Email Deliverability (complete guide)
Set up, audit, rescue, or pre-send-check cold-email deliverability as a guided step-by-step process. Walks the nine practices in order, domains (age, TLDs, registrar spread, SPF/DKIM/DMARC), inbox providers and daily capacities, the 70/30 warm-up pool rotation, sequencer choice and fingerprinting, email security gateways (Mimecast, Proofpoint, Barracuda) and how to route around them, inbox placement testing without open tracking, burn-detection metrics with corrective actions, deliverability-safe copywriting, and email verification. Each step is do-this, here's-why, then a checkpoint before the next. Works with any provider and sequencer. Trigger when the user mentions deliverability, spam placement, bounce rates, inbox warm-up, domain reputation, blacklists, email landing in spam, reply rates dropping, warm-up scores, security gateways, or setting up cold-email infrastructure.
Sample result
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Email deliverability audit scorecard| Audit Category | Grade | Technical Findings | Corrective Action | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | DNS & Authentication | Pass (A) | SPF and DKIM active on get-hospitastaff.com; DMARC policy set to p=none. | Update DMARC policy from p=none to p=quarantine after 14 days of zero alignment failures. |
| 2 | Inbox Daily Capacity | Fail (D) | Google Workspace inbox sending 45 cold emails/day (hard ceiling is 15/day). | Throttle Google inbox to 15 emails/day max; migrate remaining volume to secondary domain. |
| 3 | Security Gateway Route | Warning (C) | Glint Systems MX record points to Mimecast; tracking pixels triggering gateway flags. | Strip open-tracking links for Glint Systems contacts; pivot Bastian Larsson to plain-text outreach. |
| 4 | Warm-up Pool Rotation | Pass (B+) | 70/30 active-to-warmup ratio maintained across 4 secondary sending domains. | Keep try-hospitastaff.io in continuous 30% warm-up rotation for 10 additional days. |
| 5 | Copy Safety & Links | Fail (F) | Outreach template contains 2 open-tracking links and 1 external booking URL. | Remove all links from initial touchpoint; measure placement using out-of-office auto-replies. |
Example run
“Can you audit our cold email deliverability setup for the Glint Systems account and Bastian Larsson before we launch our hospitality staffing campaign?”
SPF and DKIM active on get-hospitastaff.com; DMARC policy set to p=none.
Google Workspace inbox sending 45 cold emails/day; try-hospitastaff.io maintaining 70/30 active-to-warmup ratio across 4 secondary domains.
Glint Systems MX record resolves to Mimecast (glintsystems-com.gslb.mimecast.com).
Deliverability Audit Scorecard: Glint Systems Campaign Infrastructure
More in Operations & Other
- Sample resultGTM automation roadmap
Automation Workflow Recommended Tools Priority 1. Intent Campaigns at Scale Unify + Octave + Smartlead Phase 1 (Immediate) 2. Site Visitor Deanonymization RB2B + Clay + Slack Phase 1 (Immediate) 3. Slack Rep Approval Routing Clay + Slack Interactive Phase 2 (Week 2) 4. Permit Database Scrapers Apify + Serper + n8n Phase 2 (Week 3) 5. Domain Infrastructure Setup Zapmail + Instantly + Smartlead Phase 3 (Week 4) Pick and build the highest-leverage GTM automations for a go-to-market team, from a catalog of eleven that repeatedly move productivity. Covers intent-based campaigns at scale, human-in-the-loop outreach off website deanonymization, Slack approval notifications, no-code social listening, local-business scraping workflows, AI-agent orchestration, the LLM upgrade, AI note-taking, prompt-based list building, domain and inbox infrastructure at scale, and AI-native workflows inside the CRM. Names the actual tools for each (Clay, Unify, BirdDog, Common Room, Kwanzoo, RB2B, Octave, Twain, Outbond, Amplemarket, Valley, HeyReach, Instantly, Email Bison, Smartlead, Trigify, Apify, Serper, n8n, Zapier, Make, Claude, OpenAI, Grok, Fireflies, Fathom, Exa, Landbase, Zapmail, ScaledMail, Mailreef, Luella, Hypertide, Premium Inboxes, Attio, HubSpot, Slack). Trigger when the user wants GTM or sales automations, no-code workflows, AI agents for outbound, to automate prospecting or outreach or research, a tool stack recommendation, or ideas to improve GTM productivity.
- Sample result
ExpertiseApp9:15 AMOutbound Alert: 2 Senders DisconnectedAccount Sequence:Indigo Dynamics Q3 ExpansionTarget Contact:Idris Voss, VP Plant OperationsSender Health:2 of 6 inboxes offline (Instantly)Lead Flow Status:Idle (0 leads processed in 48h)Deliverability Risk:Bounce rate spiked to 12.8%21Design and build a read-only bird's-eye analytics and health dashboard for an AI-automated outbound system, from intent finding and enrichment through to email deliverability. Covers architecture health, source-to-CRM funnel cuts, channel and reply analytics, sender monitoring, and alert rules. Trigger when the user wants an outbound or GTM dashboard, command center, pipeline analytics, automation-stack health monitor, lead-volume or funnel reporting, channel performance, reply analytics, deliverability monitoring, or to find what is connected, idle, broken, or working. Not for changing tools, sending outreach, tagging records, or other write actions.
- Sample resultBuild an email deliverability dashboard
Criterion Status Benchmark DNS Authentication Pass 100% Validated Gateway Bounces At Risk < 2.0% Bounce Rate Warm-Up Placement Warning > 80% Inbox Rate List Verification Pass > 98% Verified True Reply Rate Healthy > 1.5% True Reply Blacklist Standing Pass 0 Blacklists Build a live, read-only email-deliverability metrics dashboard from the user's sending-tool data. Use when the user wants a deliverability dashboard, inbox or sender health report, bounce or warm-up diagnosis, or an attribution-led audit of cold-email infrastructure. It measures infrastructure against benchmarks, attributes bounce and landing problems to their causes, and ranks fixes. Not for changing sending settings, fixing deliverability practices, or broad funnel analytics.
