a deliverability post for the people who keep blaming the wrong thing
we get a version of this question almost every week: "is Apollo tanking my deliverability?"
short answer: probably not. nine times out of ten the problem is sender setup, not the platform.
the people who actually know this stuff (Benny Rubin at Senders.co is the one i quote internally the most) put it like this: if your emails are going to spam, you've stopped looking like a legitimate business sender and started looking like a spammer, spoofer, or scammer. mailbox providers are watching for that, and they don't care which tool you used to send the email.
a few myths that genuinely will not die so let's bust em:
links and images tank deliverability. they don't. spam filters care about how recipients react to your email, not whether you included a link. if your link domain shows up in a lot of spam complaints, that's the problem...the link itself isn't.
click-tracking flags you as spam. also no. set up a custom tracking subdomain (links.yourdomain.com or similar) and you're fine. without one, you're sharing reputation with everyone else using the same shared tracking domain, which is the part that can hurt you.
outreach tools are sending your emails for you. Apollo and any other sequencing tool aren't actually sending. you connect your mailbox (Google Workspace, Microsoft, whatever) and that's what sends. the platform schedules and writes. the ESP delivers.
bot warmup gets you to a good reputation faster. mailbox providers got smart about this. they detect bot warmup activity now. slower human-driven warmup (real people, real engagement, gradually ramping volume) consistently outperforms it.
low conversion means bad deliverability. usually backwards. low engagement is what causes the deliverability drop. if your replies and meetings are tanking, the list is probably bad or the copy is generic.
the actually useful stuff:
use a lookalike domain for sales (something like getyourcompany.com), not your main domain. SPF, DKIM, and DMARC set up on every sending domain including subdomains. spam complaint rate under 0.1% (the rule says 0.3% but you'll feel pain before then). clear unsubscribe link with the word "unsubscribe" in the link text. warm new domains slowly, 40 emails a day to start, ramping over weeks not days. keep a custom tracking subdomain.
if you're sending more than 5,000 emails a day to personal Gmail or Yahoo addresses, you're a bulk sender permanently. that classification doesn't reverse if you drop volume later. so configure for it now even if you think you won't hit it.
the part that's on us: a lot of people sign up for Apollo, never finish the deliverability setup, run into bounces, and assume the platform is the problem. the deliverability suite, domain warmup tooling, and the setup wizard are all in the product. most users never open the wizard. that's a customer education gap, not a tool problem, and we're working on it.
this is a solid webinar on going from intent signal to booked meeting, worth a watch: https://www.apollo.io/academy/webinars/intent-signal-to-booked-meeting
if your numbers are off and you could use some help, drop your symptoms in the comments.
- Andy