--- name: sales-deliverability description: "Email deliverability for outbound: SPF/DKIM/DMARC setup, mailbox and domain warmup, inbox placement, reputation monitoring, blacklist recovery, list hygiene. Use when emails land in spam, open rates crater, bounce rates spike, a domain gets blacklisted, or a new mailbox needs warming. Not for cadence content and sequencing: use sales-cadence. Not for finding or verifying contacts in bulk: use sales-enrich. Not for suppression policy: use do-not-contact." license: MIT metadata: author: TechTide AI (Alex Cinovoj) provenance: rewritten from patterns in sales-skills/sales (MIT) category: Sales & RevOps --- # Email Deliverability for Outbound Reputation is earned slowly and destroyed in days. Authenticate the domain, warm every mailbox, keep bounces under 3%, and treat any spike as an emergency, not an optimization target. ## Workflow 1. **Diagnose the situation.** New domain setup, new mailbox warmup, spam placement, sudden open-rate drop, high bounces, blacklist, or volume scaling? Capture: primary vs dedicated outbound domain, mailbox count, daily volume, domain age, sending platform, and authentication status. Answer with stated assumptions if most context is given; ask only the critical gaps. 2. **Authenticate the domain.** All three records, always: - SPF: one TXT record, `include:` per sending service, max 10 DNS lookups. Multiple SPF records is a silent failure. - DKIM: one key per sending platform, each added to DNS. - DMARC: start at `v=DMARC1; p=none; rua=mailto:`, monitor 2-4 weeks, then move to quarantine, then reject. Never jump straight to reject. - Custom tracking domain (CNAME): shared tracking domains inherit other senders' spam reputation. Read references/auth-and-warmup.md for record formats, warmup schedules, and the monitoring tool list. 3. **Send from a dedicated outbound domain.** Never the primary company domain. If the outbound domain burns, company email survives. 4. **Warm up before volume.** New mailbox: roughly 5-10 sends/day week 1, scaling to 50-75/day by week 5. New domain: add 2 extra low-volume weeks first. Use a warmup service for 2-3 weeks before any cold sends. One mailbox per 50-75 daily cold emails; rotate across mailboxes with real-name addresses, not sales@. 5. **Keep the list clean.** Verify every address with a verification service before sending. Remove hard bounces permanently. Re-verify lists older than 3 months (addresses decay fast). Never use purchased or scraped lists; they carry spam traps. 6. **Monitor.** Bounce under 3%, spam complaints under 0.1%, opens above 40%. Check blacklists and provider reputation dashboards (Google Postmaster Tools for Gmail targets, Microsoft SNDS for Outlook). Test placement with a seed-inbox tool and an independent scorer before each new campaign. 7. **Recover when damaged.** Stop all sending from the affected domain/mailbox. Diagnose root cause (bounces, complaints, auth breakage, blacklist). Fix the cause, request delisting where applicable, then re-warm from week 1 as if the mailbox were new. Blacklisted on 3+ major lists: usually faster to start a fresh outbound domain. ## Good vs Bad **Bad:** "Mailbox connected, list uploaded, campaign starts tomorrow at 200/day." Brand-new mailbox, unverified list, no auth check. Spam folder within 48 hours and a burned domain within a week. **Good:** "SPF/DKIM/DMARC verified and scoring clean on a test, list verified with 1.4% projected bounces, mailbox warmed 3 weeks and holding 90%+ inbox placement on seeds. Starting at 20 cold sends/day, ramping 10/week while bounce stays under 2%." Every gate passed before volume. ## Verification Run the domain through a DNS checker (for SPF/DKIM/DMARC presence and syntax) and send a test to an independent scoring service such as mail-tester. Expect a 9+/10 and all three auth checks passing. Anything less: fix DNS before sending a single cold email. Weekly during ramp: pull bounce and complaint rates. Expect bounce under 3% and complaints under 0.1%. Breach either threshold: pause the campaign the same day, verify the remaining list, and resume only at reduced volume. ## Footguns - **Skipping warmup.** The single most common cause of instant spam placement. Fix: no cold volume from any mailbox until it has 2-4 weeks of warm history. - **Two SPF records.** Providers read only one; auth silently fails. Fix: merge all includes into a single record, count lookups. - **DMARC p=reject on day one.** Blocks your own legitimate mail before you have seen the reports. Fix: none, then quarantine, then reject, weeks apart. - **Stale SPF includes after platform migration.** Dead includes waste the 10-lookup budget. Fix: remove the old platform's SPF and DKIM when you fully migrate. - **Judging placement by warmup-tool scores.** Warmup networks flatter you. Fix: verify with independent seed tests against real Gmail/Outlook inboxes. - **Ignoring one bad mailbox in a rotation.** It drags the shared domain down. Fix: monitor per-mailbox metrics, pause and re-warm the offender alone. ## Completion checklist - [ ] SPF, DKIM, DMARC present, valid, and tested with an external scorer - [ ] Sending from a dedicated outbound domain with a custom tracking domain - [ ] Warmup completed or scheduled per the ramp table before any cold volume - [ ] List verified; hard bounces and unknowns removed - [ ] Monitoring in place: bounce, complaint, blacklist, provider dashboards - [ ] DNS changes were confirmed with the user before applying Any box unchecked: not done. Fix or say so.