You have a list of businesses to contact and an email account that can send through SMTP. The question is how to connect the two so your messages reach inboxes instead of spam folders, and so one bad week does not damage the domain your customers already know.
This guide walks through the full setup in order. Most of it takes an afternoon. The DNS changes can take a few hours to apply, so start there.
Step 1: Use a separate sending domain
Do not send cold email from the domain your invoices and customer support come from. If cold outreach hurts its reputation, your normal business mail suffers too.
Buy a second domain that looks like yours, such as a variant with "get" or "hq" added, or a different ending. Then:
- Redirect the new domain's website to your main site, so anyone who checks it finds you.
- Create one or two real mailboxes on it with a real person's name, like anna@yourbrand-hq.com.
- Set up a profile picture and signature so the sender looks like a person, not a system.
Step 2: Find your SMTP settings
Every email provider publishes its SMTP details. You need four things:
| Setting | What it usually looks like |
|---|---|
| Host | smtp.yourprovider.com |
| Port | 587 (STARTTLS) or 465 (SSL) |
| Username | Your full email address |
| Password | Your mailbox password or an app password |
Some providers require an app password instead of your normal login when two-factor authentication is on. Generate it in the account security settings. If you also want to read replies, note the IMAP settings at the same time.
Use your mailbox provider's SMTP, not a bulk marketing relay built for newsletters. Many of those services do not allow cold outreach in their terms, and they can shut you off.
Step 3: Set up SPF, DKIM and DMARC
These three DNS records tell receiving servers your mail is really from you. Without them, expect the spam folder.
- SPF: a TXT record listing which servers may send for your domain. Your provider gives you the exact value. Keep only one SPF record per domain; merge entries if you use more than one service.
- DKIM: a key your provider generates. You add it as a TXT or CNAME record, then switch DKIM signing on in the provider dashboard.
- DMARC: a TXT record at _dmarc.yourdomain.com. A simple starting point is a policy of none with a reporting address, which you can tighten later.
After a few hours, send a test to a personal Gmail account, open the message, and choose "Show original." You want SPF, DKIM and DMARC all showing PASS.
Step 4: Warm up and set a sensible daily limit
A brand new mailbox that suddenly sends hundreds of messages looks like a spammer. Build up slowly.
A common rule of thumb: start with 10 to 20 emails a day per mailbox for the first week or two, then increase gradually, and keep cold volume per mailbox modest even once established. If you need more volume, add mailboxes instead of pushing one harder.
During the first weeks, send some normal emails and get replies from people you know. Real conversations help the mailbox look like what it is: a person's inbox.
Step 5: Clean the list before you send
Bounces are one of the fastest ways to hurt a new domain. Before any campaign:
- Run email verification and remove invalid addresses.
- Decide how to handle generic inboxes like info@ and office@. Our guide on role emails covers when they are worth it.
- Remove duplicates and anyone who has asked not to be contacted.
If your bounce rate is already high on another domain, read how to fix a high bounce rate before you repeat the problem here.
Check the rules that apply where you and your recipients are. In many places cold B2B email is allowed with conditions, such as identifying yourself and offering a clear way to opt out. Our GDPR for outreach page explains the basics, but it is not legal advice.
Step 6: Connect SMTP to a sending tool and build the sequence
You can technically send from a desktop mail client, but you lose scheduling, follow-ups, throttling and unsubscribe handling. A sending tool takes your SMTP details and spaces messages out for you.
In GetClient, you add your SMTP account (or connect Gmail) in campaign settings, then build steps in a visual flow: a first email, a delay in days, then follow-ups that can branch on If Opened or If NOT Opened. Merge tags are written like {{params.firstname}} and {{params.city}}, and each recipient gets a one-click unsubscribe link; anyone who unsubscribes is skipped automatically. Because the leads you find on Google Maps live in the same place as the campaign, there is no export step between list and send.
Whatever tool you use, set these before launch:
- Daily and weekday limits so sends stay within your warm-up plan.
- Plain text style for the first email. Heavy HTML and images look like marketing.
- No links or one link in the first message, and no attachments.
- A short follow-up two to four days later, replying in the same thread.
Personal, specific subject lines help more than clever ones. See subject line personalization for examples.
Step 7: Do a small first send and watch it
Do not launch to the whole list. Send to 20 or 30 contacts, then check:
- Did any bounce? If more than a handful did, stop and re-verify.
- Did test copies to your own Gmail and Outlook addresses land in the inbox?
- Are replies coming back to the mailbox you are monitoring?
If all looks fine, raise volume step by step over the following days. Keep reading replies daily; slow responses waste interested leads. For common pitfalls in the copy itself, read cold email mistakes that kill replies.
Want to try this end to end? New GetClient accounts get 100 free credits with no card needed. Plans are on the pricing page.