Cold email deliverability checklist for small teams

Why deliverability matters before the holidays

November and December are busy months for outreach. Clients are setting next year's budgets, freelancers want to fill the first quarter, and everyone's inbox is fuller than usual with holiday promotions. In that crowd, an email that fails authentication or draws a few spam complaints is the first to be filtered out.

Deliverability is not a mystery. Most of it comes down to three things: proving the email really comes from you, making it easy to say no, and writing only to people who are likely to want to hear from you. Get those right before you send your end-of-year campaign, not after it lands in spam.

What Gmail asks of every sender

Since February 2024, Google's email sender guidelines set requirements for everyone who sends to Gmail addresses, not only large senders. Among them:

authenticate your sending domain with SPF or DKIM;
have valid DNS records for your sending domain or IP, and send over a secure (TLS) connection;
keep the spam rate reported in Google Postmaster Tools below 0.3%, with 0.1% as the recommended target.

Senders of more than about 5,000 messages a day to Gmail accounts have extra rules: SPF, DKIM and DMARC, a From domain aligned with SPF or DKIM, and one-click unsubscribe for marketing messages. A small team rarely sends that much, but following the bulk rules anyway is the simplest way to stay on the right side of every inbox provider.

Set up your sending address

Send from your own domain, such as hello@yourcompany.com, not a free webmail address.
Verify the domain with your email provider and publish the SPF and DKIM records it gives you in your DNS.
Add a DMARC record. Starting with a monitoring policy (p=none) is fine: it tells inboxes you have a policy and sends you reports.
Consider a separate subdomain or address for outreach, so a bad week of cold emails doesn't hurt the invoices and support emails your clients rely on.
Send yourself a test and check the message headers in Gmail ("Show original"): SPF, DKIM and DMARC should all say PASS.

Configure Prospects to protect your sender

Prospects is the outreach part of Tasks. If you're new to it, the Prospects guide explains products, directories and actions. The settings that matter for deliverability:

Send from email, on the product page: use the address or domain you verified with your email provider. An unverified sender is the most common reason emails are rejected or land in spam. Leave it empty to use the platform default.
From label: a real name or a recognisable team name, such as "Anna from Acme". People report as spam what they don't recognise.
Default reply-to email: an inbox you actually read. Replies are a good signal, and a quick answer keeps the conversation going.
Unsubscribe is built in. Every outreach email sent from Prospects carries a short notice with a personal unsubscribe link, plus the one-click unsubscribe headers that Gmail shows as an "Unsubscribe" button. Once someone unsubscribes, Tasks won't send them another email.

Start by sending a few emails by hand before you switch on daily runs that email new prospects automatically. Watch the replies and bounces from the first batch, then automate.

Keep your list clean

Most spam complaints come from people who never expected your email. A smaller, better list beats a big one:

Write a precise directory prompt, so searches only bring in prospects who match what you sell. The prospect list guide shows how.
Use excluded sites on the product to keep competitors, job boards and directories out of every search.
Mark bounces. When an email comes back undeliverable, set the action's status to bounced, then fix the address or exclude the prospect. Repeated bounces hurt your sender reputation.
Stop after a few touches. Three or four emails in total is plenty; see follow-up emails that get replies for a simple rhythm.
Keep templates plain: one clear reason to reply, no attachments, few links, and no all-caps subject lines.

A weekly deliverability check

Deliverability drifts quietly, so check it on a schedule. In Tasks, add a task such as "Check outreach deliverability" with a weekly recurrence. When it comes up:

Filter each directory by action status and look at bounced and no response.
Exclude or fix the addresses that bounced.
If you send enough mail to Gmail to see data, check your spam rate in Google Postmaster Tools.
Reread the default template of any directory with many sends and few replies, and rewrite it.

Complete the task and the next one is scheduled automatically for the following week. Fifteen minutes a week is enough to catch a problem before it costs you a month of outreach.

FAQ

Do Gmail's sender rules apply if I send only a few emails a day?

Yes. The requirements for all senders, such as SPF or DKIM authentication and a low spam rate, apply whatever your volume. The stricter rules (DMARC, alignment, one-click unsubscribe) are required for bulk senders, but they are good practice for everyone.

Do I need DMARC for cold email?

It is required only for bulk senders to Gmail, but a DMARC record is quick to add and many inbox providers look for it. Start with a monitoring policy and tighten it once your SPF and DKIM pass consistently.

Should I remove the unsubscribe link to look more personal?

No. An easy way out lowers spam complaints, which matter far more for deliverability than a slightly more "personal" look. In Tasks, the unsubscribe notice and headers are added to every outreach email for you.

Why do my emails bounce?

Usually because the address doesn't exist any more or was guessed. Use emails found on the prospect's own website where possible, mark bounces as soon as you see them and exclude prospects whose address keeps failing.