How to send cold emails without blocking your email account

Cold emails are widely used by professionals to start a conversation with their ideal prospects in the online world.

Your continuous efforts might help you slowly turn your prospects into customers.

But this might not be the case for many professionals as they might experience their cold emails landing in the spam folder or email account getting blocked. 

Gmail services block over 100 million phishing emails daily. 

Such incidents certainly happen for multiple reasons, and if you’re looking for ways to avoid them, this blog is for you. 

In this blog, we will discuss in depth:

• What is cold email?
• Why email account gets blocked by sending cold emails?
• The best way to send cold emails without getting blocked
• How Saleshandy helps in sending cold emails effectively?

What is cold email?

A cold email is a process of reaching your prospects and building a relationship with them—a slow and steady approach. The sole purpose of a cold email outreach is to turn the prospect into a customer over a period of time.

Why email account gets blocked by sending cold emails?

Email accounts getting blocked by sending a cold email is a myth.

Email account never gets blocked if you send cold emails. The reason behind your account getting blocked might be if your emails are marked as spam by the recipient or are moved to the spam folder quite frequently.

If your emails keep hitting the spam folder, it is not a good sign, and the email service providers might consider your emails inappropriate and block the account permanently.

9 reasons why your email account gets blocked:

1. New email account without warmup
2. SPF, DKIM and DMARC records are not updated
3. Sending emails with multiple recipients in CC or BCC
4. Multiple recipients marking your email as spam
5. A high bounce rate of unverified email list
6. Frequently exceeding the daily email quota
7. Not including an unsubscribe link
8. Using spam triggering words in your email
9. Not choosing the right email service provider

1. New email account without warmup

If you are using a new email account and start sending cold emails, then most probably, your account will get blocked temporarily or permanently.

In Gsuite, they claim to provide you with 2000 daily email sending limits, but at the beginning, it is limited to a maximum of 200.

Once you start sending cold emails with a huge number of recipients, they take your account into notice and end up blocking your account.

2. SPF, DKIM and DMARC records are not updated

SPF (Sender Policy Framework), DKIM (Domain Key Identified Mail), and DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting & Conformance) are the set of records that are used by various email service providers to verify the authenticity of the sender and their emails.

If you send mass emails without setting up these records, they are most likely to get blacklisted by many email service providers.

3. Sending emails with multiple recipients in CC or BCC

Sending cold emails by keeping many recipients in the CC and BCC fields is the biggest cold email mistake.

When you keep a long list of recipients in the CC and BCC, the recipient considers that to be a bulk email or promotional email, and it is more likely that they will mark your email as spam.

These activities, in the long run, will disable your account permanently.

4. Multiple recipients marking your email as spam

As described earlier, email accounts do not get blocked if you send cold emails. The account only gets blocked if your emails frequently go to the recipient’s spam box.

If you send a cold email to any recipient without their consent, they find it inappropriate and they can mark your emails as spam.

If this happens with multiple recipients, there’s a maximum chance of getting your account blocked.

5. A high bounce rate of unverified email list

Email bounce is a serious issue; thus, it is one of the most common reasons for getting your email account blocked if you are doing cold emailing. It usually happens due to an improper or expired recipient’s address. 

There are two types of email bounce: Soft and Hard.

A soft bounce happens if the recipient’s mailbox is full or any technical glitch on the recipient’s side, and a hard bounce occurs if the email address is not found or the domain name doesn’t exist.

Multiple soft bounces also lead to hard bounces. However, both types of bounces affect deliverability. 

Sender’s deliverability score decreases with an increase in bounce rate (both hard and soft bounce) of your emails which ultimately ends up deactivating your email account.

6. Frequently exceeding the daily email quota

Email service providers give you a certain email sending limit. But trying to exceed the limit frequently brings your email account under observation. 

E.g., G Suite provides you a daily sending limit of 2000 emails. But if you try to send more than that regularly, G Suite will block your account.

It is not just Google G suite; this happens with other email service providers like Outlook, Yahoo, Microsoft Exchange, and more.

So if you try to trick your ESP by sending emails above your daily quote using any third-party email marketing tool, slowly but surely, your email account is bound to get blocked.

7. Not including an unsubscribe link

Generally, when a recipient does not want to receive an email from a particular sender, they look for an unsubscribe button within your email. That is the easiest method to opt-out of the email list. 

However, if you fail to include an unsubscribe link, they are more likely to report and spam your email so that your following email goes directly into the spam folder. This is not a good sign for anybody.

As the spam rate grows, the chances of your account getting blocked increases.

