What You Need to Do to Build a GOD TIER Cold Email Outreach Stack in 2024

Building a cold email infrastructure is not for the weak of heart. It takes courage, an analytical and detail-oriented mind.

Talk about a scary 👻 intro, but it can indeed get very technical and complicated to build an impenetrable, spam-proof email infrastructure that won't burn out your domains like firecrackers on New Year's Eve.

The bigger your sending capacity is the more emails you’d need and if you don’t build it right you’ll be losing a hefty sum of money before you close any clients.

To build a solid cold email infrastructure, you must purchase bunch of dedicated domains and then deploy three email inboxes on each. Afterwards, you must set up email authentication protocols like SPF, DKIM, and DMARC. These protocols verify sender legitimacy, enhance email security, and improve deliverability.

From there on, you must integrate these emails with reliable cold email software and gradually warm up your email sending to build a positive sender reputation. Lastly, monitor for getting caught up in the blacklist and validate your authentication setup for ongoing reliability. Properly establishing these elements enhances your campaign's effectiveness.

Explore further, and you will uncover strategies to refine and optimize your approach!

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Key Takeaways

• Purchase dedicated domains and deploy email inboxes on it. Implement email authentication protocols such as SPF, DKIM, and DMARC to verify sender legitimacy and enhance security.
• Deploy email inboxes on cold email software.
• Gradually warm up your email domain by increasing sending volumes and engaging with personalized content to build a positive sender reputation.
• Build a master inbox for centralized management of responses, improving deliverability and efficiency in handling communications.
• Monitor and test email deliverability and stay informed about blocklist statuses to maintain a robust cold email infrastructure.

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Step 1: Domain Setup

Before proceeding to domain setup, you must know how many emails you want to send. Assuming you want to send 1,000 emails a day, you'd need to purchase domains depending on your sending capacity.

If you buy 12 domains and deploy three email inboxes per domain, you'd have 36 (12 x 3) email inboxes. Each email address can send 30 emails a day and 30 warm-ups. With 36 email inboxes, you can send 1080 (30 x 30) emails daily.

The initial step in establishing a robust cold email infrastructure involves setting up dedicated domains. Purchase your domains, add necessary verifications, and configure MX records to facilitate the proper routing of your emails.

Email authentication protocols such as SPF, DKIM, and DMARC are essential to secure your emails and improve their deliverability rates.

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1. Purchasing a Domain

Selecting and purchasing a dedicated domain specifically for cold emailing is the foundational step in building your email infrastructure. Choosing a domain registrar and setting up separate domains to create professional email addresses is mandatory to protect your primary business domain and maintain a credible sender reputation.

A dedicated domain minimizes the risk of your primary business communications being affected by email blocklists. Creating burner domains for cold email using a competent email service provider guarantees everything is in place.

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Deciding Name & TLDs

Before purchasing domains, you need to choose branded domain names and TLDs.

1. You can use random words before or after your brand name (hi, hello, team, go) and purchase hijohndoe.com / johndoeteam.com
2. You can just buy authoritative TLDs of your branded domains (.co, .net, .info, .org) johndoe.net

Since you're targeting 1,000 emails daily, you'd need to develop 12 domain variations of your branded domain.

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Choosing Domains Registrars

You can purchase a domain from various domain name registrars.

Here are our recommended domain registrars

1. Mailforge.ai
2. GoDaddy
3. Namecheap
4. Hostinger
5. Cloudflare

If you use Mailforge, it automatically comes up with domain names using AI. You can buy your domains and create your emails within minutes.

Mailforge also automatically sets up your SPF, DKIM. These protocols are essential for confirming the sender's legitimacy, thereby reducing the likelihood of emails landing in spam folders and protecting the sender's reputation.

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To start building your cold email infrastructure, you must set up your domain correctly. Here are the essential steps to follow:

1. Add Verification
2. Add MX Records
3. SPF, DKIM, DMARC
4. Domain Redirect

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2. Add Verification

Once you have your domain, verify it with your email service provider (ESP). This process allows you to create the email inboxes. Assuming you choose Google Workspace as your esp -

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• Go to your hosting
• Open DNS editor
• Add a TXT record that looks something like this 👇

google-site-verification=eHvZC9DBD6-KA_

This is the second step to ensure your email doesn't fall into email blocklists and that your messages reach potential leads' inboxes.

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3. Add MX Records

MX (Mail Exchange) records are DNS records that specify which mail servers are responsible for accepting incoming emails for your domain. Configuring MX records correctly ensures your emails are routed to the right mail servers.

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• Go to your hosting
• Open DNS editor
• Add MX records, insert @ in the Name, 3600 TTL, and point to something that might look something like this 👇

ALT.ASPMX.L.GOOGLE.COM

Proper MX record configuration is essential to begin allowing sending emails. It helps maintain high deliverability, safeguard your sender's reputation, and ensure your emails reach their intended recipients.

