Separate lookalike domains
If your business is at smithbookkeeping.ca, we might register something like getsmithbookkeeping.com or smithbooks.ca. They're close enough that a prospect recognises you, and far enough apart that your real domain is never involved.
That separation matters. Cold email always carries some risk of spam complaints. If those complaints land on your main domain, your invoices and client emails can start landing in spam too. With lookalike domains, the worst case is that we retire a sending domain and set up a new one. Your main inbox doesn't notice.
Each lookalike domain forwards to your real website, so anyone who types it in ends up in the right place.
Google inboxes
We create Google Workspace inboxes on the new domains, under your name or a name you choose. We spread sending across several inboxes so none of them carries too much volume on its own.
The technical email records
Every sending domain needs three DNS records set correctly before it's trusted:
- SPF lists which servers are allowed to send email for the domain.
- DKIM adds a signature that proves the email wasn't changed on the way.
- DMARC tells receiving servers what to do with email that fails those checks.
A missing or broken record is one of the most common reasons cold email goes straight to spam. We set all three and test them before warm-up starts.
About three and a half weeks of warm-up
A brand new inbox that suddenly sends hundreds of emails looks like a spammer. So for roughly three and a half weeks, the new inboxes send and receive a small, growing number of normal emails. That builds a sending history before any prospect hears from you.
We don't shorten this to get started faster. Nothing is wasted in the meantime, though. We use those weeks to build your list and write the emails, so the campaign is ready to go the day warm-up finishes.
Already have sending domains and inboxes? We'll check the records and the sending history before we use them. If they're in good shape, we can skip part of this step.