How To Warm Up An Email Account Before Sending Cold Emails?

Warming up your email accounts is important before you begin your cold email outreach.

Because if you suddenly start reaching out to thousands of people, your emails will most likely end up in the spam folder, or even worse, your email account might get blocked.

But how do you warm up email accounts? 

Well, that’s exactly what we will share in this blog!  

Read through our blog to discover detailed steps on warming up your email accounts before launching a successful cold email campaign

Warm-up Email Accounts- Table of Contents

• What is Email Warm-up? 
• How to Warm-up Email Accounts?
  • Manually 
  • Automatically
• Why Should You Warm-up Your Email Accounts? 
• Key Takeaway
• FAQs

What is Email Warm Up?

Email warm-up is the gradual process of sending a small number of emails from a new email account. This helps build a positive reputation with email providers and ensures better email deliverability over time. 

Although popular email providers like Google and Microsoft offer sending limits of 2,000-10,000 emails, this doesn’t mean you should send that many emails from one account. Instead:

•  Start by sending 30-50 cold emails per day initially.
• Gradually increase the limit to 100-150 cold emails per day.

 When doing bulk cold email outreach, strategically distribute the email-sending volume.

Typically, it takes around 4-5 weeks to warm up your email accounts. 

Expert Tip: Many cold emailers stop warming up their email accounts after 4 weeks. This is not recommended. For best results, we recommend the warm-up process while conducting your outreach.

Keep reading to find out how you can warm-up email accounts!

How to Warm Up an Email Account Before Sending Cold Emails?

You can warm up your email account in two ways: 

• Manually- You have to put in a lot of manual efforts. 
• Automatically- You can automate the warm-up of the ‘N’ number of email accounts at scale. 

In this section, we have mentioned both strategies in detail. 

Insider Information: We have also shared the top 5 email warm-up tools that you can use to automate email warm-up. 

How Can You Manually Warm Up Your Email Accounts?

So, here is how you can manually warm up email accounts: 

Step 1: Set up the Email Account

The first and most important step in warm-up email accounts is to set up the technical configuration. 

You must set DNS records like DMARC, DKIM, and SPF to authenticate your email accounts and build a sender reputation with email providers.

Important Note: You don’t have to set up the DNS records if you are using a free/personal email account like gmail.com, outlook.com, or yahoo.com. 

DNS records have to be set up for business email with domain attached (i.e., user@domain.com).

However, as per the best cold emailing practices, you should NEVER use free/personal  email accounts for outreach purposes because 

1. It doesn’t look professional
2. There is a high chance that ESPs will flag personal accounts as spam

Therefore, make sure you create business email accounts and set the technical configurations. 

You can watch these YouTube videos by cold email experts at Saleshandy to set up the DNS records: 

• SPF
• DKIM
• DMARC

Step 2: Avoid Words That Trigger Spam Filters

Once you have set up the email accounts, it is time to write emails. You can follow the best practices to write emails like your email copy should be:

• Personalized
• Concise
• Relevant
• Short 

But there’s one thing to avoid: don’t use spam-triggering words in your emails, such as:

• Guaranteed 
• Get rich 
• Cheap
• Offer
• Deal, etc. 

These words act as silent alerts that trigger email providers to activate spam filters, sending your emails to the spam folder. 

Step 3: Send Emails to Few Mailboxes

When you start your cold email outreach, you should restrict yourself from reaching out to recipients outside your network.   

Why? Because they won’t interact with your cold emails in one go! 

This can send a negative signal to ESPs that you are randomly sending emails to people who don’t want to interact with you. Email providers will think you are a spammer and thus immediately block you. 

Therefore, initially, start by sending emails to 2-3 recipients  . You can reach out to your friends or acquaintances from the same industry who you know will reply. 

For instance: You found a very insightful post on LinkedIn by an industry expert. You can email them appreciating their insights and hence spark a meaningful conversation. 

Helpful Tip: Also, do not send aggressive sales emails; focus on sharing informational or introductory content.

Step 4: Maintain a Conversational Thread

To build a strong sender reputation among the ESPs, you must keep your conversation going; we already established it in the previous point. 

Thus, to encourage replies, you can ask questions or provide feedback while ending your email to increase the chance of getting replies.

Moreover, you can respond quickly to keep the conversation going.

Step 5:  Increase Email Sending Volume Slowly

Once you have maintained this conversation pattern for 1-2 weeks, you can gradually increase the number of emails you send over time. 

