Inbox Ramp and Sender Warm-Up Sequence (Onboarding)

Inbox Ramp and Sender Warm-Up Sequence (Onboarding)

1. 01

   Provision a dedicated sending domain per client and isolate it from agency-wide infrastructure

   Register a subdomain on the client's primary domain (for example outbound.clientdomain.com) so a reputation hit stays contained to one account rather than every retainer the agency runs.

2. 02

   Authenticate SPF, DKIM, and DMARC before the first message leaves the queue

   Publish records at the DNS level and verify with a header check on a live test send. A missing DMARC policy is the single most common reason a new domain lands in spam from day one.

3. 03

   Start at 20 to 30 sends per mailbox per day and add roughly 10 per day until the target volume holds

   Apollo and Amplemarket both let you cap daily send limits at the mailbox level, so set the ceiling in the tool rather than trusting the operator to remember.

4. 04

   Seed the first two weeks with warm contacts who open and reply

   Pull 50 to 100 known-good addresses from the client's existing book. Engagement signals in the first 14 days shape how mailbox providers classify the domain for months.

5. 05

   Throttle LinkedIn and dialer channels to match the email ramp

   Expandi and HeyReach enforce connection-request ceilings, but the agency still owns the combined daily touch count. A prospect who receives four channels in one day reads it as spam regardless of which tool sent it.

6. 06

   Log the ramp schedule and volume ceilings in the client's delivery doc

   Record the start date, daily caps by channel, and the date full volume is permitted. When a client asks why week one was quiet, the answer is already written down.

7. 07

   Hold the ramp until the first 200 sends clear a bounce rate under 3 percent

   If bounces exceed that line, stop the sequence and re-verify the contact list before adding volume. Scaling a dirty list is how agencies burn a domain in a single week.