The checklist to run through before launching your campaign
The final review, the one that takes five minutes and catches what you no longer see after rereading the same thing over and over. Tick everything before you click Launch the campaign.
Your sending mailboxes
- They are connected: Connected status on the Accounts page.
- They have warmed up for two to three weeks, with a score above 90.
- SPF, DKIM and DMARC are set up on the domain: authenticating your domain.
- If you turn on open or click tracking, the tracking domain responds.
- You are not prospecting from your main domain, and you have three mailboxes per domain (five at most): the golden rules.
Your list
- The addresses are found and verified: aim for under 5% bounces. See finding and verifying emails.
- Two or three contacts per company at most.
- Contacts you have already worked are left out with Lead exclusion, and your blacklist is up to date.
- The campaign has 15,000 contacts at most: beyond that, the launch is refused. Split it into several campaigns.
- If the sequence starts with an email, all your contacts have an address. If not, add a condition on the email at the start of the sequence, or use a campaign that starts on LinkedIn.
Your messages
- Short, one call to action, a question you can answer in one line: writing a cold email and its follow-ups.
- No attachment, a single https link, no signature as an image.
- The Unsubscribe link is there, with no spintax around it.
- The variables you use are filled in for your contacts, or the sentence works without them.
- Follow-ups have an empty subject line, so they stay in the same thread.
The campaign settings
- Time: the right time zone, the right days, a wide window. See volumes, days and schedule.
- Sending cadence: at most 35 new contacts and 100 emails a day per mailbox, 25 and 75 if the warm-up is running. The maximum number of emails stays well above the new contacts.
- The same mailbox is not already sending at full capacity in another campaign.
- Condition to stop: Replied email and Replied linkedin are on.
- Don't count automatic replies (out-of-office) as replies is ticked, if you do not want an out-of-office message to stop the sequence.
- Tracking: on only if you need it, and with a valid tracking domain.
The test
- Two or three test emails sent from the last step, received, and read on a phone: testing before you launch.
- The links and the unsubscribe link open.
- The test went to an address on a different domain from the sending one.
And after the click
- The Inbox is synced, so you can see replies come in: handling replies.
- You will check the next day's sends, not only those of launch day.
The Launch the campaign window offers Now or Schedule launch, at the date and time of your choice. Handy for starting on a Monday morning without thinking about it over the weekend.
Frequently asked questions
The questions we get asked on this topic, answered briefly.
Do I have to wait for the warm-up to finish before launching?
For a new mailbox, yes: two to three weeks, even if the score passes 90 earlier. The score measures the mailbox's health, not its seniority. For a mailbox that has been sending for a long time, this delay does not apply.
Can I fix my campaign after the launch?
Yes, by pausing it: texts, subject lines, delays and settings can be edited, and you can add a step at the end of the sequence. On the other hand, avoid deleting and re-importing contacts who have already been emailed: they would be treated as new and get the first email again.