u/Happygirl2119

We ran cold email hard in 2023 and 2024 on the playbook everyone was using. 7 step sequences, aggressive follow ups, volume volume volume. Reply rates strted dropping and we ended up burning thru 2 domains in a month.

Google and Microsoft tightened sender requirements, so we had to rethink our setup

We cap every inbox at 30-40 cold sends a day. Anything north of 50 and you start tripping bulk sender detection even if your copy is clean. (might be obv to you but wan't to us at first) Sequences are 3 touches, with the initial, follow up around day 3, last one about a week later. Thats it. If they didnt reply by the 3rd they were never replying to a 7th and all the extra follow ups did was feed the spam filter.

We do 4-6 weeks of warmup before a domain touches a cold list starting low and ramping. And we leave warmup running even after campaigns go live now

A bounce spike over 3% sets you back weeks imo. We run every list through verification now because bad data at volume can burn a domain faster than bad copy.

SPF, DKIM and DMARC are set up on everything before sending. We also cycle in fresh inboxes every quarter instead of trying to rehab domains that are sliding.

As a result wee send about 40% fewer emails than we did a year ago and book more meetings!

Happy to answer any questions or hear what's working for you rn in 2026!