DNS & Deliverability Checklist
Jan 6, 2026
Infrastructure
You can write the best sales copy in the world, but if Google's servers don't trust you, your prospect will never see it. Most founders skip the technical setup and go straight to “send,” which destroys their domain reputation. We treat Deliverability as an engineering problem, not a marketing one. Here is the checklist we run before sending a single message.
The Holy Trinity
These are your digital ID cards. Without them, you look like a scammer to email servers.
To land in the Primary Inbox, you must prove you are who you say you are.
SPF (Sender Policy Framework): A list of IP addresses allowed to send email on your behalf.
DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail): A digital signature attached to your emails to prove they haven't been tampered with.
DMARC: A rule that tells receiving servers what to do if an email fails the first two checks.
We set all three of these records to "Strict" immediately upon buying a domain. If you use Mailforge, a lot of this configuration is streamlined, but you must verify they are active using a tool like specific DNS checkers.
Burner Domains & Infrastructure
Protect the asset. Never send cold outbound from your primary company domain.
If you send 500 cold emails from @yourcompany.comand get marked as spam, your internal team emails (to investors or clients) will start failing. This is catastrophic. \n\nWe use Mailforge to spin up "Burner Domains" (e.g.,@https://www.google.com/search?q=try-yourcompany.comor@get-yourcompany.net). We set up 3-5 domains with 2 mailboxes each. This spreads the "load" across multiple servers. If one domain burns out, we simply delete it and spin up a new one without hurting the main brand.
The Warmup & Volume Limits
Patience is a weapon. You cannot blast 50 emails on Day 1.
New domains are "cold." If a new domain suddenly sends 50 emails, Google blocks it. You need a "Warmup" period.
We use Salesforge's auto-warmup feature. It automatically sends emails to a network of other inboxes, opens them, and replies to them to generate "positive engagement" signals.
The Rule of Thumb:
Week 1-2: Warmup only.
Week 3: 10 emails/day.
Week 4: 25 emails/day.
Max Limit: Never exceed 35 cold emails per inbox per day.
