My Cold Email Domain Is Burned. What Should I Do?

Confirm what burned

"Burned" is often the wrong diagnosis. Five different things can cause the same drop, and each has a different fix:

How to check

1. Rule out reading errors. Make sure campaigns are old enough to judge and the numbers are complete.

2. Rule out technical breaks. An expired domain stops its mailboxes and its redirect. Check expiry dates and DNS.

3. Split by recipient provider. If only Google or only Outlook dropped on the same mailboxes, it is not the domain.

4. Run a neutral control test. Send a neutral email and your campaign email from the same mailboxes in the same minute to seed inboxes. Neutral also in spam means the domain or the sending IPs. Only the campaign in spam means the copy.

5. Compare domains on the same IPs. If one domain fails and the others pass, that domain is burned. If they all fail, it is the IPs.

6. Check blocklists. Look the domain up in the Spamhaus Domain Blocklist and Google Safe Browsing. Google's sender guidelines recommend checking regularly "that your domain isn't listed as unsafe with Google Safe Browsing." A listing is a reason to investigate, not proof it caused the drop.

If the domain is burned

1. Stop cold email from it. Keep sending from the healthy domains.

2. Try a fresh campaign or list on it first. A domain that dropped on one campaign can recover on a new one, so test that before you pay for a replacement.

3. Request delisting if it is listed. In Postmaster Tools, Google's delivery error guidance for "Domain is in one or more public RBLs" is to "Contact the organizations that blocklisted the sending domain and ask that it be removed." Listings can stay for months, and delisting doesn't fix what caused them.

4. Retire it if it doesn't recover. Replace it with a new domain, and give the new mailboxes the full warm-up.

5. Never move cold email to your main domain to replace it. See using your main domain.

Before you buy new domains

In our data, fresh domains sending the same copy from the same servers did no better than the old ones. Rewritten copy did. If the neutral test points to the copy, rewrite it before spending on domains. See new domains and reply-rate drops.

Prevent the next one

• Up to 25 cold emails per mailbox a day and up to 5 mailboxes per domain.

• Rotate copy before it wears out.

• Keep warmed spare domains so a replacement doesn't cost three weeks.

What we recommend at Outreach2day

You pay for mailbox slots, not specific addresses. Delete the mailboxes on the burned domain and create new ones on a fresh domain in the same slots. The new domain costs the usual price, and the new mailboxes need warm-up.