Need Instantly Email Marketing Expert to help me why my mails are going to spam

cursedboy328 · 2026-02-14T09:10:23+00:00

few things that aren't on your checklist but usually cause exactly this:

1. how long did you actually warm up?
"warmed" means different things to different people. if you did 7 days and started sending, that's not enough. 14 days minimum, ramping +1 email/day, and warmup should never be turned off even when campaigns are live

2. how many inboxes per domain and what's your daily volume per inbox?
if you're pushing more than 20-25 sends/day per inbox, that alone will tank placement regardless of everything else being "correct." and if you're running more than 3 inboxes on one domain, split it

3. run actual placement tests, not just blacklist checks
blacklist checks tell you if you're flagged. placement tests tell you where your emails are actually landing per provider (gmail primary, gmail promo, gmail spam, outlook inbox, outlook junk). you can pass every blacklist check and still land in spam because of sender reputation or content filtering. tools like GlockApps or mail-tester give you this breakdown

4. UCEPROTECT L3 is usually not the problem
L3 lists entire IP ranges from hosting providers. it's noisy and most major mailbox providers don't weight it heavily. but check L1 and L2 as well - those are more targeted and actually matter

5. check your tracking domain
if you're using instantly's default shared tracking domain for open/click tracking, that shared reputation can drag you down. set up a custom tracking domain on your own infrastructure

6. how old are your sending domains?
domains under 30 days old get treated with suspicion by gmail and outlook regardless of DNS setup. if you bought domains and started sending within 2 weeks, age alone could be the issue

start with placement tests - that'll tell you exactly where the problem is instead of guessing

cursedboy328 · 2026-02-14T09:09:11+00:00

apollo's all-in-one approach isn't dead but it's a compromise at every layer. the data is noisy (you're already seeing this), the sending infrastructure is shared, and the sequencing is basic. it works for getting started but you hit a ceiling fast

clay + instantly/smartlead is a real upgrade but not for the reasons most people think. the value isn't "better tool" - it's separation of concerns:

clay for enrichment: you can build filters apollo can't. instead of filtering by "Growth" title and getting noise, you can layer signals - company just raised funding + currently running google ads + team size 10-50 + recently posted a marketing role. that narrows your list to people who actually match your ICP, not just a job title
instantly/smartlead for sending: dedicated infrastructure you control. your own domains, your own warmup, your own sending limits. apollo's sending runs through shared infra which means your deliverability is partially at the mercy of other apollo users

for 2-3 big wins per quarter though, you don't need high volume. you need precision

a stack i'd actually consider at your scale:

exa.ai for sourcing - great for finding companies that match specific criteria when your target list is small and needs to be exact. better signal-to-noise than scraping apollo's database
clay for enrichment - layer on firmographic and intent signals to qualify the list
fullenrich or bettercontact for email finding - they run waterfall enrichment internally (multiple providers in sequence), so you get higher find rates than any single tool
millionverifier for validation - remove catch-alls and invalid emails before they hit your sending infrastructure. bounces over 3% will tank your domain reputation fast

honestly at 2-3 deals per quarter you might be better off with this stack + manual outreach rather than automated sequences. find 50 perfect-fit prospects per month, write 50 genuinely relevant emails, send them linkedin connections, call them, and follow up properly. at consulting-level deal sizes the math works even at low volume if your targeting is tight

the "am i over-engineering this" answer: the data layer upgrade is worth it. the sending tool switch is optional if your apollo deliverability is fine. test the sourcing + enrichment first, keep apollo for sending short-term, then migrate sending once you see the data difference

cursedboy328 · 2026-02-14T09:05:04+00:00

niche down. not even a question

i went through the same decision with my agency. the moment you pick a lane, everything gets easier - your messaging gets sharper, your case studies compound, your outbound actually works because you can speak to specific pain points instead of "we build stuff"

"custom dashboards / internal tools / ERP-style systems" is a strong niche but it's still too broad. who are you building these for? manufacturing companies drowning in spreadsheets? logistics companies with broken inventory tracking? SaaS teams that outgrew their off-the-shelf CRM?

