GENERAL TIPS
- Stick to about 50 cold emails per day per email to be safe. I've heard several people say anywhere from 35-100 emails per day (this is on top of the 20 emails Instantly sends out daily to keep the email warm).some text
- My recommended ramp-upsome text
- 0 per day in Month 1
- 35 per day in Month 2
- 50 per day in Month 3 and beyond
- If Flagged, drop back down to 0 per day and start ramping up again.
- Make sure to track all of your domains and emails, as well as cost. I use Monday.com to track everything to make sure I've set up each email correctly, but also to track the overall health and age of each account. You could also do this in a Google Sheet.
- Aim for 5-10% Reply Rate. If you still have 1-2% Reply Rate after two emails from your sequence, you need major changes to your sequence.some text
- And out of those 5-10% replies, 80% of them should be positive
DOMAIN PURCHASE
- Cold Email is risky, because there is the chance that recipients will mark your emails as spam. Due to this possibility, DO NOT use your primary domain for cold email.
- Purchase new domains that are parallel to your company name. We are Coconut VA, so alternative domains could include changes to the domain extension (.com vs .co), or changes to the name (hirecoconut or trycoconut)some text
- CoconutVA.co
- CoconutVA.agency
- HireCoconut.com
- TryCoconut.us
- AVOID DASHES. Google automatically flags anything like "tyler@Coconut-VA.com"
GOOGLE WORKSPACE SET-UP
- Go to Google Workspace page and start the process to purchase a new Workspace
- Go through all the steps, using the company name and your namesome text
- Set the recovery email to your primary email
- Make sure to come back after your Workspace trial ends to opt for the lower subscription. Google automatically signs you up for the $20/mth tier, but there is a $7/mth tier
- Once created, verify your domain with your domain provider then activate Gmail
- Once in Gmail, Enable IMAP in settings
- Adding New Userssome text
- I recommend having a maximum of 3 Users in each of your workspaces/domains. So for me, it might be:some text
- Once your workspace is up and running, go to the Admin portal and add new User.
- Add profile picture and Enable IMAP in their Gmail settings
- If you need additional phone numbers to verify your Google Workspace account or for any of the Gmail accounts, you can use a phone number 'rental' service.some text
- Google Workspace verifications: some text
GODADDY / DNS SET-UP
- Create DKIM - Google generates this from Admin portal. TXT record.some text
- In the Google Admin portal, search DKIM, then click DKIM Authentication. Then generate a new record. Enter this record into the DNS records (TXT record), then make sure to hit Start Authentication in the Google Admin portal
- Check for SPF record, Google may already have it in there.some text
- If not, create SPF as a TXT record. @ name. v=spf1 include:_spf.google.com ~all
- Create DMARC. TXT record. some text
- "_dmarc" for name
- "v=DMARC1; p=none" for record/data
- may also want to include rua, but I don't know how that's structured yet
- If you're using Instantly, you can also create a custom tracking domain nowsome text
- Add CNAME record, name "inst" and data/record "prox.itrackly.com"
- Make sure you have MX records. Google gives a primary record plus 4 alternates. This is done automatically when you set up your Google Workspace account and then "Activate Gmail"
- Ensure you have a permanent redirect (301) to your primary website (Forwarding tab in Godaddy)
INSTANTLY SET-UP
- Watch this video or go through the text instructions below:
- Click on Add New User and go through the steps using the default options
- Once created, open the User's settings. Make sure to fill in all of the fieldssome text
- Name
- Signature
- Campaign Limit: 0 for now. Wait time: 6 minutes
- Add a Custom Tracking Domain, use this article. If you followed this guide, you've already completed the steps to adding the CNAME record in your DNS:some text
- Add warmup tag so you know which emails are from prospects vs warmup emails
- Default options for warmup frequency and reply rate
- Enable Weekdays, Read Emulation, and Custom Tracking.
- Set Open Rate around 80%, Spam Protection to 100%, and Mark Important to around 20%
- Make sure to Save and then come back and check to make sure all of the settings are still accurate.some text
- You may need to Save, leave the Settings, refresh the page, and then come back into settings
- If you have a CRM or Client List that you want to avoid emailing, add all of those contacts to a 'placeholder' campaign in Instantly.some text
- Add a new Campaign and call it "DO NOT SEND", then upload the list of contacts into Leads.
- This will always be a draft campaign, so now, whenever you send a new campaign, Instantly will tell you if any of those added Leads/Contacts are duplicates.
HOW TO DO COLD EMAIL WITHOUT GETTING FLAGGED
- Create a new campaign and add your leads!
- In your Sequence, here's a few tips:some text
- keep subject line short and fairly ambiguous:some text
- meet-up at event
- invite only
- see you at the event?
- Add 8-10 variants in each Step! Change subject lines and body of the email. A/B test!!
- Limit your sequences to 3-4 emails within a month. If they still haven't replied, you need to be reaching out to them somewhere else like LinkedIn or cold call. some text
- Or, alternatively, you could keep up outreach but drop your email frequency to once a month. But you are more likely to get marked as spam by doing this.
- Turn off open rate tracking, this will help deliverabilitysome text
- Reply rate is your metric of success!some text
- Aim for 5-10%. If you still have 1-2% after two emails from your sequence, you need major changes to your sequence.some text
- Check individual email/domain reply rates to make sure that everyone is around the same rate. If one is much lower than the rest, that email may have been marked as spam.
- Add that "random wait time" in the Advanced Options. I usually do 6 minutes wait time, then 4 minutes random wait time
- Turn on Provider Matching
RANDOM NOTES / FUTURE RESEARCH
- Varying advice on warm up tools (whether or not they're truly effective)
- Varying advice on many subdomains vs many domains vs many emails with one domain. some text
- I'm going with the many domains approach, and 2-3 emails per domain. some text
- Example: "CoconutVA.co" has emails for Tyler, George, and Steve. We have many domains that all have Tyler, George, and Steve