8. Using spam triggering words in your email content

With technology advancement, email service providers have integrated machine learning and artificial intelligence to understand the email sender,  the recipient’s behavior, and the intent of the communication. 

So every email sent, go through this process. Thus they can easily spot any word in your email that might have promotional, spamming, or phishing activity.

If your email contains multiple spam triggering words like DEAL, OFFER, FREE, then the email service provider automatically marks the email as spam.

9. Not choosing the right email service provider

Email service providers have their terms and conditions, which may not suit you. The email sending limits also vary from one service provider to another.

So if you don’t get the right email service provider for your work, you might get blocked upon any activity.

The best way to send cold emails without getting blocked

After knowing the mistakes that make your emails land in the spam box and block your account, a question comes to mind.

Is it possible to send a cold email without getting the email account blocked?

The answer is Yes.

If you send a cold email by following the best practices, your emails will reach the recipient’s inbox and get high open rates. 

Let us check the best practices and effective methods to send cold emails without getting your account blocked.

10 best way to send cold emails without getting blocked

1. Warming up your email account
2. Setting up SPF, DKIM, and DMARC
3. Adding recipients in an email campaign
4. Lower the bounce rate, higher is the efficiency
5. Maintain proper text to HTML ratio
6. Decrease the number of links
7. Maintain regular email sending limit
8. Avoid spam triggering words
9. A/B test your content
10. Add an unsubscribe link

1. Warming up your email account

First thing First- Warm your email. 

Warming your email account should be a continuous process.

Eventually, one can increase the volume of emails daily and reach up to 1000-1500 emails per day. Upon reaching this stage, you can start sending cold emails and stay assured of getting them in the recipient’s primary inbox.

Warming up techniques can be followed by sending emails to colleagues, friends, relatives from where you can get a confirmed reply.

The idea is to create a communication that increases your account’s deliverability rate, improves your email response rate, and daily email sending limits.

2. Setting up SPF, DKIM, and DMARC

SPF, DKIM, and DMARC records are updated if you have any business email account and authority over your DNS Manager. This is not valid for any non-business email accounts.

Many email service providers go through the SPF records to verify if the sender is validated or not. You just need to add your TXT record that lists the services of emails in your DNS Manager.

DKIM uses an encrypted signature to verify that the email sender is the one they say they are and gives a key to the sender’s recipient to check back with the sender’s DNS record.

If we have a DKIM set up with our DNS, the recipient DNS receives a green signal to approve the email. This signature can be generated from your email service provider.

DMARC is a set of records that uses SPF and DKIM to authenticate the emails and ensure that no fraudulent activities are associated with them. Sometimes, the Internet service providers restrict some of the IP address or domain servers.

Setting up a DMARC record helps the sender send feedback to the Internet service provider that they are DMARC adopted, improving email deliverability.

3. Adding recipients in an email campaign (sequence)

Sending cold emails to an individual is a very tedious task, and adding all the email addresses in CC and BCC fields will land the email in the spam box.

So, it is recommended to use an email outreach tool to import the list of emails. 

Using a tool like Saleshandy, you can create a cold email campaign (sequence), compose a personalized email with multiple follow-ups (steps) and schedule it. Each email will be sent one by one to your recipients.

4. Lower the bounce rate, higher is the efficiency

As an increase in bounce rate is a major reason for emails going to spam, you should always validate your recipient’s email addresses.

Email verifying tools segregate the email accounts into valid and invalid ones. They make your recipient list healthy and email campaigns (sequences) safe.

It is also suggested to use the emails that you have collected from your subscription lists, email contacts, or from your connections. Avoid purchasing bulk email lists as most of them are deactivated or invalid.

5. Maintain proper text to HTML ratio

Over a decade to this debatable topic, which email is better? Plain text or HTML emails. According to a study by Hubspot, HTML emails have a 25% lower open rate than plain text emails.

But sending a pure plain text email as a cold email may not attract the recipients to serve our goal.

So it is suggested to keep a ratio of 60:40 with plain-text and HTML formats respectively in your emails.

6. Decrease the number of links

Try to reduce the use of adding tracking links in your regular links.

These tracking links are usually blacklisted by many email service providers, which might prevent your email from reaching the recipient’s inbox.

It is also suggested not to use naked links or links with spammy anchor tags. Shortening the URL is also a cold emailing mistake that you should avoid. 

Using a custom domain is one of the best practices to make your emails reach the recipient’s inbox. Saleshandy provides the feature of adding a custom domain with your links.

This gives assurance to the email service providers and improves deliverability.

