How To Warm-Up Your Cold Emails Like A Pro

What is a Cold Email Warm-Up?

A cold email warm-up is an automated process designed to improve the reputation and deliverability of your email accounts.

Here’s how it works: your accounts automatically send and receive emails, mimicking real conversations. This clever technique helps ensure that your email accounts are recognized as legitimate and trustworthy by email service providers (ESPs) like Google and Microsoft.

Why Warm-ups Matter

Email warm-ups are crucial because they allow you to control the deliverability of your emails effectively.

For instance, ESPs consider a reply rate of around 30% to be a normal level of engagement. So if you’re sending 40 emails a day and getting a reply rate above 30%, ESPs think, “Hey, this is legit!”

But if your reply rate drops to, say, 15%, it’s a red flag. ESPs start thinking you’re spamming, and that could land you on blacklists.

This is where email warm-ups can come into play.

By using email warm-ups, you can consistently achieve that sweet 30% reply rate and avoid being blacklisted.

Let’s break it down: if you’re sending 40 emails a day, you need around 12 replies to stay in the clear. But what if your campaigns only pull in 3 replies a day? That’s way off the mark. Warm-ups can generate the extra interactions you need.

Use them to generate 14 interactions, add those 14 interactions to your 3 campaign replies, and boom – you’ve got 17 replies, comfortably above the 30% threshold.

3 Key Principles for Adjusting Warm-Up Volume

To nail your cold email warmup volume, you first have to keep these key principles in mind:

Keep a Low Sending Volume

Achieving perfect deliverability is all about convincing ESPs that you’re doing legitimate outreach, and we’ve found that sending around 50 emails per day per email account is the most you can do to keep looking legitimate.

The 50 emails sent should be a combined total of both warm up emails sent and campaign emails sent. So, adjust how many warm up emails you send around that number.

Maintain Consistent Engagement

As we mentioned earlier, aim for a reply rate of above 30% to mimic real email interactions and maintain a good reputation. Use warm up emails to maintain that sweet spot.

Maintain Steady Sending Patterns

Keep your sending patterns consistent to avoid sudden spikes that could flag ESPs and raise suspicions.

Let’s say you’re sending a combined total of 50 warm-up and campaign emails daily. If you suddenly drop to 20 combined emails the next day because your campaign is over, you’ll create a noticeable spike. We definitely want to avoid that.

The solution? Increase the volume of email warm-ups. If your campaign is done, just bump up the number of warm-up emails to 50. This way, your sending pattern stays steady and you avoid any unwanted spikes.

We can combine the principles above to create an efficient warm up technique called the Seesaw Technique.

The Seesaw Technique: Balance is Everything

The Seesaw Technique involves following two rules to effectively balance the number of emails sent from your campaigns and warm-up processes.

The Rules

If you’re sending a certain number of emails in your campaign, adjust the warmup volume to maintain a balanced total that gives you a guaranteed reply rate above 30%.

For example, if your target is 50 emails per day, you can send 30 campaign emails and 20 warm-up emails to ensure you always hit that 30% reply rate.

If your target is 20 replies a day, you can send 10 campaign emails and 10 warm-up emails to hit that sweet spot.

It goes on… just always adjust to make sure you always have a guaranteed 30% reply rate.

Make sure your total email volume stays consistent to avoid sudden spikes that could catch the eye of ESPs.

Here’s a scenario: you’re sending 50 emails a day split up perfectly to ensure you always hit that 30% rate. That translates to 35 campaign emails and 15 warm-up emails.

Perfect.

But what if your campaign ends? You don’t want spikes as mentioned earlier, so what do you do? Just increase the warm-up volume to maintain the 50-email target.

So, when the campaign volume changes, always adjust the warmup volume accordingly to prevent spikes.

By following these two rules, you’ll be able to easily figure out the perfect number of warm up emails you need for your outreach.

Weekend Warm-Up Tip

Typically, you won’t be running campaigns on weekends because your prospects will likely be out of office. So, why not use this time to max out your warm-up volumes? This keeps your sending patterns consistent and helps repair your accounts. ESPs love seeing positive engagement patterns, even over the weekend.

What does this look like in practice? Let’s go back to our example of a 50-email-a-day campaign. During the week, you can send 35 campaign emails and 15 warm-up emails for that perfect balance.

But on weekends, since you won’t be sending those 35 campaign emails, you can just send 50 warm-up emails instead.

Warm-Up Tool Recommendations

When it comes to cold email warm-up tools, choosing the right one can make a significant difference in your email deliverability. Let’s use a bus and limo analogy to compare some popular tools we recommend.

Instantly.ai: The Public Bus

Think of Instantly.ai as a public bus. When you pay to be on a public bus, you’re sharing the ride with everyone else. It doesn’t matter who they are or what their habits are like.

This means that while Instantly is budget-friendly, you’re mingling with a mixed crowd, sending warm-up emails back and forth with random people including those who might not follow the best email practices. This can lead to mixed results in deliverability and reputation management.

Other tools that fall into the public bus category include Smartlead.ai and Lemwarm.

Pros: Affordable, accessible

Cons: Mixed reputation due to diverse user practices, potentially lower deliverability

Folderly: The Limo

Now, if the likes of Instantly and Smartlead are your public buses, Folderly is the limo of warm-ups. It offers the highest level of control and protection and is designed to ensure the best possible deliverability and reputation management.

Pros: Superior deliverability, highest level of control, premium reputation management

Cons: Premium cost

What’s the right tool for you?

For the best results, consider split testing.

Split your warm-ups between Instantly.ai, Smartlead.ai, or Lemwarm and compare the results.

And if you’re running high-stakes campaigns and need the best deliverability, invest in Folderly.

Note: While the type of service you choose (bus vs. limo) is crucial, you also need to consider the IPs being used for sending emails. Using your own IPs with a consistent warm-up tool can help maintain a good reputation. However, relying on different IPs for sending and warming up can raise flags, leading to potential deliverability issues.

Wrapping Up

And there you have it—your ultimate guide to mastering cold email warmups. By following the two Seesaw Technique rules, you’ll build a solid email reputation and ensure your messages always get into your prospect’s inbox.

Hungry for some more tips on how to improve your deliverability? Check out this video Google’s latest cold email updates.

You can also discover more about mastering cold email campaigns and other outbound strategies at Growb2b.io.

Cheers to perfect deliverability.

Author:

Michael Gardiner

Michael is a cold email expert with 9 years of experience, having worked with over 250 B2B companies ranging from startups to Fortune 500s. Outside of work, you will find him traveling around the world with a goal to set foot in every country.