Email Warmup Guide

How to Build Trust as A Sender and Land Your Emails in the Inbox

A woman in a white shirt and pink jacket looks at her laptop to see an overall inbox score of 85% for her email warmup.

Building trust as an email sender is key to landing your campaigns in the inbox. In this email warmup guide, we show you how to get started, improve email deliverability, and make more sales.

Many email marketers, sales pros, and business owners assume email deliverability will take care of itself. But here’s the thing: hitting “send” is only the beginning of actually reaching your customers and prospects.

Every email you send competes for attention in crowded inboxes – and against ever-evolving spam filters. These filters constantly assess your reputation as a sender. Are you trustworthy? Consistent? Reliable?

That’s why building a strong sender reputation is non-negotiable if you want your emails to land where they matter: the inbox. And that’s where email warmup comes in.

By helping you gain trust with Internet service providers (ISPs), it gives your emails a fighting chance. A good email warmup strategy ensures you can connect, engage, and ultimately convert your ideal prospects.

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What is email warmup?

Email warmup is the process of gradually building a positive sending reputation for an email address. An email warmup toolⓘA service that helps senders build, improve, or maintain their email domain reputation and improve email deliverability by sending real email messages that deliver positive engagement, such as opens, clicks, and favorites. enhances a sender’s trust with inbox providers by sending a small number of emails to engaged recipients over time.

Email warmup tools do more than send emails, though. They mimic and foster consistent interactions between senders and recipients, thus improving key metrics like open, click, and reply rates.

Whether you run mass email campaigns or manage daily communications, a good email warmup strategy helps to:

  • Repair a damaged sender reputation
  • Improve email deliverability
  • Keep your emails going to your prospects’ inboxes.

Next, let’s see why your sender reputation matters so much to your inbox placement – and how warming up your IP and domain helps.

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Why warm up your email domain and IP address

In getting an email from your inbox to another, your sender reputation is critical. It determines whether your message makes it to the inbox or gets flagged as spam. Factors like bounce rates, spam complaints, engagement levels, and sending volume all influence your sender reputation.

If you’re sending emails from a new address, starting too aggressively can hurt your reputation before you even get started. Also, if your reputation was tainted by a high bounce rate or spam complaints, you’ll struggle to get your campaigns to the inbox.

Even if your content is valuable, a poor reputation signals to email providers that your emails may not be trustworthy. From this point on, it’s unsurprising if your emails are relegated to spam.

Regardless of where you are in your email marketing journey, a smart email warmup strategy ensures your campaigns land where they belong: in front of your audience.

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Why you need an email warmup strategy

Even senders with a great sender reputation may use an email warmup tool to maintain and boost engagement metrics – especially when making changes or scaling up their email campaigns.

Here are a few reasons why:

  1. New campaign or domain: If you’re launching a new email campaign, introducing a new domain, or using a new email address, even with a great reputation, an email warmup strategy ensures smooth delivery from the start.
  2. Increasing email volume: Your email account may have a history and a good reputation, but scaling up email volume can trigger spam filters. An email warmup tool can prevent your email from being flagged as spam by gradually ramping up your daily sending volume over time.
  3. Re-engaging dormant lists: If you haven’t emailed your list in a while, using a warmup tool can re-establish a positive reputation with those contacts. It allows for a gradual reintroduction and helps you avoid sudden engagement drops, which could harm deliverability.
  4. Ensuring consistency: You may use an email warmup tool to maintain consistency in your sender reputation over time. This approach is especially helpful if you’re sending from multiple addresses or rotating through different domains.

In essence, a well-thought-out email warmup strategy acts as a precautionary measure to maintain your reputation while you update sending patterns or use different email addresses.

While beneficial to every email sender, email warmup can be tricky to implement. Many email marketers and business owners don’t know how to start and maintain a healthy domain and IP warmup process. If you’re among them, read on to get all the details and learn how to earn your spot in the inbox.

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How does email warmup work?

Email warmup works by sending emails on your behalf to a list of addresses and ensuring those emails get healthy engagement. Opens, clicks, and replies all count toward your sender reputation. Having your emails marked as not spam and important further enhances your trustworthiness.