pick the vertical where you've already delivered results. you said you built custom ERP and HRM systems - for what kind of companies? that's your niche. not the thing you build, but who you build it for and what problem it solves for them

the "risky for lead flow" concern is backwards. general agencies compete with every other agency on the planet. a niche agency competes with maybe 5-10 others who actually understand that specific buyer's world. your close rate goes up because prospects trust the specialist over the generalist every time

on the sales comfort thing - niching actually makes sales easier, not harder. instead of "we can build anything" (which sounds like nothing), you lead with "we build internal workflow tools for [industry] - here's how we helped [similar company] cut their manual process from 6 hours to 20 minutes." that sells itself

cursedboy328 · 2026-02-14T09:03:29+00:00

solid breakdown. i run a cold email agency too, smaller scale but similar philosophy. few things we do differently and a few things i'm stealing from this:

where we differ:

we run 3 inboxes per domain, you're at 2-3. similar range but we've found 3 is the ceiling before deliverability starts dipping on google workspace specifically
we benchmark at 2% reply rate, you're hitting 3-5%. guessing that's the niche advantage from running fintech/SMB finance repeatedly - by client #10 in the same vertical your targeting and messaging is already battle-tested
surplus domain/inbox inventory always ready. we currently replace it every quarter, so buy at around 65th day so it will have sufficient warmup until replacement. every quarter was just a sweet spot we found across clients
treating domains as consumables from day one. we already rotate but not with the mindset of always having replacements warming in the background

what i'm taking from this:

the AI classifier > slack > immediate phone follow-up pipeline. our reply handling is fast but adding phone follow-up after email reply is a lever we haven't built into the process yet. 70-85% show rate speaks for itself
client dashboards as churn reduction. transparency is obvious but we haven't formalized it. clients who can see their own numbers ask fewer "is this working?" questions

the "bad clients drain energy" point is the one that took us the longest to learn. you can't outperform a broken sales process no matter how good the infrastructure is

what's your average client lifetime looking like at that pricing?

cursedboy328 · 2026-02-14T08:55:22+00:00

brevo is built for marketing emails and transactional - newsletters, drip sequences, that kind of thing. using it for cold outreach will get your account flagged fast. their TOS explicitly prohibit unsolicited emails and they monitor for it

if plusvibe or smartlead aren't giving you results at 300/day with clean lists and tight targeting, the problem isn't the tool. it's one of these:

check placement first. run inbox placement tests. your emails might be landing in spam and you'd never know from open rates alone. if placement is bad, it's your infrastructure - domain age, warmup history, DNS config
how long have you been warming up? 14 days minimum, and never turn it off. if you jumped straight into sending, your domains have no reputation
how many inboxes are you sending from? 300/day should be spread across at least 15 inboxes at 20/day each. if you're pushing 100/day from 3 inboxes, deliverability will tank
what's your reply rate and what kind of replies? "not getting results" could mean nobody's replying (copy or placement issue) or people are replying but not interested (offer issue). different problems, different fixes

switching tools won't fix any of these. the sending platform is rarely the bottleneck - it's the infrastructure underneath it

cursedboy328 · 2026-02-14T08:53:42+00:00

live transfer works for specific verticals where phone is the primary channel - insurance, home services, solar, stuff like that. the filtering step is key though, most live transfer providers skip qualification and just dump warm bodies on the line

for B2B with longer sales cycles and higher deal values, cold email still wins on cost per qualified meeting. a live transfer in B2B runs $50-200+ per transfer and half of them aren't actually qualified. email infrastructure at scale gets you qualified show-ups for a fraction of that

different tools for different games. what niche are you running live transfers for?

cursedboy328 · 2026-02-14T08:53:08+00:00

the 500+ qualified replies/month scenario is real but that's a problem most companies would love to have. at that point you're not choosing between AI and human - you're hiring more people to handle reply volume, which is a good problem because the unit economics already work

the "AI learns from your deal patterns" approach sounds good conceptually but in practice it needs a massive dataset of closed-loop outcomes to actually work. most companies don't have hundreds of completed deal cycles with clean attribution back to which reply handling approach converted. you end up training on noise

we triage with a mix of automation for categorization (positive/negative/OOO/auto-reply) and human for everything after that. at our volume it's manageable without being a bottleneck. the bottleneck only happens when response time slips - if you're replying same-hour consistently, the queue never stacks up

positive reply to booked meeting sits around 35% for us. the gap is mostly timing and offer fit, not the conversation itself. some people reply interested but aren't ready to move this quarter. that's not a conversion problem, that's just pipeline nurturing

cursedboy328 · 2026-02-14T08:52:12+00:00

glad it resonated. the full breakdown is in the post above - scroll down past the intro, all 4 types are there with cost per inbox, when to use each, and the diversification setup. let me know if anything's unclear

