Why your cold emails land in spam, and the checks we run twice a week

Most dead campaigns we diagnose were never read. The copy might have been fine; the emails were landing in spam. Here are the usual causes and the checks that catch them.

The usual causes

• Sending cold from your main domain. One bad week and your sales team's normal email starts landing in spam too.
• Missing or broken authentication. No SPF, no DKIM signature, or a DMARC record that does not exist.
• Skipped warm-up. New inboxes that go straight to cold volume look exactly like spam operations.
• Too much volume per inbox. See our post on inbox math.
• Tracking pixels and links in the first email. Open tracking and heavy link use both hurt placement.
• Unverified lists. High bounce rates tell providers you are not emailing people you know.

The checks we run

1. DNS on day one. SPF, DKIM and DMARC on every sending domain, plus a redirect from the lookalike domain to your main site.
2. Seed tests twice a week. We send to a panel of test inboxes across providers and measure where the email lands.
3. An 85% threshold. Any domain under 85% inbox placement is pulled and rested.
4. Bounce gate. Every contact verified before it reaches a sequencer; bounces held under 1.5%.
5. Plain text, no tracking. No open pixels, and no links in the first email unless they earn their place.

If you are already in spam

Stop cold sending from the affected domain, keep warm-up running, fix authentication, and move volume to fresh, warmed domains while the old one recovers. Do not try to push through it; that only makes recovery longer.