How to send cold emails that land in the inbox

A step-by-step guide. Last updated 13 October 2026.

Short answer: authenticate your domain with SPF, DKIM and DMARC, send from real Gmail or domain inboxes at a low daily volume, email a small verified list of people the message is relevant to, follow up two to four times a few days apart, and stop the moment someone replies, bounces or opts out. Followkite automates every one of those steps.

What cold email outreach is, and how Followkite works

Cold email is a one-to-one message to someone you have not emailed before, about something that is genuinely relevant to their work: a partnership, a service, a hire, a product. Done well it looks and reads like a normal email from a person, because it is one.

Followkite is a cold email outreach tool that sends your sequences from the inboxes you already own. You connect Gmail, Google Workspace or any SMTP/IMAP mailbox, import contacts, write a first email and a few follow-ups, and launch. Followkite sends each email at a human pace, personalizes it, and stops following up with anyone who replies, bounces or unsubscribes. Every reply lands in one shared inbox, the Unibox.

Step 1: Set up SPF, DKIM and DMARC on your sending domain

Mailbox providers like Gmail and Outlook check three DNS records to decide whether an email really comes from your domain. Since 2024, Google and Yahoo require them for anyone sending in volume, and missing records are one of the most common reasons cold emails go to spam.

• SPF lists the servers allowed to send for your domain. Google Workspace example: v=spf1 include:_spf.google.com ~all. Keep one SPF record per domain.
• DKIM adds a cryptographic signature to every email. Turn it on in your email host (in Google Workspace: Admin console, Apps, Gmail, Authenticate email) and publish the TXT record it gives you.
• DMARC tells receivers what to do when SPF or DKIM fail and sends you reports. Start with v=DMARC1; p=none; rua=mailto:dmarc@yourdomain.com, then move to p=quarantine once everything passes.

In Followkite, add your domain on the Domains page: it checks SPF, DKIM, DMARC and MX for you, shows exactly which record is missing or wrong, and keeps checking daily, including major blocklists.

Step 2: Connect your Gmail or domain inboxes and choose a daily limit

Send cold email from real mailboxes, not a bulk marketing platform: replies go straight to a person, and your messages look like ordinary email. Followkite connects to:

• Gmail and Google Workspace with Google sign-in (no password stored);
• any domain mailbox with SMTP and IMAP, such as Zoho, Namecheap Private Email, Fastmail or cPanel hosting.

How many cold emails per day per inbox?

Google caps personal Gmail at about 500 emails a day and Google Workspace at 2,000, but those limits are for normal email, not cold outreach. A safe pattern is to start a new inbox at 10 to 20 cold emails a day and stay under about 50 a day per inbox. If you need to reach 500 people a day, use ten inboxes, not one.

Each Followkite inbox has its own daily limit (1 to 500) and a minimum and maximum gap between emails. Followkite picks a random gap within that range for every send, so emails never go out in an obviously automated burst.

Step 3: Build and verify a clean contact list

Deliverability starts with who you email. A small list of people your message is truly relevant to beats a large generic list every time.

• Never buy, rent or scrape lists. They are full of dead addresses and spam traps, and many people on them will mark you as spam.
• Verify addresses before you send. Followkite checks contact emails so obvious bad addresses never cost you a bounce.
• Keep bounces under 2%. Every hard bounce is added to your Do not contact list automatically, and you can block whole domains there too.
• Import from CSV with first name, company and any custom fields you want to use in your emails.

Step 4: Write a cold email follow-up sequence

Most replies come from follow-ups, not the first email. A good cold email sequence is short, specific and polite:

1. First email: who you are, why you are writing to this person specifically, and one clear question. Under 120 words, plain text, at most one link.
2. Follow-up 1 (2 to 3 business days later): a new angle or a useful detail, not "just bumping this".
3. Follow-up 2 (3 to 4 days later): a short proof point, example or question.
4. Final follow-up (about a week later): a polite close: "Should I stop reaching out about this?" often gets the most replies.

Personalize with variables such as {{first_name|there}} or {{company|your team}}; the text after the bar is the fallback when a contact has no value, so nobody ever receives "Hi ,". Followkite supports a first email and up to nine follow-ups, A/B versions of any step, and sending days and hours in the time zone you choose. Always preview with a real contact and send yourself a test first.

Step 5: Launch slowly and watch bounces and spam complaints

Launch to a small part of your list first and watch three numbers:

• Bounce rate under 2%. Higher means your list needs cleaning.
• Spam complaint rate under 0.1%, and never above Google's 0.3% limit.
• Unsubscribe rate: a rising rate means the message is not relevant to the people receiving it.

Every Followkite campaign email includes an unsubscribe link and one-click unsubscribe headers (RFC 8058), which Gmail and Yahoo expect from bulk senders. Opt-outs apply to the whole workspace, so no inbox ever emails that person again. If a campaign, an inbox or a workspace crosses safe bounce, unsubscribe or complaint rates, Followkite pauses it automatically before your reputation is damaged.

Step 6: Answer every reply from one unified inbox

When you send from ten inboxes, replies are spread across ten mailboxes. Followkite's Unibox is a unified inbox for multiple email accounts: it collects replies from every connected inbox in one list, groups each conversation, and lets you answer from the inbox that sent the email, in the same thread.

The moment someone replies, their follow-ups stop. Automatic out-of-office replies do not stop the sequence, and bounces are filed separately. Followkite flags interested replies and can alert your team in Slack.

Cold email spam checklist

• SPF, DKIM and DMARC pass for every sending domain.
• Each inbox sends 50 or fewer cold emails a day, with random gaps.
• Your list is verified, relevant and never bought or scraped.
• Emails are short, plain text, with one link at most and no attachments.
• Every email identifies you and includes a working opt-out.
• Follow-ups stop on reply, bounce and unsubscribe.
• Bounces stay under 2% and complaints under 0.1%.

Frequently asked questions