These small but essential actions “warm up” your email account to improve your metrics and email deliverability.

The benefit of using an email warmup tool is that it automates all the positive actions that build your reputation. Here's how it works:

  1. Gradual increase in email volume: The tool automatically sends a small number of emails at first and gradually increases the volume over time. This mimics natural email behavior and helps you avoid triggering spam filters.
  2. Automated engagement: The tool also manages interactions with the emails it sends. It can simulate actions like opening the emails, replying to them, and marking them as important or not spam. The email warmup tool manages the “seed” email addresses that perform these actions to create an organic engagement pattern.

This automation is key because it saves time and ensures consistency. A solid email warmup strategy leaves no room for mistakes and establishes your sender reputation more efficiently than if done manually.

What are seed email addresses?

Seed email addresses are a network of accounts that an email warmup tool uses to engage with emails sent from your address. These seed addresses simulate natural engagement with your emails.

Here’s how they work:

  1. Receiving emails: Seed email addresses receive the emails sent during your warmup process. They help create the appearance of organic email activity.
  2. Simulating interactions: These addresses are used to open the emails, reply to them, mark them as important, or move them out of the spam folder. This simulated engagement signals to email service providers (like Gmail, Yahoo, or Outlook) that your emails are legitimate and they belong in the inbox.
  3. Boosting your sender reputation: By consistently interacting with your emails, the email warmup tool boosts your sender reputation by positively engaging with emails sent to these seed addresses. Thus, your future messages are more likely to land in the inbox.

Seed email addresses are part of a controlled environment within the warmup tool, and their role is vital in improving your email deliverability.

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Can you warm up your IP and domain using your own contacts?

You may wonder why you’d need an email warmup tool – couldn’t you warm up your IP and domain using a list of your own email addresses?

A company like yours might consider that. However, compared to an automated process, a manual email warmup strategy has challenges and limitations.

Here's why:

Limited variety of interactions

When using your own list of contacts, your emails may not receive the variety of interactions that email service providers (ESPs) look for. To gauge your sender reputation, ESPs like to see a diverse set of recipients from different domains (Yahoo, Gmail, business domains). If your list of contacts is limited, it may not be strong enough to help you build your reputation.

Potential for bias

A database of your own contacts may already have a history of positive interactions with your emails, which could create a biased picture of your reputation. ESPs could detect that the interaction isn’t genuine, especially if there’s a lack of variation in recipient behaviors and actions.

Lack of scale

Warming up your email with a small list of internal addresses doesn’t simulate real-world sending and receiving behavior. ESPs algorithms may detect that the volume and engagement don’t represent typical email activity. This may end up hurting more than helping your IP and domain reputation.

It’s time-consuming

Manually warming up your email account would require gradually increasing email sending volume, then making sure each email is opened, replied to, and marked as important. The process is time-consuming and tedious – and would likely need to involve other people.

Human error

The biggest challenge to manual email warmup is the potential for human error. Missing a step, forgetting to engage with an email, and accidentally marking it as spam can affect your email warmup process.

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Steps to warm up your email domain and IP

Warming up your email account using a dedicated tool will not only save you time – it will also help you avoid mistakes. A good email warmup strategy ensures your reputation is growing at a healthy pace and that you’re building increasing authority with ESPs.

Ready to start warming up your email with ZeroBounce? Our documentation provides all the details, but here are the steps you need to take.

Step 1. Choose between manual and automatic

ZeroBounce’s email warmup tool offers two main options to help you improve email deliverability:

  • Self-managed: Send emails yourself to our seed email addresses. Recommended only for experienced users.
  • ZeroBounce-managed: Let ZeroBounce send emails and engage with them in an organic manner.

This engagement goes beyond replies and clicks. The tool simulates genuine user interactions and accounts for key factors such as cultural norms, time zones, and user behavior patterns across different browsers and operating systems.

Step 2. Connect your mailbox

It’s time to choose the email account you’d like to warm up. The process is intuitive – just follow the instructions in your dashboard.

Step 3. Choose your ideal engagement rules

Based on the number of emails you send daily, you’ll be able to pick your ideal engagement rules. We’ll walk you through the different options – everything is thought out to allow for a gradual boost of your sender reputation.

