If you’re sending marketing emails through Leadliaison, you already know the pain: your message lands in spam, nobody reads it, and your sender reputation tanks. This guide is for marketers, sales teams, and anyone who needs their emails to actually show up. We’ll skip the fluff and focus on exactly what moves the needle in Leadliaison, what’s a waste of time, and how to keep your sender reputation healthy.
The Uncomfortable Truth About Email Deliverability
Here’s the deal: Deliverability isn’t a setting you just flip on. It’s a daily discipline. Spam filters get smarter, recipients get pickier, and a single bad send can haunt your reputation for months. Leadliaison gives you helpful tools, but you’re still in the driver’s seat.
If you’re looking for hacks or shortcuts, you’ll be disappointed. But if you want a clear, practical plan to get more emails into real inboxes, let’s get started.
Step 1: Set Up DNS Records (And Actually Verify Them)
This is non-negotiable. If your SPF, DKIM, or DMARC aren’t set up right, you’re dead on arrival.
- SPF (Sender Policy Framework): Proves Leadliaison can send on your behalf.
- DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail): Adds a digital signature to show the email’s legit.
- DMARC: Lets receiving servers know what to do if SPF or DKIM fail.
What to do in Leadliaison: - Go to the email settings and find the authentication section. - Leadliaison gives you the exact DNS records—copy them exactly into your domain’s DNS manager. - Don’t just take their word for it—use online tools like MXToolbox to double-check they’re propagating.
Pro tip: DNS changes can take hours to go live. Don’t schedule a big send right after making changes.
What doesn’t work: Skipping DMARC “because it’s hard” or using a generic domain (like Gmail, Yahoo). You need to use your own sending domain.
Step 2: Warm Up Your Sending Domain
If you’re using a new domain or haven’t sent in a while, don’t blast your whole list on Day 1.
Why? Mailbox providers are suspicious of new senders. Warm-up shows you’re not a spammer.
How to do it: - Send to small, engaged segments first (think: your most active, real recipients). - Start with 20-50 emails per day. Double that every few days if open rates stay high and bounce rates low. - Leadliaison doesn’t automate warm-up—you’ll need to do this manually by creating small, targeted sends.
Avoid: Buying third-party “domain warm-up” services. Most are snake oil, and mailbox providers are catching on.
Step 3: Clean Your Lists—Religiously
This is the boring work that most people skip, but it’s make-or-break for deliverability.
Best practices: - Use double opt-in whenever possible. If you can’t, at least confirm interest before adding someone to a bulk list. - Remove hard bounces immediately. Leadliaison will handle this if you enable automatic suppression. - Purge unengaged contacts quarterly. If someone hasn’t opened in 6+ months, let them go.
Leadliaison tips: - Use Leadliaison’s engagement data to build dynamic lists. Only send to folks who’ve opened or clicked recently. - Suppression lists are your friend. Use them to keep known complainers or inactive addresses out.
Ignore: “List cleaning” tools that promise to fix everything after the fact. Prevention is way better than trying to mop up later.
Step 4: Craft Emails That Don’t Scream “Spam”
No amount of tech fixes an email that looks shady or irrelevant. Spam filters check for:
- Misleading subject lines (“RE: Your Invoice” when it’s not)
- All caps, too many exclamation marks, or weird formatting
- Spammy phrases (free, guarantee, act now, etc.)
- Too many images, not enough text
How to do better in Leadliaison: - Use the plain text preview and keep it readable. - Send yourself a test to Gmail and Outlook—see where it lands. - Use Leadliaison’s built-in spam checker before launching.
Pro tip: Personalization helps, but only if it’s real. “Hi [First Name]” is old news—try referencing recent activity or purchases.
Step 5: Watch Your Metrics—And Act Fast
You can’t improve what you don’t track. Leadliaison gives you the basics: delivery, opens, clicks, bounces, and complaints.
What matters most: - Open rate: If this tanks, you’ve probably hit a spam filter. - Bounce rate: Over 2% is a red flag. - Spam complaints: Even a handful can sink your reputation. - Unsubscribe rate: Higher than 1%? Rethink your targeting.
What to do: - If you see spikes in bounces or complaints, pause sending and investigate. - Segment out problematic domains (like Yahoo or AOL) if you notice issues—they’re stricter than Gmail or Outlook. - A/B test subject lines and content. Small tweaks can have a big impact.
Don’t bother: Obsessing over tiny percentage changes. Focus on trends and big shifts.
Step 6: Maintain a Consistent Sending Schedule
If you send 10,000 emails one week and zero the next, ISPs get suspicious.
- Stick to a regular schedule—weekly or bi-weekly works for most.
- Avoid sudden spikes in volume. If you need to ramp up, do it gradually over 2–4 weeks.
- Leadliaison lets you schedule sends—use it to spread out delivery instead of dropping everything at once.
Ignore: The idea that “Tuesday at 10am” is always the magic send time. Your audience and content matter way more.
Step 7: Build and Protect Your Sender Reputation
Your sender reputation is like credit—it’s easy to destroy and slow to rebuild.
Do: - Use a dedicated sending domain and subdomain for marketing (e.g., mail.yourcompany.com). - Monitor your domain’s reputation using free tools like Google Postmaster Tools or Microsoft SNDS. - Keep your sending IP warm and engaged.
Don’t: - Send from a “no-reply” address. It’s impersonal and signals you don’t care about recipients. - Mix transactional and marketing email on the same domain/IP. Keep them separate so a mistake in one doesn’t tank the other.
What Actually Works—and What’s a Distraction
Worth your time: - Tight list hygiene - Authentic, non-spammy content - Watching metrics like a hawk - Gradual, consistent sending
Mostly noise: - Fancy templates with heavy images - Buying “clean” email lists (they’re never really clean) - Trying to game spam filters with tricks (like hidden text) - Overthinking send times or “AI-powered” deliverability tools
Wrapping Up: Keep It Simple, Iterate, and Don’t Panic
Getting your emails into the inbox isn’t rocket science, but it does require steady, boring habits. Set up your authentication, warm up your domain, email people who actually want to hear from you, and keep an eye on your numbers. If things go sideways, don’t freak out—pause, clean up, and ease back in.
Leadliaison has the necessary tools, but no software is magic. The secret sauce is discipline, not features. Start simple, make one improvement at a time, and don’t chase every new deliverability fad. Your future self (and your inbox rates) will thank you.