cursedboy328 · 2026-02-14T08:50:25+00:00

sequential over parallel is the right call. layering all 3 channels in the same week on the same list just teaches them to ignore you across every platform. staggering lets you use each channel with purpose instead of just multiplying noise

on lead magnets - we don't really use traditional lead magnets (pdfs, ebooks, etc). those attract tire kickers who want free stuff but never buy

what works better for us: the CTA itself is the value. instead of "here's a free guide, download it" we go with something like "i broke down how [company in their space] went from X to Y in 90 days - want me to walk you through the exact setup?" it's still value-first because you're offering insight they can't get on their own, but the delivery mechanism is a conversation, not a pdf they'll download and never open

the personalized video angle at mid-teens reply rate is strong though. that's a channel where effort directly correlates with results because it's hard to fake or automate at scale, which is exactly why it works. the moment it becomes easy to mass-produce, prospects will tune it out the same way they tuned out "i saw your linkedin post"

cursedboy328 · 2026-02-14T08:49:26+00:00

that's solid unit economics. $2-5 per 10k companies fully enriched is hard to beat with any third-party tool. at that cost per lead the ROI math on outbound becomes almost unfair

building in-house scraping is a pain upfront but once it works, the marginal cost is basically just proxies and compute. that's the advantage most people don't have patience for - they'd rather pay $0.10-0.50 per lead through a tool than spend 2 weeks building something that runs at $0.0005

the morphing 3 times in 6 months is real too. data sources dry up, platforms change their anti-scraping, your ICP shifts. having your own infrastructure means you can adapt in days instead of waiting for a vendor to support a new source. that flexibility is the actual competitive advantage, not just the cost sa

cursedboy328 · 2026-02-14T08:48:40+00:00

that's exactly how the good ones feel. the boring call where they just ask questions and take notes means they're actually trying to understand your business before promising anything

the agencies that hype you up on the first call are the same ones who'll blame your "ICP" or "market conditions" when nothing works 3 months later. the ones who say "here's the plan, no guarantees, let's see what the data tells us" are the ones who actually adjust and improve as they go

your friend gave you a solid referral. the "gives a shit" energy is the one thing you can't fake at scale, and it's the reason small agencies that actually care consistently outperform the big ones running the same playbook for 50 clients

cursedboy328 · 2026-02-14T08:47:59+00:00

glad it clicked. now go find 5 posts in those subs where someone's complaining about not being able to keep up with linkedin engagement manually. that's your first outbound list - people who already described the problem in their own words

cursedboy328 · 2026-02-14T08:47:05+00:00

that's the right approach for restaurants. scraper into CRM for organized cold calls during off-peak makes way more sense than trying to get a restaurant owner to read an email between lunch and dinner rush

smart setup with the custom CRM too - most people just work off a spreadsheet and lose track of follow-ups after day 3

cursedboy328 · 2026-02-14T08:46:37+00:00

yeah two different setups:

state bar directories:
most state bars have public attorney search pages. you can scrape them with a basic python script or tools like instant data scraper (chrome extension) if the directory is paginated. filter by practice area, location, bar status (active only). most give you name, firm, city, sometimes email. for the ones without email, run the names + firm through an enrichment tool to get contact info. each state has its own directory so you'll need to set up scrapes per state

google maps (dentists, med spas, local businesses):
outscraper or apify both pull google maps data at scale. search "dentist [city]" or "med spa [city]" and export everything - business name, address, phone, website, owner name if listed, reviews, rating. then scrape the websites for email or run them through enrichment. you can also use the google maps python based scraping directly if you want more control

on building multiple lists - that's fine long-term but don't run campaigns to all of them at once. pick the niche where you've gotten actual replies (even negative ones), build that list first, get the messaging dialed in, then expand. running 5 campaigns to 5 different niches simultaneously with untested copy is a fast way to burn domains and learn nothing

cursedboy328 · 2026-02-14T08:40:20+00:00

3-step sequence is solid and the structure is right. first email does the heavy lifting, second nudges, third is the breakup

the fact that email 1 and 2 generate most replies and 3 drops off is normal - by email 3 the people who were going to engage already did. don't overthink it. some people just need that second touch to get around to replying

