Email Deliverability Audit: How to Do It Right
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Email isn’t just a tool. It gives you a straight shot at your audience. But if your emails aren’t reaching the inbox, even your most convincing messages end up ignored. That's why email deliverability should be part of your cold outreach efforts.
In this article, we’ll cover what an email deliverability audit is and walk through the steps on how to do it. We’ll also discuss why this audit is an important part of any cold outreach strategy.
What is Email Deliverability?
The success of any cold email campaign comes down to one key factor. It is making sure your message reaches the inbox. Hitting send won’t cut it. You need to get a clear grasp of how email deliverability really works.
Email deliverability is about making sure your emails actually land in someone's inbox, not their spam folder. What affects this? The content of your email, your sender reputation, and whether you have the right infrastructure.
When you get those factors right, everything starts to work better. Your emails reach more people, open rates go up, and your audience begins to trust what you send. That trust doesn't just boost short-term results. It builds a stronger, more consistent engagement in the long run.
What is an Email Deliverability Audit?
An email deliverability audit is a series of checks of your email systems that helps you to find out what helps or harms your chances of being delivered into the inbox. The idea here is to find deliverability issues before they start affecting your outreach. For a cold outreach campaign, periodic audits are often the difference between being read and being deleted. When you close gaps early, you’ll increase inbox placement, improve engagement, and prevent any damage to your domain in the long term.
An effective email deliverability audit should evaluate your
- IP address
- Sender reputation
- Authentication protocols
- Server configuration
- Email content
- List hygiene
Having a clear picture of your cold email infrastructure helps you make smarter choices to boost deliverability. The audit gives you a solid starting point for improvements. Once you've made changes, running another audit lets you see exactly how those updates affected your delivery rates.
How to Measure Cold Email Deliverability
To measure cold email deliverability, track the right metrics closely. Open rate shows if your subject line and sender name catch attention. A low open rate often means your emails hit spam or get ignored. Bounce rate tells how many emails failed to reach inboxes, usually due to a bad list or weak infrastructure. Reply rate matters most in cold outreach. It reveals if your message connects with the right people. Low replies mean your targeting missed or your content fell flat. Check the rate of how many emails get ignored or flagged as spam. These metrics show your deliverability clearly and help you catch problems before your domain reputation drops.
Why is Email Deliverability Audit Important?
Think of an email deliverability audit as a health check. It is the one that looks closely at your whole cold email strategy. It checks how you send messages, who you send them to, and how your audience and their email servers react. It spots what’s holding your emails back. More than that, it gives you clear steps to fix the problems, so you can start seeing real improvements.
It starts by checking how you collect emails. If your acquisition process is messy, you’re probably adding bad contacts. And bad contacts ruin deliverability. The audit cleans your list by removing invalid, inactive, or risky addresses that hurt performance. It also explains why some emails bounce and what you can do about it.
But the audit goes further. It checks privacy rule compliance to keep you safe legally. It helps sales and marketing teams stay aligned, so your message stays sharp. And if replies stay low, it shows whether content, targeting, or both need fixing.
How to Know If It's Time for a Cold Email Deliverability Audit
If your cold emails constantly hit spam folders, then most likely you need a deliverability audit. The signs don’t always show. But if you email hundreds and hear almost nothing back, something’s wrong. If you are not hitting the target rate for cold email metrics like open rate, bounce rate, and reply rate. Then, these are the signs you need to do an audit. Maybe your domain got blacklisted, and you don’t know it. If your campaigns fail and you’ve never checked your setup, you're guessing. You should know if your cold email actually reaches your prospects. Once you start doing an email deliverability audit, you start getting better results.
How to Perform a Cold Email Deliverability Audit
1. Start With Your Domain Health
Your domain builds your base. If servers flag it or settings break, your emails stop reaching people. Make sure your SPF, DKIM, and DMARC records are set right and fully valid. If one’s off or missing, fix it fast through your DNS provider.
Tools to Use:
- Mailpool- Automates the domain creation and authentication setup
- MxToolbox – Checks blacklist status
2. Take a Closer Look at Your Email Service Provider
Some providers don’t support strong authentication or reporting. That weakens your chances.
Mailpool Inboxes offer a managed email solution designed for maximum deliverability, leveraging a network of rotating, pre-warmed US-based IPs and built-in authentication. This setup ensures fast and easy deployment, excellent inbox placement, and seamless integration with any outreach tool via SMTP or IMAP. It's an affordable option built to meet high deliverability standards without the usual setup hassles.
3. Find Out if Your Email Is Blacklisted
When blacklisted, your emails hit blocks you won’t see.
Tools to Use:
If you find yourself listed, go through each site’s removal steps carefully, one at a time.
4. Know the Ideal Number of Cold Emails to Send
Sending too many emails too quickly can damage your sender score. A better approach is to start slow, aim for just 25 to 50 emails per day in the beginning. Once your domain warms up, then scale slowly.
5. Check If You’re Sending Emails to the Right Address
Too many bounces drop your reputation. Use an email verification tool.
Tools to Use:
6. Make Sure Your Email Is Properly Warmed Up
New domains need time to gain trust. Gradually increase your send volume. Use warm-up tools that automate this safely.
Tools to Use:
7. Ensure Your Email Contents Are Spam-Free
Spammy words trip filters.
Phrases like “free,” “guaranteed,” or “buy now” trigger blocks.
Best practice: Use the Spam Words Checker tool to scan your copy before sending the emails.
8. Check for Compliance With Privacy Regulations
Make sure you’re following privacy regulations like GDPR and CAN-SPAM. Ignoring them can put your outreach and your business at legal risk.
Checklist:
- Add a visible opt-out or unsubscribe button
- Use honest headers and sender names
- Email only valid business contacts
Cold Email Deliverability Audit Is the Key to Scalable Outreach
A cold email deliverability audit isn’t just a one-time fix. It's like a regular checkup that keeps your outreach focused and your sender score solid. When you spot what blocks your emails, you fix problems fast, lift open rates, drive replies, and dodge spam. If you're starting fresh or scaling fast, a quick audit keeps your emails landing where they belong: the inbox. If you're ready to scale with ease, Mailpool gives you the deliverability power and infrastructure to grow without hitting walls.
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