7. Maintain regular email sending limit

Even after warming up your email account, it is never suggested to exhaust your daily quota provided by your email service provider. This creates a negative impression on your email account and is believed as a practice of spamming. 

A sender should always know about his email sending limits and accordingly plan to send cold emails.

E.g., G Suite users should never try to send more than 2000 emails per day, and the normal Gmail user should limit his sending limits to 200-300 emails per day.

8. Avoid spam triggering words

Email written to any recipient should be very clear. You should never use any spam triggering word until and unless it is very important.

The subject line in your email should never contain spam triggering words in it. It hinders your deliverability and lands you in the spam folder.

Before sending any email campaigns (sequences), double-check your email subject line and body copy or if you feel overwhelmed  you can use cold email templates as well to get started.

Get here: 100 email templates without any spam triggering words. 

9. A/B test your content

It is good to keep testing out different formats while sending your emails. You can try to change the subject line, the content format, or use different cold email templates.

Doing this will help you understand which type of format is landing you in the spam folder and which one works for you.

Once you get this clarity, you can move ahead with the content and format that works for you.

10. Add an unsubscribe link

When you send a cold email, you are always uncertain about the recipient’s behavior. So the best way to send cold emails is always to make sure to include an unsubscribe link in your emails.

In case your recipient is not interested in your email, they can easily unsubscribe from your email list. 

The best place to provide an unsubscribe link is at the bottom of your email.

In Saleshandy, you can add an unsubscribe link to your emails. If your recipients don’t want to receive emails, they can easily unsubscribe to opt-out.

The unsubscribe link helps to improve email deliverability and reduce spam reports.

Saleshandy not only helps in adding an unsubscribe link to your email campaign (sequence) but with its advanced features, you can send cold emails without getting blocked.

How Saleshandy helps in sending cold emails effectively

Saleshandy is a cold email outreach tool that lets you send successful cold email sequence. You can easily automate your email sequences using a handful of features to avoid your email account getting blocked.

Whenever you send an email sequence following the below-mentioned steps, Saleshandy ensures your email lands in the primary inbox.

1. Warming up your account

If you have a completely new account, Saleshandy allows you to send emails to a small group first and gradually increase your daily sending using its email warm-up feature.

This feature also works if you have an old email account that might be getting blocked or your emails land in the spam folder. 

It helps you build a good domain reputation in the eyes of your email service provider and ensure good email deliverability.  

2. Verifying your recipient’s list

Your prospect list is an imperative factor to consider while sending cold emails. You need to have a clean and verified list of email ids. 

In the Saleshandy dashboard, when you upload your email list, it verifies the recipient’s email ids for you and shows the number of invalid email addresses.

Additionally, it gives you the option of removing those invalid emails from the list.  

3. Personalization with merge tags

Personalization not only helps in your email deliverability but also gives you a good reply rate. 42% of recipients feel frustrated if the content is not personalized.

Saleshandy allows you to add merge tags to personalize your email. You can add various merge tags like {{first name}}, {{last name}}, {{phone number}}, and more.

E.g., If you write a personalized email to Dan with Hi{{First Name}}, the email will drop in Dan’s mailbox as Hi Dan in the mail body as well as the subject line as shown in the image.

In the Saleshandy dashboard, you also get content guide, that offers you inputs and suggestions to make your email content spam-free and deliverability-friendly.

4. Adding custom domain

Saleshandy allows you to set up your own custom domain, making your links unique. This helps to avoid spam filters, stay out of many blacklisted domains, and prevent your email account from getting blocked.

Apart from that, the custom domain is visually more authentic, and it holds your domain link. The chances of your recipient clicking the links become high.

Apart from this, Saleshandy also allows you to:

• Add an unsubscribe link in your email sequence 
• It helps you to set up your SPF, DKIM, and DMARC
• Send your campaign to multiple users without showing email addresses
• Completely automate your email sequence and also schedule them at a particular time

How to send a cold email campaign (sequence)

Conclusion

Sending cold emails is essential for every business looking to acquire more revenue and scale faster. But the increase in spam filters has made it quite challenging.

However, the limitations can be overtaken by following the best way to send cold emails listed above.

It would be best if you never took a chance; a simple mistake can get your account blocked permanently. Use the best practices, and your email account will not get blocked. Good luck! 

Frequently asked questions

1. Does sending cold emails work?
Yes, cold emailing does work if you do it the right way. A cold email campaign on Saleshandy had a 50% open rate and a 9% reply rate. 

2. What makes a good cold email?
A good cold email is always conversational that aims to understand the prospect’s problems rather than directly pitching your product/service as a solution.