Ready to give it a try?

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ZeroBounce email warmup accounts and actions

Your ZeroBounce email warmup account has two key components: accounts and actions. Before you get started, here’s what they mean:

  • Email warmup accounts: They refer to the number of email addresses you add to the warmup system. You can choose to warm up a single email account or several – at the same time. ZeroBounce provides different packages to fit your needs.
  • Email warmup actions: They refer to positive engagement actions our system performs to improve your sender reputation. These actions could be opening emails, clicking on links, replying, marking emails as important, starring emails, or flagging them as not spam.

Each action follows the best email warmup strategy for your particular account. The tool evaluates the context in which your business operates to replicate genuine user behavior and boost your reputation. The goal is to establish and enhance trust with inbox providers so you can get your campaigns in the inbox consistently.

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Best practices for email warmup

To get the most out of your email warmup strategy, there are a few best practices to keep in mind. Doing things right means you build your sender reputation gradually and earn your place in your customers’ inboxes.

1. Provide accurate information

When setting up your email warmup account, make sure the information you share is current and accurate. Engagement rules take into account your sending pattern, so it’s essential to share how many emails you typically send every day. Thus, the email warmup tool can tailor its patterns to fit your existing activity.

2. Have a long-term strategy

Email warmup doesn’t happen over a few days. For optimal results, have a long-term strategy. We recommend a minimum warmup period of 30 days for initial monitoring, during which the system adjusts its patterns using real-time feedback. You should start seeing improvements in your open rates and overall engagement.

3. Be consistent

Any drastic changes in your email sending patterns may disrupt your natural flow of engagement and affect your sender reputation. To avoid that, stay consistent in terms of email sending volume and frequency. If you need to adjust, do it slowly – unpredictable sending behavior can flag your emails as spam.

4. Don’t rush the process

Being patient in this process ensures your email interactions don’t appear suspicious to ESPS. For lasting results, consider warming up your IP and domain for three to six months. That gives our email warmup tool enough time to scale your engagement levels slowly.

5. Monitor your metrics

ZeroBounce’s email warmup tool is designed to be hands-off, but checking your metrics regularly helps you understand how your sender reputation is improving over time. It also gives you a chance to make updates, if necessary (for the manual process).

By following these tips, you’ll earn the best results from your email warmup, boost your sender reputation, and achieve higher email deliverability.

Need help with email warmup? Our team is here 24/7 to assist you. Reach out to us – or try our warmup tool today.

Try ZeroBounce Email Warmup now

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Best practices for email warmup

Having a reliable email warmup strategy in place makes a difference to your inbox placement regardless of your sending history. But warming up your IP and domain isn’t enough to ensure your prospects are getting your emails.

Here are a few extra tips to keep in mind if you send bulk emails:

  • Keep your bounce rates low. The industry benchmark is 2%, so try to stay under this threshold to avoid being perceived as a spammer. Email contacts decay quickly, particularly in the B2B space. Use an email verifier to weed out invalid emails.
  • Build your email list organically. Avoid purchasing lists of contacts as your engagement rates will be low and your emails may be reported as spam. Instead, continue to grow your email list by promoting it and offering compelling incentives.
  • Send relevant emails. High engagement rates help you improve email deliverability by signaling email service providers that your content is valuable. Segment your email list and create emails that are relevant for each of your audiences.
  • Keep spam reports at bay. When more than one in 100 people marks your email as spam, your future emails may go to the junk folder. Spam complaints are extremely damaging to your inbox placement, so ensure you don’t bother people with your content.
  • Authenticate your emails. Large email providers now enforce email authenticationⓘOne or more techniques or policies created to help internet service providers determine the identity of an email sender as legitimate. Examples of email authentication include SPF, DKIM, DMARC, and BIMI. protocols like SPF, DKIM, and DMARC. If you send mass emails, secure your domain so that the emails you send can pass spam filters.

For best results, pair these tips with a long-term email warmup strategy. By keeping your email list clean, sending relevant content, and adhering to email authentication best practices, you can boost your email deliverability and build trust with both email service providers and your audience.

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