When adding MX records, key considerations include Choosing a reliable email service provider known for good deliverability, Avoiding blocklists by ensuring your domain is clean and reputable, and planning for email warm-up processes to build sender credibility gradually.

These are all automated in Mailforge. You don't need to lift a finger.

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4. Implement email authentication protocols - SPF, DKIM & DMARC

Implementing email authentication protocols such as SPF, DKIM, and DMARC is essential for establishing the trustworthiness of your domain during the initial setup phase. These protocols greatly enhance email deliverability by verifying the sender's legitimacy and fortifying the sender's reputation.

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SPF (Sender Policy Framework) allows servers to verify that emails sent from a domain come from listed IP addresses authorized by domain administrators.

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• Open up the DNS editor
• Add TXT record with 3600 TTL 👇

v=spf1 include:_spf.google.com ~all

Note: You need to do these for all 12 domains.

DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail) attaches a digital signature to each email, which helps prevent email spoofing.

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• Get your DKIM from Google Workspace admin
• Apps > Google Workspace > Settings for Gmail > Authenticate Email
• Generate New Record
• Open up your domain DNS editor
• Add the key as a TXT record with 3600 TLL

DMARC is an additional layer of email authentication that helps protect your domain from email spoofing and phishing attacks. DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting, and Conformance) aligns SPF and DKIM mechanisms, instructing email servers on handling emails that don't pass these checks. Thus, DMARC bolsters email security and protects against spam filters and blocklists.

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1. To create your DMARC
2. Open up your domains DNS Editors
3. Add new TXT record with name _dmarc
4. Insert TXT value and this 👇with 3600 TTL
   
   v=DMARC1; p=reject; rua=mailto:youremail@johndoe.com, mailto:youremail@johndoe.com.com; pct=100; adkim=s; aspf=s

Don't forget to change youremail@johndoe.com to your target email!

Oh! All of these are automated in Mailforge.

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5. Domain Redirect

Your email readers will often check the domain of your email addresses. If your cold email domain doesn't redirect to your primary business domain when they look it up, they might consider you a scammer or spammer.

Set up domain redirecting rules from your domain hosting panel to redirect all the domains to the primary business domain.

The first step to building trust in your cold email campaign is redirecting your newly established domain to align with your primary business website. Redirecting enhances the sender's trust by leveraging a professional appearance linked to your established business website.

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Step 2: Email Creation

Have you set up your domain correctly? Great! Let's create the emails. Here, we focus on the critical task of email creation, which begins with selecting the right Email Service Provider (ESP).

This choice is pivotal as it influences the deliverability and effectiveness of your campaigns. Creating diversified email addresses and personas also helps target emails more accurately, enhancing the potential for successful engagements.

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1. Choosing the ESP (Email Service Provider)

The top 3 email hosting companies are Google Workspace, Outlook, then Mailforge.ai.

Selecting the right ESP is crucial for effectively managing your cold email campaigns. Popular ESPs like Google Workspace and Outlook provide robust features and a user-friendly interface for sending and receiving emails.

Selecting the right Email Service Provider (ESP) is vital for guaranteeing a high deliverability and effectiveness of your cold email campaigns. The choice of an ESP impacts several key areas:

• Email delivery rates: Guarantee the ESP can provide high deliverability to avoid emails landing in spam.
• Compatibility with cold email tools: Check if the ESP works seamlessly with tools designed for cold emailing.

Choosing a provider like Gmail or Outlook can significantly influence the success of your email outreach campaigns due to their authoritative infrastructure and widespread acceptance.

Mailforge also does a fantastic job at that without breaking the bank like Google Workspace.

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2. Diversified Email Fortress

Having selected the right Email Service Provider, the next step in establishing a robust cold email infrastructure involves creating a diversified email setup. Spreading Email across multiple platforms protects you from getting banned.

To protect yourself from being banned by a single platform, consider spreading your email accounts across multiple ESPs. By diversifying your email fortress, you reduce the risk of losing all your email accounts if one platform decides to suspend your account.

Also, not just ESPs; if you plan to use Google Workspace, you should only deploy some of the 12 domains and 36 emails in one workspace. You must create separate workspaces for each domain if you plan on building a secured infrastructure for the long run.

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3. Creating Personas

Creating personas is a critical step in tailoring your cold email campaigns to grab the attention of your prospects. No, I'm not talking about ICPs (Ideal Customer Personas).

I'm referring to the person at your company who will send the emails. Since your cold email domain is hijohndoe.com, you should not send emails from ceo@hijohndoe.com, hello@hijohndoe.com, or support@hijohndoe.com. You should send emails from frank@hijohndoe.com or sarah@hijohndoe.com.

Frank and Sarah are your personas.

The goal is to keep it natural. Since you need to deploy three emails per domain, don't create

• frank@hijohndoe.com
• f@hijohndoe.com
• f.k@hijohndoe.com

Creating personas or fictional characters who act as your employees to run the campaigns is a commonly practised way to keep your cold emails looking natural in Google Workspace. However, they don't need to be fictional.

