Choose your situation
Which mailbox to use for cold email
The choice of your sending mailboxes weighs more on your results than the content of your messages. It is the number one deliverability factor.
Emelia has no sending server of its own: it connects to your mailboxes the way an email client would, and your emails leave through your host's servers. So it is the reputation of your mailboxes, of their domain and of their host that decides whether your messages land in the inbox or in spam. The good news: all of it is set once, at the start.
What we recommend, what we advise against
Here is what we repeat most often on support, summed up in two columns. Each point is covered in detail in the pages of this section.
- Domains dedicated to outreach, close to your brand and redirected to your real website (for example tryemelia.com for emelia.io).
- Named addresses: firstname@ or firstname.lastname@, with a real first and last name as the display name.
- 3 mailboxes per domain (5 at most). To send more, add domains, not mailboxes.
- Google Workspace or Microsoft 365 as your sending host.
- SPF, DKIM and DMARC on every domain (DMARC at
p=none), plus the tracking domain. - 2 to 3 weeks of warmup before a new mailbox sends anything, and warmup left on afterwards.
- Sensible volumes: at most 35 new contacts and 100 emails per day per mailbox, follow-ups included (25 and 75 while warmup runs), spread across the day.
- Sending outreach at volume from your main domain: it takes the spam complaints, along with your quotes, invoices and customer conversations.
- Generic addresses such as contact@, info@, hello@ or sales@: they look like bulk mail and get treated that way.
- Stacking 10, 20 or 50 mailboxes on the same domain.
- Subdomains (outreach.yoursite.com): they do not protect your main domain.
- A free Gmail or Outlook address to write to businesses.
- Hosts that throttle automated sending or break warmup: from what we see on support, shared hosts such as Hostinger, IONOS, Gandi, Infomaniak, o2switch and LWS, and the "cold email" mailbox resellers such as Maildoso, MailScale or Mailforge.
- Sending on day one from a brand-new mailbox, or pushing a mailbox beyond 100 emails a day.
- DMARC at
p=rejecton an outreach domain: warmup shuts down.
Why the email host matters so much
With shared hosting providers, sending IP addresses are shared between many customers. When an account starts sending campaigns, some hosts automatically move it onto lower-rated IPs. The mailbox is not blocked, but its reputation drops, sometimes from 100 to 70 in about ten days.
Asking the host for a different IP does nothing: they will not put a cold email sender back on their best addresses. The lasting fix is to change your sending host. Google Workspace and Microsoft 365 manage their own reputation and do not have this problem.
Moving your sending mailboxes to another host does not touch your website hosting. And if those mailboxes live on dedicated domains, your company email is not affected either.
The steps, in order
Setting up a sending mailbox happens in four stages: pick and buy your domains, create the mailboxes, connect them to Emelia, then warm them up before the first campaign. Tell us where you are.
Where do you stand?
Frequently asked questions
The questions we get asked on this topic, answered briefly.
How many mailboxes do I need to prospect?
Count one mailbox per 25 new contacts a day if warmup stays on, 35 at most otherwise. For 100 new contacts a day, you need 3 to 4 mailboxes spread over 2 domains. The full calculation is in buying your domains and mailboxes.
Can I prospect from a Gmail address?
Technically yes, but we advise against it: an @gmail.com address carries none of your branding, inspires less trust from a business, and has lower sending limits (30 new contacts a day at most, on a single campaign). Keep it for tests. The steps are here: connecting a Gmail address.
My sending reputation is dropping even though I send little: should I change IP?
No. Your emails leave through your host's servers and IPs, not Emelia's. With a shared host, outreach activity often moves the account onto lower-rated IPs, and a new IP fixes nothing. The fix is to move your sending mailboxes to Google Workspace or Microsoft 365. Meanwhile, stay at 25 new contacts and 75 emails per day per mailbox, warmup included.
Can Emelia provide the mailboxes?
Very soon: you will be able to buy domains and Google Workspace mailboxes right inside Emelia, at $5 per mailbox per month. Everything is explained in buying your mailboxes in Emelia.