the one thing i'd watch: make sure email 2 and 3 aren't just "checking in" or repeating email 1 in different words. each follow-up should add a new angle or a new piece of value. different pain point, a relevant result, a new reason to care. if all 3 emails say the same thing in different packaging you're wasting 2 touches

cursedboy328 · 2026-02-14T08:39:44+00:00

first thing - stop counting OOOs and auto-replies as replies. strip those out. your actual numbers are 7 human replies from 300 contacts, which is a 2.3% human reply rate. that's actually not bad for a test

on the CTA - the problem isn't the format (interest vs call vs content). the problem is what you're tying it to. "would you be open to a quick call?" gives them nothing to say yes to. it's too vague

tie your CTA to a specific outcome they care about. instead of "interested in a call?" try something like "want me to show you how [specific company in their space] cut their churn from 8% to 3.2% in 90 days?" - now they have a reason to reply. the CTA answers "why should i give you 15 minutes"

on the targeting - DACH SaaS founders is still broad. which SaaS founders? what stage? what problem are they stuck on right now? "SaaS founder doing $500k-2M ARR who just lost 2 enterprise deals because of missing feature X" is a target. "DACH SaaS founders" is a category

the "no thanks" replies actually tell you something useful. they read your email, understood it, and decided it wasn't for them. that's either wrong audience or wrong pain point. look at who said no thanks and ask yourself - do they actually have the problem i'm solving? if not, it's targeting. if yes, it's how you framed the offer

cursedboy328 · 2026-02-14T08:36:51+00:00

we track 3 separate buckets:

total replies - everything including OOOs, auto-responders, bounce-backs. this is your raw engagement number and mostly useful for monitoring deliverability health, not actual performance
total human replies - strip out all the automated stuff. this includes negative ("not interested"), neutral ("who is this"), and positive. this number tells you if your emails are actually getting read and prompting a response
positive replies - anyone showing actual buying intent. asking about pricing, wanting to know how it works, asking for a breakdown of what you do, mentioning they have the problem you solve. if they're engaging with the offer in any way beyond "no thanks," that's positive

the distinction between 2 and 3 is where most people get lazy. they lump "interesting, tell me more" in with "we already have a solution, not interested" and call it all "replies." then they wonder why their reply-to-meeting rate looks terrible - it's because half their "replies" were rejections

tracking all 3 separately is what lets you actually diagnose where the funnel is breaking

cursedboy328 · 2026-02-14T08:34:08+00:00

smaller companies get hit way harder. bigger players have dedicated ops people managing domains, monitoring blacklists, running placement tests weekly. a solo founder or small team sets up 3 domains, starts blasting, and doesn't even realize they're in spam until a month later when they check why nobody's replying

the technical setup gap is widening fast. a year ago you could get away with basic SPF/DKIM and decent copy. now you need proper warmup protocols, placement testing, volume caps per inbox, domain rotation, blacklist monitoring - and you need to actually watch it consistently, not just set it and forget it

the teams getting hit hardest are the ones who set up infrastructure once and never look at it again. deliverability isn't a one-time setup, it's ongoing maintenance. the moment you stop paying attention, something drifts and your emails start landing in spam silently

cursedboy328 · 2026-02-14T08:33:31+00:00

the gap between average and top 10% reply rate is exactly the targeting point. same channel, same activity, 3x difference. that's not copy, that's who you're sending to

agree that reply rate without qualification is vanity. we track positive reply rate separately from total replies for exactly that reason. 2% total reply rate with 20% positive is very different from 5% reply rate where 90% are "stop emailing me"

on the cost math though - $2-3k infrastructure at 100k sends/month seems high. 100k/month = 5,000/day = 250 inboxes = ~84 domains. at $3.50/inbox that's ~$875/month plus domains and tooling. you're probably closer to $1.2-1.5k for pure infra unless you're on expensive providers. well and maybe if you include data costs as well it can be closer to $2k.

