Deliverability and Sender Reputation Gate (QA)

Deliverability and Sender Reputation Gate (QA)

1. 01

   Verify SPF, DKIM, and DMARC alignment on every sending domain before the first sequence goes live

   Run each domain through a header analyzer and confirm DMARC policy is at p=none or stricter with reporting enabled. Misaligned authentication is the single most common cause of bulk placement failures on cold outbound.

2. 02

   Warm each new domain for 14 to 21 days at a fixed daily ceiling

   Start at 20 to 30 sends per mailbox per day and raise by no more than 20 percent weekly. Apollo and Amplemarket both expose per-mailbox send limits that make this enforceable without manual tracking.

3. 03

   Cap total daily volume per mailbox and document the number in the client's delivery scope

   Most agencies settle between 30 and 50 sends per mailbox per day for cold traffic. Write the ceiling into the retainer so a client request to double volume triggers a new domain purchase rather than a reputation gamble.

4. 04

   Seed-test every new template against a panel of at least 20 inboxes across Gmail, Outlook, and one corporate filter

   Check spam placement, link rendering, and image blocking. Salesloft and Reply both surface spam-score diagnostics that flag trigger words before the send.

5. 05

   Confirm list hygiene rules: bounce suppression, role-address exclusion, and a 90-day re-contact block

   Hard bounces must suppress automatically, not queue for manual review. Role addresses like info@ and sales@ waste volume and depress reply rates across the whole sending pool.

6. 06

   Set a reply-rate floor and a bounce-rate ceiling that pause the sequence automatically

   A practical trigger is a bounce rate above 3 percent or a reply rate below 1 percent over a 500-send window. Buzz and Outplay support conditional pause rules that fire without an operator watching the dashboard.

7. 07

   Log the gate result per client domain and re-run it whenever volume increases by more than 50 percent

   Store the pass date, sending domain, and daily ceiling in the client file. Any material volume change invalidates the prior test and requires a fresh warm-up cycle.