Cold email glossary

What is Domain warmup?

Building reputation for a brand-new sending domain — DNS records first, then mailbox warmup, then cold volume ramped over about four weeks.

A domain registered last week has no reputation at all. Domain warmup is the sequence: register early and put a site on it; publish SPF, DKIM and DMARC; create two or three mailboxes; run mailbox warmup for about two weeks; then ramp cold sends from 5–10 to 20–30 a day per mailbox over another two weeks, keeping warmup on throughout.

Related terms

GlossaryEmail warmupSending ordinary emails between real inboxes that open, reply and rescue them from spam, so a new mailbox builds sending reputation before cold outreach begins.GlossarySending domain (lookalike / secondary domain)A domain used only for outreach, separate from your primary company domain, so cold email reputation never affects your normal mail.GlossarySPFSender Policy Framework — a DNS TXT record listing which servers may send email for your domain.GlossaryDKIMDomainKeys Identified Mail — a cryptographic signature your mail provider adds to each message, verified against a public key published in your DNS.GlossaryDMARCA DNS policy record that tells receivers what to do when SPF and DKIM fail or don't align with the From domain, and asks them to send you reports.

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