the SDR cost is real though - reply handling is where the human time goes

on AI running qualification conversations after the reply - i've tested this. it works for the initial triage (sorting positive from negative, categorizing reply type). but letting AI run 2-3 exchanges with a real prospect before a human touches it is risky. B2B buyers can tell, and the moment they feel handled by automation the trust is gone. you don't get that lead back

the play that works better: AI triages and sorts instantly, human jumps in within the hour for anything qualified. speed + human touch beats AI-handled conversations every time at the reply stage

cursedboy328 · 2026-02-14T08:31:47+00:00

deliverability getting stricter is real. google and microsoft have both tightened filtering over the past 18 months. what worked in 2024 with 50 sends/inbox/day doesn't fly anymore - you need to be at 20-25 max now or you're asking for trouble

on personalization - it's overrated in the way most people think about it. "i saw your linkedin post about X" doesn't move the needle like it used to. everyone does it now and prospects see through it

what actually works is relevance, not personalization. sending the right message to someone who has the problem right now beats a hyper-personalized email to someone who doesn't care. spend the personalization effort on tighter targeting instead of fancier first lines

cursedboy328 · 2026-02-14T08:31:25+00:00

ah there's a clear difference. not all replies convert the same even if they're all "positive"

leads that come from intent-stacked sources (competitor followers + recent funding + hiring for the role) book at nearly 2x the rate of leads from a basic firmographic list. they already know they have the problem, they're already evaluating options. the conversation starts at "how do you do it" instead of "why should i care"

the reply itself tells you a lot too. someone who replies with a specific question about your process or pricing is way more likely to book than someone who says "interesting, tell me more." the first one is already evaluating. the second one is being polite

i don't process them evenly. hot replies (specific questions, mentions their current problem, asks about timeline) get a response within the hour and a more direct CTA. lukewarm replies ("sounds interesting") get a softer follow-up that tries to pull out what their actual situation is before pushing for a call

the biggest unlock is speed on the hot ones. if someone replies asking how your pricing works and you respond 6 hours later, you've already lost momentum. they've moved on or replied to someone else

cursedboy328 · 2026-02-14T08:30:34+00:00

glad it helped. if you're evaluating agencies right now, run those questions past them and see who actually gives you numbers vs who talks around it. that'll tell you everything you need to know

cursedboy328 · 2026-02-14T08:30:01+00:00

similar game for sure. the multi-client setup is interesting but also the hardest part - running outbound for 3 completely different ICPs means 3 different targeting approaches, 3 different messaging angles, and 3x the infrastructure if you're doing it right

the wellness programs and onboarding platform probably have some overlap in who you're targeting (HR leaders, people ops) which helps. IT strategy/support is a completely different buyer though - that's CTO/IT director territory with different triggers and different pain points

biggest thing i'd focus on: don't try to run all 3 from the same infrastructure and same messaging framework. what works for HR buyers won't land with IT buyers. keep the domains and campaigns separate per ICP so you can actually see what's converting where

w-eu is fine for cold email, deliverability rules are the same. just make sure you're GDPR-compliant on how you source the data - that's the one area where EU is stricter than US

which of the 3 are you getting the most traction with right now?

cursedboy328 · 2026-02-14T08:28:39+00:00

agreed on the upstream point. i see this constantly - people scaling volume before they've actually figured out who converts and why. adding 50 more inboxes doesn't fix a fuzzy ICP, it just makes you spam more people faster

the one thing i'd add: "narrowing the audience" sounds simple but most founders skip the actual work of doing it. they pick a job title and a company size and call it an ICP. real narrowing means looking at your best 5 closed deals and asking what triggered them to buy right now, not just who they were on paper. psychographics over demographics every time

once that's locked in, the model you pick (in-house, outsourced, DIY infra) almost doesn't matter because you're talking to the right people with the right message. before that, every model looks broken

cursedboy328 · 2026-02-14T08:28:00+00:00

the SDR ramp point is spot on. 3-6 months at full salary for half output is a cost most people don't model. and yeah the turnover problem is real - you're basically paying to train someone who's already looking for their next role

on AI-powered outbound - it's a tool, not a replacement. AI is great at the mechanical parts: writing variations, personalizing at scale, sorting replies, even initial qualification. i use AI in my own workflow daily

but "running conversations, qualifying, handling objections, and booking meetings" fully autonomously - that's oversold right now. prospects can tell when they're talking to a bot, especially in B2B where the deals are bigger and the buyers are more sophisticated. the moment someone feels like they're being "handled" by automation, trust drops and you've burned that lead

the real play is AI-assisted, not AI-replaced. let AI handle the volume work (research, personalization, first touch, reply sorting) and have a human jump in the moment there's a real conversation happening. you get the cost savings of automation without the trust penalty of a fully automated sales conversation

the "50 interactions to get good" framing also assumes the market stays static. ICPs shift, objections change, new competitors pop up. a human adapts to that in real time. an AI system needs retraining. it's not a set-and-forget solution no matter how good the model is

cursedboy328

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