Email Warm-Up is Not Dead. Here's Why.
It's been in the new the past few weeks: email warm up tools are dead. We're to tell you, not yet.
If you’ve been spending time on LinkedIn or learning about email deliverability recently, you might’ve heard this phrase:
“Email warm up is dead”
Is this pessimistic take on email warm-up accurate?
Well, yes and no.
It’s a bit more complicated than it seems at first glance, but our team is here to help guide you through it.
In this article, we’ll go over what email warm up is, why people are arguing about whether it’s over, what it means for current tools, and why ours is different.
Let’s start!
“Email warm up is dead”
Is this pessimistic take on email warm-up accurate?
Well, yes and no.
It’s a bit more complicated than it seems at first glance, but our team is here to help guide you through it.
In this article, we’ll go over what email warm up is, why people are arguing about whether it’s over, what it means for current tools, and why ours is different.
Let’s start!
What is Email Warm-Up?
Email warm-up is a process inboxes go through to gradually gain the trust of Email Service Providers or ESPs.
In order to protect their users from spammers and malware, ESPs use powerful algorithms to detect spam. Colloquially called spam filters, they scan incoming emails for suspicious content, such as spam-trigger words, compare your domain to blacklisted email addresses, and check for lack of authentication.
Failing any of these checks will send your email straight to spam, meaning your prospect never even reads your carefully crafted sales copy.
And a big red flag for these filters?
Low engagement with your address, meaning sending out mass emails without receiving responses, is suspicious and similar to what spammers do. This is not your fault as a salesperson or marketer, especially as you’re first starting out.
You need to determine your correct audience and A/B test your email copy. So, how do you prep your email to avoid being marked for spam when you first start your cold emailing campaigns?
By warming it up.
Warming up your email can be done in two ways: manual or automated email warm-up.
You need to create conversations that signal to ESPs that your email is not simply sending out emails without receiving responses. You can do this manually by contacting colleagues or friends from other companies or departments you know. This is slow-going, but it will be extremely helpful.
Also, keeping a close eye on your lead lists and making your copy as hyper-personalized and specific as possible will help. After all, the better your copy and the more specified your ICP, the more likely you will receive a response.
Also, you want to start slow and build your way to mass sending. Start at 30 emails per day, go to 50 after a few weeks, and then keep increasing slowly to what your domain is able to accept. Some max out at 1000 emails per day or less.
But this may take some time as well.
The short-cut?
Utilizing an email warm up tool to send automated emails, which then are replied to and increase interaction over time to warm up your domain artificially. Utilizing a tool significantly shortened the warm-up period from months to weeks.
This means you can start mass-sending a lot faster.
And in sales, time is money.
Email warm-up tools have seen significant growth and popularity in the past few years, especially for their help with email deliverability.
However, in the last few weeks, some massive changes have rocked many of these developers.
In order to protect their users from spammers and malware, ESPs use powerful algorithms to detect spam. Colloquially called spam filters, they scan incoming emails for suspicious content, such as spam-trigger words, compare your domain to blacklisted email addresses, and check for lack of authentication.
Failing any of these checks will send your email straight to spam, meaning your prospect never even reads your carefully crafted sales copy.
And a big red flag for these filters?
Low engagement with your address, meaning sending out mass emails without receiving responses, is suspicious and similar to what spammers do. This is not your fault as a salesperson or marketer, especially as you’re first starting out.
You need to determine your correct audience and A/B test your email copy. So, how do you prep your email to avoid being marked for spam when you first start your cold emailing campaigns?
By warming it up.
Warming up your email can be done in two ways: manual or automated email warm-up.
You need to create conversations that signal to ESPs that your email is not simply sending out emails without receiving responses. You can do this manually by contacting colleagues or friends from other companies or departments you know. This is slow-going, but it will be extremely helpful.
Also, keeping a close eye on your lead lists and making your copy as hyper-personalized and specific as possible will help. After all, the better your copy and the more specified your ICP, the more likely you will receive a response.
Also, you want to start slow and build your way to mass sending. Start at 30 emails per day, go to 50 after a few weeks, and then keep increasing slowly to what your domain is able to accept. Some max out at 1000 emails per day or less.
But this may take some time as well.
The short-cut?
Utilizing an email warm up tool to send automated emails, which then are replied to and increase interaction over time to warm up your domain artificially. Utilizing a tool significantly shortened the warm-up period from months to weeks.
This means you can start mass-sending a lot faster.
And in sales, time is money.
Email warm-up tools have seen significant growth and popularity in the past few years, especially for their help with email deliverability.
However, in the last few weeks, some massive changes have rocked many of these developers.
Latest Google Changes
Google demanded that all warm-up services cease to work as they do by February 13th, 2023.
If services failed to do this, they lost access to Google and Gmail’s API (Application Programming Interfaces). Essentially, they lost access to their Google Workspace and the possibility to do business with Google.
The mindset here is that it goes against internal Google policies to utilize their API in this way, so they are wanting to crack down on such services. Instead, Google now directly offers DKIM, SPF, and DMARC set-ups for its users, and they suggest focusing on that instead.
After all, top-quality copy and specific customization of prospects should get most salespeople over the mountain.
But there are, of course, a lot of developers affected by this.
If services failed to do this, they lost access to Google and Gmail’s API (Application Programming Interfaces). Essentially, they lost access to their Google Workspace and the possibility to do business with Google.
The mindset here is that it goes against internal Google policies to utilize their API in this way, so they are wanting to crack down on such services. Instead, Google now directly offers DKIM, SPF, and DMARC set-ups for its users, and they suggest focusing on that instead.
