Cold Email Deliverability Pre-Send Checklist

12 checks, in the order to run them, before you launch or scale any cold email sequence.

Domain & Authentication (do these first)

• SPF record published and valid. TXT record authorizes your sending tool's servers. Verify with dig TXT yourdomain.com or mxtoolbox.com/spf.htm. Should resolve to one SPF record only — multiple SPF records break authentication.
• DKIM configured and signing. Confirm outbound mail carries a valid DKIM signature for your sending domain. Most sending tools give you a CNAME to add; confirm propagation (can take up to 48 hours) before sending.
• DMARC record published. Start at p=none while monitoring, move to p=quarantine once SPF/DKIM are confirmed clean. Example: v=DMARC1; p=quarantine; rua=mailto:dmarc@yourdomain.com.
• Sending from a subdomain, not the root domain — e.g. mail.yourcompany.com or outreach.yourcompany.com — so a deliverability problem never touches your primary company domain's reputation.

Warm-up & Volume

• Domain age check. New domains need 2-4 weeks of warm-up (10-20 emails/day ramping to 30-50/day) before cold sending. Skipping this is the #1 cause of new-domain sequences landing in spam in week one.
• Daily send volume within limits. Cap per-inbox sends at 30-50/day on a warmed domain; go higher only with multiple rotating inboxes. A sudden jump (20/day to 200/day) triggers provider throttling.
• Multiple sending inboxes/domains rotating if total volume exceeds roughly 150/day — spread load so no single inbox carries the reputation risk.

Content & Copy

• Spam-trigger words removed from subject line and first line. Audit for "free," "guarantee," "act now," "limited time," excessive punctuation (!!!), ALL CAPS words, and dollar amounts. Run copy through a spam-word checker before send.
• Plain-text-first formatting. No heavy HTML, no embedded tracking pixels/images on the first touch, no more than 1 link. Image- and link-heavy emails score worse on spam filters and read as templated.
• Personalization token check. Send a test batch to team inboxes first and scan for broken merge fields (Hi {{first_name}}, blank company names). One broken token in a live send tanks reply rate and reads as spam.

Compliance & List Hygiene

• Unsubscribe/opt-out mechanism present (required under CAN-SPAM, CASL, and GDPR where applicable) with a real physical mailing address in the footer.
• List verified within the last 30 days. Run the list through an email verification tool (bounce/catch-all/disposable detection) before sending. Bounce rate above 3-5% on a single send is enough to get a new domain flagged by major providers.

Pre-send final gate

Before hitting send on a new sequence: send to a seed list of test inboxes across Gmail, Outlook, and one corporate domain, and confirm inbox placement (not Promotions, not spam) across all three before it goes live to real prospects.