Fun fact! Female SDRs get more responses than males do. Make sure to have a matching signature, profile picture, and LinkedIn profile.

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4. Creating Email Addresses

Create professional-looking email addresses associated with your domain. Having email addresses like [yourname]@yourdomain.com gives a more professional impression and enhances the credibility of your outreach.

You built your personas. Now, just create the email according to that. 

• frank@hijohndoe.com
• tatiana@hijohndoe.com
• andrea@hijohndoe.com

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Step 3: Email Technical Setup

Most people in the industry call SPF, DKIM, and DMARC your email technical setup. But you set these things up on your domains, not the email itself. 

To ensure smooth operations and maximize the deliverability of your cold emails, take care of technical details like:

Getting phone numbers from smspva.com, turning on two-step verification, enabling IMAP, creating app password and, turning on auto purge.

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Step 4: Connect to Warmer to Build Sender Reputation

Building a robust sender reputation necessitates connecting your email system to an email-warming service.

This process, known as email warm-up, gradually increases your sending volume, establishing credibility and building trust with email service providers.

By sending personalized messages encouraging engagement, you enhance your sender reputation, improving inbox placement and response rates. A strong reputation also helps avoid spam, ensuring your messages reach their intended recipients.

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Step 5: Building a Master Inbox

Build a Master Inbox to streamline and manage all incoming responses efficiently. This central email communications hub guarantees you get all essential replies and can effectively manage your cold email campaigns.

Key benefits of a Master Inbox include:

• Centralized Management: All responses are collected in one place, making monitoring engagement easier and sorting out spam complaints easier.
• Improved Email Deliverability: This feature keeps your primary email inboxes clear of clutter and potential spam folders, enhancing overall email infrastructure.
• Efficient Filtering: Smart spam filters help distinguish between genuine interactions and spam, reducing the risk of missing essential communications from prospects.

Managing multiple email accounts can be overwhelming. To streamline your email workflow, create a master inbox that aggregates incoming emails. Here's how to do it:

1. Forward All Emails: Set up email forwarding from your accounts to your master inbox.
2. Auto Purge: Configure your email accounts to delete emails after forwarding them to your master inbox automatically.
3. Send As: Configure your master inbox to allow you to send emails using your email addresses, making it appear that the emails were sent directly from those accounts.
4. Reply from default emails
5. Filter Warm up emails
6. Create Lead Filters (interested, rejected, 
7. Use Right Inbox to create Follow-up Subsequences

Oh! Did you know Salesforge has a Primary Inbox feature, which works like a master inbox?

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Bonus Step 6: Test Deliverability & Keep Everything Organized

Woah! You actually read through all five steps. Congratulations! 🎉

1. Maintain a Google Sheet while setting up your Domains & Emails.
2. Regularly test deliverability and maintain organizational rigor to guarantee peak performance of your cold email campaigns. 
3. Choose a reliable email service provider and implement rigorous sender reputation management practices.
4. Conduct frequent deliverability testing to ensure your emails reach their intended inboxes. Adhere to email best practices, including email authentication protocols like SPF, DKIM, and DMARC, to avoid email blocklists.
5. Regularly monitor these blocklists to prevent potential blacklisting.

You can test your deliverability by using tools like mail-tester.com. Don’t forget to take it for a spin once a month.

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To Wrap It All Up

Establishing a robust cold email infrastructure is like crafting a finely tuned instrument; each component must harmonize perfectly to produce the desired outcomes.

Businesses can significantly enhance email deliverability by setting up a dedicated domain, implementing stringent email authentication, and nurturing a positive sender reputation.

This strategic approach maximizes the efficacy of cold emailing campaigns and fosters trust and engagement among potential leads, paving the way for successful business expansions.

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FAQs

1. Should You Consider Cold Email Infrastructure Service Providers?

You don't need help from service providers if you use Salesforge and Mailforge combination. You can get everything set up within minutes. But you should consider cold email infrastructure service providers if you use Google Workspace and outlook.

2. How to Send Cold Emails to an Unverified List?

You should not send cold emails to an unverified list. Use an email verification tool like Neverbounce and Scrubby for the unverified email to send cold emails.

3. How Many Emails Do I Need to Send 10k Emails per Month?

You need 36 email inboxes to send 10,000 emails per month. 36 x30 = 1080. If you send one initial email, three follow-up emails, and one break-up email, you will send five emails per sequence of 5400 (1080 x 5). You can easily run two monthly cold email outreach campaigns, meaning you'd send 10800 (5400 x 2) emails. 

4. How Many Domains Do You Need to Send 10k Emails per Month?

You need 12 secondary domains to send 10K emails per month.

5. What is the Best Alternative to Google Workspace Emails?

The best alternative to Google Workspace emails is Mailforge.ai because it offers the fastest way to build an email infrastructure with uncapped sending capacity.

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