This is the email warm-up schedule you can follow: 

• Week 1-2: Send 5-10 emails per day, gradually increasing by 1-2 emails daily.
• Week 2-4: Aim for 15-20 emails per day, increasing by 2-3 daily, focusing on getting responses.

Step 6: Monitor the Important Email Warm-up Metrics

Email warm up process doesn’t end at just sending emails! 

You also need to track the important email warm up metrics like:

• Inbox Placement Rate: 90%+  
• Open Rate: 30%-50%+  
• Reply Rate: 8%-10%+  
• Bounce Rate: <2%  
• Spam Rate: <0.1%  
• Engagement Metrics (Clicks, Forwards):  5%-15%+  

You can use apps like Glockapps and MxToolbox to track all these metrics. 

How Can You Automate the Process of Email Warm Up?

Warming up email accounts manually is a cool idea. 

But… 

What if you want to scale your outreach efforts?

Obviously, you just can’t sit around and waste your time warming up your email accounts! 

That’s where automating with email warm-up tools comes in! 

Let them handle the warm-up while you focus on key tasks.

With so many email warm tools available, how do you choose?

 Don’t worry, we’ve got you covered.

Check out the top 5 warm-up tools and pick the one that fits your needs.

• TrulyInbox
• Lemwarm
• Warmy.io
• Warmup Inbox
• Folderly

Let’s discuss them in detail!

Top 5 Email Warm-Up Tools to Warm up Your Email Address

1. TrulyInbox

TrulyInbox is one of the best email warm-up tools that can help you build a strong sender reputation.

With TrulyInbox, you can warm up email accounts on autopilot because it mimics human-like email behavior to create real conversation threads with its network of healthy mailboxes.

Although it gradually increases the sending volume, you can also customize the email sending limit according to your outreach requirements.

Pros

• You can connect unlimited email accounts for warm-up. 
• It mimics human-like interaction patterns to build a solid sender reputation. 
• TrulyInbox has a network of healthy inboxes that keep the process of warm-up communication ongoing. 
• With intuitive reports you can keep a check on your key metrics like deliverability score, inbox and  spam rate. 
• You can set up customized email ramp-up limits. 

Cons

• It offers only a 7 day free trial. 

Pricing Plans (Billed Annually) 

• Starter: $22/mo
• Growth: $59/mo
• Scale: $142/mo
• Business: $217/mo

What do Users Have to Say? 

Source: G2

2. Lemwarm

The next email warm-up tool on your list is Lemwarm. It uses its network of 10,000+  mailboxes to automate your warm-up process. Moreover, it sends you insights, tips, and detailed deliverability reports via email to ensure you stay updated with your campaigns.

Also, with its advanced reporting and analytical reports, you can get alerts on your deliverability score and detect spam risks.

Pros

• You can send warm-up emails using your real email templates
• With Lemwarm’s analytical capabilities, you can customize your deliverability reports. 
• You can customize the network of warm-up mailboxes tailored to your industry. 
• Lemwarm gives you daily insights and expert deliverability tips through email. 

Cons

• There is no free trial. 
• The pricing plans are too expensive as you can only warm up 1 email account with 1 subscription plan. 

Pricing Plans (Billed Annually)

• Essential Plan: $24/mo/email
• Smart Plan: $40/mo/email

What do Users Have to Say?

Lemwarm is a built-in email warm-up tool from Lemlist, hence its customer reviews are included with Lemlist’s overall reviews.

Source: G2

3. Warmy.io

Warmy is another email warm-up tool that utilizes its vast global network and sends warm-up emails about any topic in any language. (Yes, you can choose an email warm-up topic and language)

Moreover, when you connect your email to Warmy, the AI detects important info like domain age, mailbox age, previous reputation, etc., to customize the email warm process. 

Pros

• Warmy has an agency dashboard that you can use to handle email warm-ups for multiple clients. 
• You can add your own email template. 
• It offers white labeling functionality. 
• You can choose a warm-up language. 

Cons

• Warmy comes with a learning curve; hence, you need 

Pricing Plans (Billed Annually)

You need to get in touch with their Sales team to customize your pricing plan.

What Do Users Have To Say?

Source: G2

4. Warmup Inbox

Another email warm-up tool on the list has to be Warmup Inbox. It uses AI to create human-like content emails for warming up and uses its network of 30,000+ real mailboxes of real users who communicate with each other. 

