Started” button on the homepage). As of this writing, it is ~$9 per user per month c. I highly recommend against any sort of secondary authentication because it can make later steps a huge pain and you can only have so many accounts authenticated through a single phone number d. Google will ask to verify your domain. You can either log in to GoDaddy or do manual verification. I recommend manual verification. Google will give you a TXT record that you will need to add to the domain’s DNS settings on GoDaddy (new TXT record, Name = @, Data = code google provided, TTL = lowest or default). Once you have added the new record, go back to google and verify you’re done. e. Right after you have verified the domain, Google will ask about gmail set up and give you an MX record to add to the GoDaddy domain DNS settings as well (new MX record, Name = @, Priority = 1, Value = smtp.google.com [or whatever google provides], TTL = lowest or default) f. After you set up the admin account, you will be prompted to add additional users which is where you can add the second inbox for each domain. Send the email invitation to an email that you have access to. g. Repeat this process starting with step A for each domain you registered 4) Log in to each account you set up through each google workspace a. Make sure you do this on incognito / private windows so that you can repeat the process. I also alternate browsers because Google sets limits on how many accounts you can be logged into and starts to act funky if you repeat the process too many times on a single browser even if opening new incognito windows every time b. Do your best to avoid 2FA. If prompted to do so, you can sometimes take a break and wait###-###-#### minutes before trying to log in to a new account and it won’t prompt you for 2FA set up c. At this stage I usually set up an excel tracker so I can keep track of all the steps I have to complete for each inbox along with important info (DNS Settings, Passwords, 2FA numbers if necessary, subscription renewal dates, etc) 5) Add profile pictures to each inbox – I do not believe this affects deliverability, but I do believe it is beneficial for open & response rates. It can be a logo, personal headshot, intern headshot, whatever. a. Process: admin.google.com -> Users -> click on user -> click on profile picture 6) Once you have logged in to every account and added profile pictures, you are ready to begin adding your inboxes to your email aggregation tool of choice. I use Smartlead.ai because the pricing is attractive and I have previous experience with it. I have also heard of Instantly.ai but have never used it – apparently it is a better platform with some attractive features (built-in leads database, better UI, etc.), but it is a good bit more expensive. //////SMARTLEAD SETUP/////// UPDATE 9/12/2025: I have since switched to Instantly.ai because Smartlead is flat out broken. Instantly is a little more expensive, but the experience was super smooth compared to Smartlead, and the master inbox feels much more "trustworthy" than Smartlead's. 7) Sign up for Smartlead using your actual business email address 8) Add inboxes to Smartlead a. You will want to do the following in a new incognito window: i. SmartLead -> Login -> Email Accounts (left nav) -> click "Add Account" (top right)-> copy the Client ID code that is presented in the pop-up -> go to admin.google.com -> Security (left nav) -> API Controls -> Manage App Access -> Configure New App -> paste Smartlead Client ID code into the search field -> select Smartlead search result and allow / trust the app -> go back to Smartlead and click “Connect Account” -> Log in to google account -> repeat “Add Account” in Smartlead for every google account you plan on using 9) Warm up email inboxes a. Smartlead -> Email Accounts (left nav) -> click on email account you want to warm up -> click on Warm Up (top nav) -> Turn on Email Warmup Enabled b. Warm Up Settings: i. Total number of warm up emails per day: 20 ii. Daily Ramp-up: On iii. Increment: 3 iv. Randomize: 1-20 v. Reply Rate: 20% vi. Select “Send warmup emails only on weekdays” vii. Leave everything else as the default value 10) Wait 2-3 weeks (at least 2) for the email inboxes to warm up a. The warmup period gives your domain some time to age and gain some internet credibility b. During this time: i. Fix your DNS settings (immediately!) – see step 11 below ii. Build, refine, debounce, and enrich lists of businesses as per your thesis using tools like Apollo.io / Clay.com / etc 1. This could be an entire guide by itself, with numerous automations that can streamline your list building iii. Create your campaigns in Smartlead for each lead list you create 1. i.e. framing, messaging, how you will A/B test your outreach, etc. iv. Hire interns v. Etc. //////DOMAIN DNS SETTINGS////// 11) Fix DNS Settings for each domain a. Go to the domain’s DNS settings in GoDaddy b. DMARC: Go to easydmarc.com/tools/dmarc-record-generator i. Click “advanced configuration” ii. Input domain (www.xyz.com or xyz.com is fine) iii. Policy Type: none iv. Aggregate reports send to: whichever account is the google workspace admin account v. Failure Reports send to: same email as above vi. Subdomain Policy: None (monitoring) vii. Percentage applied to: 100 viii. PF identifier alignment: relaxed ix. DKIM identifier alignment: relaxed x. Reporting interval: 86400 xi. Failure reporting options: 0 xii. Generate record xiii. Add the DMARC record to the domain’s DNS Settings in GoDaddy (Add new TXT record, Name=_dmarc, value=provided by easydmarc.com above) xiv. Note: DMARC reports will kind spam whatever inbox you send them to, so you may want to set a rule to filter them out c. SPF i. add a new TXT record in GoDaddy DNS settings: Name = @, Value = v=spf1 include:_spf.google.com ~all, TTL = shortest or default d. DKIM (you should wait###-###-#### hours after setting up google workspace to do this) i. For each domain: go to admin.google.com and log in as the admin user -> Apps -> Google Workspace -> Gmail -> Authenticate Email -> Turn on Authentication and Generate new record###-###-#### or 2048 is fine) -> add a new TXT record to domain’s DNS settings in GoDaddy (Name = google._domainkey, Value = TXT record value generated by google, i.e. v=DKIM1; k=rsa; p=y9H3r2Pqz!aM0LwX7n*D4oVjG8t%fZ1sB5kR@U6i^QhC#NpJdE$TbmF&vOIxAYuKlce3S9m!W7rN0y^J2k$T4z#b8q@V6u%X1pG5oL*Hj9aR3dC7nE$F0tM8wY4iK2hZ5sO!6fU1xB@J7zC9l$k3pV!gM5rN%h2yT0d#oX8aS^iE4wL6mF9vR7qO1uY3bG8jZ5tKP2e^D6xM0wU4rJ3sK!L9oV5yF7z%G8aN#h1pB$T2nQ7cR9vX0dE5tI6kO3jY4uZ8i) ii. Go back to google and click authenticate after you have added the DKIM setting e. 301 Redirect: i. If you would like to redirect the cold email domains to your primary business URL, you can do so using a 301 redirect. Leave it to you and ChatGPT for this one since I do not currently do this. Very similar process as updating the above DNS settings. 1. I do not currently do this because I think it is too easy / obvious for countermeasures to detect ///////END////// Thanks for reading and let me know of any thoughts or questions. I am also currently building validated lead lists and creating email campaigns if y’all are interested in something similar for those activities.