Microsites, not redirects
Every sending domain gets its own standalone site with its own content. Nothing forwards to your main brand, so no domain can drag another down.
Covers check 01
Free, nothing to fill in
The cold email deliverability checklist
Twenty checks across domains, IPs, lists, copy and monitoring. Tick one only when you have looked at the evidence. Miss any of them and a warmed pool can land in spam within three weeks.
- <2%
- Bounce rate, every week
- 80 words
- Body length. 100 max
- 2 to 3
- Inboxes per domain
- 4 records
- SPF, DKIM, DMARC, MX
Take it with you
The same checklist, as a PDF
Two pages, laid out for print, with a second page on which of these checks we take off your plate. Everything in it is already on this page, so this is for when you want to print it, file it, or hand it to whoever owns the DNS.
Domains and DNS
01Secondary domains don't forward to your main site0 redirects
Forwarding ties every domain's reputation to one target. One flagged domain drags the rest down.
02SPF, DKIM, DMARC and MX on every domain4 of 4
SPF -all, DKIM key present, DMARC p=none with reports on, then p=quarantine.
03Two or three inboxes per domain, no more2 to 3 per domain
Gateways block the domain, not the inbox. 40 inboxes on one domain die together.
04Open tracking offno pixel
Shared tracking pixels carry the reputation of the worst sender on them.
IPs and location
05Mail leaves from real residential IPsnot shared cloud
Shared cloud relays carry every other tenant's history.
06Sending region matches your audienceEU to EU, US to US
EU list, EU IP. US list, US IP. Never a third region.
07Warmup done for real14 to 21 days, sent > 0
A 100% warmup score with zero sends warmed nothing. Check the sent count.
08Under 30 first-touch emails per inbox per day30 max
The cap is what filters tolerate, not what the tool allows.
List and bounces
09Every address verified twicebounce < 2%
MillionVerifier on the full list, then BounceBan on every catch-all. About half of catch-alls are dead.
10Recipients behind Mimecast or Barracuda removedMX check
A few percent of a list behind those gateways can be half your bounces.
11No info@, sales@ or duplicates0 role inboxes
Role inboxes get reported. Duplicates across campaigns get complaints.
12Bounces classified, not countedgateway, dead, throttle
Each one needs a different fix. One number hides which you have.
Copy
13Body under 80 words100 max
Long polished copy reads as marketing and scores as bulk.
14Nothing staticspintax every line
Spin the subject, opener, offer line and sign-off. Identical sends give filters a fingerprint.
15Plain text, no images, one link at most0 images, 1 link
A first email should look like something a colleague forwarded.
16Real person's name, and the ask is a replyreply CTA
Replies are the strongest positive signal a filter sees.
Monitoring
17Sends, replies and bounces tracked per domain, dailydomain level
A 1.5% campaign average can hide three domains at 8%.
18A reply-rate drop on any one domain triggers an alertunder 24 h
Reply rate slips days before bounces move.
19Written response at 3% and 5% bouncewarn, stop
Warn: classify. Stop: pause the domain, find the cause.
20Seed placement test every weekweekly
Gmail, Outlook and a Workspace tenant. The only direct measure of where mail lands.
How Cladiant covers it
Seven of these checks are infrastructure.
You should not be doing them by hand. This is what runs on every Cladiant domain.
DNS Shield
We publish SPF (-all), DKIM, DMARC and MX on every domain at provisioning, then watch all four live. If a record drifts or goes missing, you get flagged before Gmail notices.
Covers check 02
Residential IPs, EU or US
Mail leaves through real residential IPs, never shared cloud relays. Region is picked from where your company sits and where the list is going. EU list, EU egress. US list, US egress.
Covers check 05, 06
Pools built thin
Two or three mailboxes per domain, warmed before handoff, with the capacity planner sizing domain count from your daily target. You never end up with 40 inboxes on one domain.
Covers check 03, 07
Two-stage verification
MillionVerifier on the full list, BounceBan on every catch-all, and an MX check that pulls recipients behind Mimecast and Barracuda. Runs before a list touches a mailbox.
Covers check 09, 10
Real-time deliverability tracker
A live per-domain table: sends, replies, bounces, warmup spam rate, for every domain you run through us. Same tracker we run on our own pools and on client fleets of 200+ domains.
Covers check 17
Domain flagging
When one domain's reply rate falls against its own history and the rest of the pool, or its bounce rate crosses 3%, we flag it to you with the numbers. Pause it before it takes the others with it.
Covers check 18, 19
Want this on your domains?
Send us your sending domains and you get the per-domain table back within a day. No charge, no call.
Send us your domainsScorecard
| Metric | Target | Watch | Pause |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bounce rate, 7 day | < 2% | 2 to 3% | > 5% |
| Spam complaints | < 0.1% | 0.1 to 0.3% | > 0.3% |
| Reply rate vs pool median | within 30% | 30 to 50% below | > 50% below |
| Inboxes per domain | 2 to 3 | 4 to 5 | 6+ |
| Body length | 80 words or fewer | 81 to 100 | > 100 |
| Warmup before first send | 14 to 21 days | 7 to 13 days | sent count 0 |
The 0.3% complaint cap is Google's published rule. The rest is our own bar.
That is all twenty. Have the PDF emailed to you if you want to print it, or hand it to whoever owns the DNS.