Additionally, you can customize the warm-up process by adding your own template and selecting the email warm-up topic. 

Pros

• You can choose and prioritize a specific ESP warm-up. 
• It allows you to warm up in different languages. 
• Warmup Inbox has intuitive dashboards. 
• It sends an email alert when your reputation score drops, allowing you to pause your warm-up campaigns and prevent further damage.
• It has a network of 30,000+ real inboxes.  

Cons

• The pricing plans lack clarity, making it difficult for users to easily understand their options and select the most suitable plan.

Pricing Plans (Billed Annually) 

• Basic: $15/mo/inbox
• Pro: $49/mo/inbox
• Max: $79/mo/inbox

What do Users Have to Say?

Source: G2

5. Folderly

Folderly is one of the best AI-powered email warm-up ecosystems, which has different components like an email spam checker and an SPF & DMARC Generator that help you maintain your email deliverability.

Moreover, with the help of Folderly’s AI, you can keep track of all the important factors that impact your deliverability and allow you to adjust your warm-up process accordingly and improve your inbox placement.

Pros

• It has an intuitive and detailed analytical dashboard. 
• You will get a detailed daily report of how well your campaigns are performing. 
• Folderly has a built-in spam word checker. 
• You can detect the Gmail & Outlook spam reasons. 

Cons

• There are occasional bugs and glitches in the platform. 

Pricing Plans (Billed Annually) 

• 1-9 mailboxes: $ 96/mailbox/month
• 10-24 mailboxes: $ 72/mailbox/month
• 25-99 mailboxes: $56/mailbox/month
• 100+ mailboxes: Custom price

What do Users Have to Say? 

Source: G2

Why Should You Warm-up Your Email Accounts? 

You might ask, why to warm up the cold email domain? 

Well, email deliverability plays a very crucial role in the success of your cold email campaigns.  

Here are the reasons why you should warm up email addresses:

1. Prevent Blocking and Blacklisting

If your emails continue to land in the spam folder, your domain will gain a bad sender rotation, and most likely ESPs will blacklist your domain.

And believe us being on the blacklist is the last thing you will want!

2. Establish Sender Reputation

So when you start sending cold emails from your new email accounts, email service providers have no data to determine whether you’re a legitimate sender or not.

Thus, warming up your email accounts helps you recognize and establish your account as a credible sender.

3. Increase Email Deliverability

Do you know one secret of cold emailing?

Optimal deliverability score = More Chance of Landing In the Inbox

Thus, as already discussed in the above point, email warm-up helps you gradually build a strong sender reputation.

This leads to improved deliverability rates, increasing the likelihood of your emails landing in recipients’ inboxes.

4. Avoid Spam Filters

New email accounts that start sending large volumes of emails switch on the spam trigger alarms of the ESPs.

Thus, you can avoid spam filters by warming up email addresses to demonstrate consistent conversation threads.

Key Takeaway

Nearly 20% of the emails never make it to the inbox because of poor email deliverability.  

Therefore, for successful outreach, always keep in mind the following:

• Email warm-up is the most essential part of outreach campaigns; therefore, don’t compromise it.
• When choosing an email warm-up tool, make sure they are using a reliable network of mailboxes.
• You should always keep your email warm ‘on’ to protect your sender’s reputation. 

By following all these points, you can warm up your email accounts successfully. 

However, do you know how you can take your cold outreach to the next level?

Well, you can do it by using tools like Saleshandy. 

It is an all-in-one cold email tool that you can use to automate your entire cold email process straight from warming up your email accounts to writing personalized emails and sending cold emails at scale. 

FAQs

1. How Long Should I Warm up My Email Accounts?

Well, email warm up is an ongoing process. You can’t say you have warmed up your email accounts enough! Ever. 

Initially, you should warm up your email accounts for at least 4-5 weeks and then gradually increase your email sending volume to build a good sender reputation.

2. How Should I Write Emails During the Warm-up Phase to Avoid Triggering Spam Filters?

While you warm up email account you should follow best practices like keeping the email copies personalized, short, relevant etc. However one thing you should always keep in mind is to stay away from spam triggering words like guarantee, cheap, big discount etc. 

3. Why Do I Need to Warm up My Email Account Before Sending Cold Emails?

You need to warm up email account before sending cold emails to build a strong sender reputation and avoid your emails from landing in the spam folder.