After all, top-quality copy and specific customization of prospects should get most salespeople over the mountain.
But there are, of course, a lot of developers affected by this.
What Does That Mean For Most Email Warm-Up Tools?
Because so many warm-up tools and services relied on API, warm-up tools and additions to outreach tools are currently being shut down throughout the space.
With Google and Gmail owning 30% market share of business and personal emails, no one wants to step on their toes by relying on their API for their email warm-up tool.
Better to simply shut down what is sometimes regarded as a cumbersome additional service by outreach tools.
What about email warm up tools exclusively?
Decisions have been made in the past few weeks about their future. Hence, the “email warm-up is dead” posts are mentioned at the beginning.
Of course, none of this is helpful for salespeople or marketers who use these tools or services to help them crack the code of email deliverability.
While there are manual steps you can take to fix or warm up your new or older email address or domain, there are still issues: how long it takes to warm up successfully or how to dig yourself out of the spam box.
Solutions to such problems now carry a huge question mark.
These tools did serve a purpose for those in the cold or mass emailing game.
Services such as GlockApps can help you identify and diagnose the issue. But the solution?
That takes more time and a lot of trial and error.
Email warm-up tools helped users halve this time from the beginning and served a particular purpose in the world of cold email.
But, with the new regulations, their business will essentially disappear unless they comply with Google’s requirements.
So what can be done?
Utilize a tool built with an alternative.
With Google and Gmail owning 30% market share of business and personal emails, no one wants to step on their toes by relying on their API for their email warm-up tool.
Better to simply shut down what is sometimes regarded as a cumbersome additional service by outreach tools.
What about email warm up tools exclusively?
Decisions have been made in the past few weeks about their future. Hence, the “email warm-up is dead” posts are mentioned at the beginning.
Of course, none of this is helpful for salespeople or marketers who use these tools or services to help them crack the code of email deliverability.
While there are manual steps you can take to fix or warm up your new or older email address or domain, there are still issues: how long it takes to warm up successfully or how to dig yourself out of the spam box.
Solutions to such problems now carry a huge question mark.
These tools did serve a purpose for those in the cold or mass emailing game.
Services such as GlockApps can help you identify and diagnose the issue. But the solution?
That takes more time and a lot of trial and error.
Email warm-up tools helped users halve this time from the beginning and served a particular purpose in the world of cold email.
But, with the new regulations, their business will essentially disappear unless they comply with Google’s requirements.
So what can be done?
Utilize a tool built with an alternative.
Unfiltered is Built With IMAP
At Unfiltered, we’ve been creating our warm-up tool for a while.
Our development is taking its time because of all the additions and questions we want to make sure we account for.
It is being built by salespeople and marketers, all of whom have experience with the difficulty of navigating email deliverability. As such, we want to ensure we address all the frustrations we’ve encountered with warm-up and deliverability services.
From the very beginning, we’ve built our tool using IMAP, which stands for Internet Message Access Protocol.
This protocol allows users to download messages from an ESP’s servers to their computers.
At its base, the protocol allows users to access email messages via the Internet regardless of IP location, in multiple devices, and, in some cases, edit without Internet access. This also allows IP warming.
We decided to focus on IMAP and SMTP warm-up, which covered more of our needs to warm up as salespeople and marketers. And because it avoided reliance on the Gmail API.
This decision has now paid off, as long-term our warm-up tool will still be able to be used by users.
But at Unfiltered, we also offer an email deliverability service, which adds another layer of aid for our users.
Access to all our knowledge with email deliverability, which comes from years and years of experience in the world of cold email, at our customers' fingertips.
As we focused so heavily on sales, marketing, and cold email, our team is uniquely positioned and knowledgeable in the subject. We are not salespeople who have recently come across the idea of email deliverability – we have been aware for years.
Our users can use this service, the tool, or both. It is entirely up to them!
Our development is taking its time because of all the additions and questions we want to make sure we account for.
It is being built by salespeople and marketers, all of whom have experience with the difficulty of navigating email deliverability. As such, we want to ensure we address all the frustrations we’ve encountered with warm-up and deliverability services.
From the very beginning, we’ve built our tool using IMAP, which stands for Internet Message Access Protocol.
This protocol allows users to download messages from an ESP’s servers to their computers.
At its base, the protocol allows users to access email messages via the Internet regardless of IP location, in multiple devices, and, in some cases, edit without Internet access. This also allows IP warming.
We decided to focus on IMAP and SMTP warm-up, which covered more of our needs to warm up as salespeople and marketers. And because it avoided reliance on the Gmail API.
This decision has now paid off, as long-term our warm-up tool will still be able to be used by users.
But at Unfiltered, we also offer an email deliverability service, which adds another layer of aid for our users.
Access to all our knowledge with email deliverability, which comes from years and years of experience in the world of cold email, at our customers' fingertips.
As we focused so heavily on sales, marketing, and cold email, our team is uniquely positioned and knowledgeable in the subject. We are not salespeople who have recently come across the idea of email deliverability – we have been aware for years.
Our users can use this service, the tool, or both. It is entirely up to them!
Conclusion
Email warm-up is not dead, and thinking otherwise would be a big mistake.
As the space becomes more regulated, so will the tools used. And this is okay.
But with the advent of new technologies that respond to these regulations, it is possible to continue your business as usual.
So don’t be scared – be smart.
Don’t want to lose out on a new tool to make your business run smoothly and efficiently.
As the space becomes more regulated, so will the tools used. And this is okay.
But with the advent of new technologies that respond to these regulations, it is possible to continue your business as usual.
So don’t be scared – be smart.
Don’t want to lose out on a new tool to make your business run smoothly and efficiently.
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