I am a huge fan of the band U2. I have been listening to their music since I was in high school, and I have seen them in concert a few times.
One of my favorite songs by U2 is “Stuck in a Moment You Can’t Get Out Of.” The lyrics to the song go something like this:
“I’m not afraid of anything in this world. There’s nothing you can throw at me that I haven’t already heard. I’m just trying to find a decent melody, a song that I can sing in my own company.”
This song has been stuck in my head for a few weeks now, and as I was listening to it the other day, I started to think about how some of the lyrics to the song could be applied to email marketing.
When it comes to email marketing, there are a lot of things that you have no control over. This can be frustrating, but it is just a part of the game. The key is to stay positive and to focus on the things that you can control.
1. Start with a clean email list
The first step of any email marketing campaign should be to clean your list. Email list cleaning is the process of removing old, outdated, or incorrect email addresses from your list.
When you send emails to old, outdated, or incorrect email addresses, you increase your chances of having your emails bounce. This can hurt your sender reputation and your chances of getting your emails into the inbox.
There are a few different ways to clean your email list, but one of the most effective is to use an email list cleaning service. These services can help you identify and remove bad email addresses from your list, so you can improve your email inbox placement and get better results from your email marketing campaigns.
2. Send emails to engaged subscribers
If you’re just starting out with email marketing, or if you’ve taken a break from sending emails, you may need to warm up your IP address. An IP address is a unique string of numbers that identifies the location of your email’s server.
When you send an email, the recipient’s email server looks at the reputation of your IP address to determine where to place your email in the inbox. If your IP address has a bad reputation, your email will likely be placed in the spam folder.
One way to warm up your IP address is to start by sending emails to your most engaged subscribers. These are the people who are most likely to open, click, and respond to your emails. By sending emails to your most engaged subscribers, you can start to build a positive reputation for your IP address.
Once you’ve built up a positive reputation with your most engaged subscribers, you can start to gradually send emails to less engaged subscribers. This will help you continue to build a positive reputation for your IP address, and it will also help you identify any potential deliverability issues early on.
3. Warm up your IP address
Like a domain, an IP address can also have a reputation score. If you’re using an IP address that has a poor reputation, your emails will be marked as spam, and your domain will be flagged.
The best way to avoid this is to warm up your IP address. This means slowly increasing the volume of emails you send over time, so you don’t trigger any spam filters.
You can also use an IP address warm-up service to help you with this process. This will allow you to monitor your IP address reputation and get alerts if there are any issues.
4. Warm up your domain
Just like IP addresses, domains also have reputations. If you’re launching a new domain, it’s important to warm up your sending reputation before sending out a large volume of emails.
To do this, you can start by sending emails to your most engaged subscribers. As you build your reputation, you can start to send to less engaged subscribers, and gradually increase the volume of emails you’re sending.
While you’re warming up your domain, you should also make sure to authenticate your domain. This will help to prevent spammers from spoofing your domain and damaging your reputation.
5. Send emails at the right time
The time of day and day of the week that you send your emails can also impact your inbox placement. This is something that you’ll want to test over time to see what works best for your audience.
For example, if you’re sending emails to a business audience, you might find that sending emails during the workweek in the morning or early afternoon is best. On the other hand, if you’re sending emails to a consumer audience, you might find that sending emails in the evening or on the weekend is best.
You can use your email marketing platform’s reporting features to see when your emails are being opened and clicked on. This can give you valuable insights into the best times to send your emails.
6. Use a recognizable “from” name
Your “from” name is the first thing your recipients see when they receive your email.
If they don’t recognize it or it looks like spam, they’re more likely to send it to the spam folder. And, if you’re using a generic “from” name like “info@yourdomain.com,” you’re not making a great first impression.
Instead, use a recognizable “from” name. This could be your business name, an employee’s name, or your own name.
Just make sure it’s something your recipients will recognize and trust.
7. Use a real reply-to email address
The email address you use to send your marketing emails should be a real one that people can reply to. This isn’t just a good practice for email deliverability, but also for improving your sender reputation.
When your recipients reply to your emails, it signals to ISPs that you’re a real person and not a spammer. This can help you get your emails delivered to the inbox.
8. Write relevant and valuable email content
Just like the subject line, the content of your email should be relevant to your recipient’s expectations and interests. Email content should be valuable and engaging, and it should also be well-formatted and easy to read.
The best way to make sure your email content is effective is to use an email marketing tool that provides templates and drag-and-drop editing. This allows you to easily create professional email content that is visually appealing and well-organized.
You should also use personalization tokens to automatically add your recipient’s name and other relevant information to your email content. This helps to make your email content more relevant and engaging.
9. Personalize your email content
Email personalization is key to increasing open rates. It can help you build a more meaningful relationship with your audience, and it can help you stand out in the inbox.
When you personalize your email content, you can use merge tags to automatically include your recipient’s first name in the body of your email. This can help you make your email feel more personal and less like a mass message.
You can also use merge tags to include your recipient’s name in the subject line of your email. This is a great way to catch your recipient’s attention and increase open rates.
In addition to using merge tags, you can also personalize your email content by segmenting your email list and sending targeted emails to different segments.
For example, you could segment your email list by location and then send targeted emails with content that is specific to each location. This can help you increase engagement and build a more meaningful relationship with your audience.
10. Use an email authentication service
Email authentication is the process of verifying that an email is actually from the sender it says it’s from. This is a crucial step in the email warm-up process because it helps prevent your emails from being marked as spam before they even reach the recipient’s inbox.
There are several different types of email authentication, but the most common are DKIM, SPF, and DMARC. These protocols help prove that the email is coming from a legitimate source and has not been altered in transit.
Using an email authentication service can help you improve your email deliverability and inbox placement. Most email authentication services will automatically authenticate your emails, so you don’t have to worry about it.
This is an easy way to improve your email marketing and inbox placement.
11. Add value in every send — and make that value actionable
Email warm-up isn’t just technical. It’s behavioral. ISPs track how subscribers react to your messages — whether they open, click, forward, reply, or delete. The more value your emails deliver, the more your audience engages. And higher engagement directly improves inbox placement.
Value doesn’t have to mean long essays or complex resources. Sometimes it’s a quick tip, a small tutorial, a relevant link, or a simple offer that helps the reader accomplish something immediately. When people feel your emails consistently give something useful, they train inbox filters to treat your domain as trustworthy.
This matters even more when you introduce incentives or referral rewards. If you use a referral platform like ReferralCandy, frame those rewards as value for the subscriber, not as a demand for action. A helpful reminder about how they can earn credits, discounts, or perks can boost engagement — as long as it feels like a benefit, not a push. High-value emails get opened, clicked, and shared, all of which strengthen your sender reputation over time.
Value compounds. So does trust. And nothing warms up a domain faster than both working together.
Conclusion
The email warm-up process is essential for many reasons. It helps you avoid spam filters, boost your sender reputation, and increase your chances of reaching the recipient’s inbox. The good news is that you can warm up your email inbox placement in multiple ways. You can start by creating a custom domain, finding a reliable email marketing platform, and avoiding spammy tactics.
