Technical Infrastructure & Deliverability

Lesson 2.1 — Domain Strategy for Cold Email

The golden rule: never send cold email from your primary business domain.

If your company is acme.com, that domain should only be used for transactional emails, marketing newsletters to opted-in subscribers, and employee communication. Cold outreach goes through secondary domains.

Why Separate Domains?

Cold email carries inherent risk. Even with perfect execution, some recipients will mark your email as spam. If that happens on your primary domain, it damages the reputation you rely on for all business communication — including emails to existing customers.

Secondary domains act as a firewall. If a sending domain gets flagged, you retire it and spin up a new one. Your primary domain stays clean.

How to Choose Domain Names

Your secondary domains should look like natural variations of your brand:

Rules for domain selection:

• Stick to .com — avoid .io, .co, .xyz for cold email (higher spam association)
• Keep it short and recognizable as your brand
• Buy from registrars like Spaceship, Namecheap, or Porkbun (~$9–12/year per domain)
• Purchase in bulk (10–20 at a time when scaling)
• Set up a simple redirect to your main website on each domain

How Many Domains Do You Need?

Use 2–3 mailboxes per domain maximum. More than that and a spam complaint on one mailbox poisons the others.

Lesson 2.2 — Mailbox Setup with Google Workspace

Google Workspace mailboxes have the highest sender reputation of any provider. Gmail trusts Gmail.

Provider Comparison

Setting Up Google Workspace

1. Purchase Google Workspace Business Starter at workspace.google.com — $7.20/user/month
2. Verify domain ownership by adding a TXT record to your DNS
3. Create mailboxes with realistic human names:

4. Complete each profile — add a professional headshot, fill out the name and title
5. Enable 2FA for account security

Calculating Mailboxes Needed

The safe sending limit for cold email is 50 emails per day per account. This is well under Google's 2,000/day technical limit, but staying low keeps your reputation clean and your accounts alive.

Daily send target / 50 = mailboxes needed

500/day / 50 = 10 mailboxes
2,000/day / 50 = 40 mailboxes

Lesson 2.3 — DNS Authentication: SPF, DKIM, and DMARC

These three DNS records prove to receiving servers that your emails are legitimate. Without them, you are fighting an uphill battle against spam filters.

Point your domains to Cloudflare (free tier) for DNS management. Cloudflare is fast, reliable, and makes it easy to manage DNS records across many domains.

SPF (Sender Policy Framework)

SPF tells receiving servers which mail servers are authorized to send email for your domain.

Type:  TXT
Host:  @
Value: v=spf1 include:_spf.google.com ~all

This record says: "Google's mail servers are authorized to send for this domain. Soft-fail everything else."

DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail)

DKIM adds a cryptographic signature to every outgoing email, proving the content was not modified in transit.

To generate DKIM in Google Workspace:

1. Go to Admin Console > Apps > Google Workspace > Gmail
2. Click Authenticate Email
3. Select your domain
4. Click Generate New Record
5. Copy the generated value

Then add the DNS record:

Type:  TXT
Host:  google._domainkey
Value: [paste the generated DKIM value]

DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication)

DMARC tells receiving servers what to do when SPF or DKIM fails.

Type:  TXT
Host:  _dmarc
Value: v=DMARC1; p=none; rua=mailto:dmarc@yourdomain.com

Start with p=none (monitor mode). Once you confirm authentication is working, you can tighten to p=quarantine or p=reject.

Verification Checklist

After adding all three records, wait 24–48 hours for DNS propagation, then verify:

• SPF — check at mxtoolbox.com/spf
• DKIM — check at mxtoolbox.com/dkim
• DMARC — check at mxtoolbox.com/dmarc
• All three should show "Pass"

Screenshot: MXToolbox showing passing SPF, DKIM, and DMARC results for a sample domain.

Lesson 2.4 — Connecting Email Accounts to FoxReach

Once your domains are purchased, mailboxes are created, and DNS records are verified, connect everything to FoxReach.

Adding an Email Account

1. Go to Email Accounts in the FoxReach sidebar
2. Click Add Account
3. Enter your account details:
   • Email address — the full address (e.g., john@acmehq.com)
   • Display name — the sender name recipients see (e.g., John Smith)
   • Provider — select Gmail, Outlook, or Custom SMTP/IMAP
4. Enter SMTP settings (for sending):
   • Host: smtp.gmail.com
   • Port: 587
5. Enter IMAP settings (for receiving replies):
   • Host: imap.gmail.com
   • Port: 993
6. Enter your password or app password
7. Click Test Connection — FoxReach will verify both SMTP and IMAP work
8. Save the account

Screenshot: FoxReach "Add Email Account" form showing email, display name, provider dropdown, SMTP host/port, IMAP host/port, and Test Connection button.

Account Settings

After connecting, configure each account:

• Daily email limit — Set to 50 (or use your workspace default)
• Signature — Add a professional email signature
• Active toggle — Enable when ready to send

FoxReach tracks each account's health score (0–100), bounce rate, reply rate, and daily send count. You can monitor all accounts at a glance from the Email Accounts list.

Screenshot: FoxReach Email Accounts list showing multiple connected accounts with health scores, status indicators, and daily send counts.

Connection Troubleshooting

Lesson 2.5 — Deliverability Testing Before You Send

Before launching any campaign, test your inbox placement. Do not skip this step.

Pre-Send Testing Tools

Mail Tester (mail-tester.com)

1. Go to mail-tester.com — you will see a unique test email address
2. Send an email from your connected account to that address
3. Check your score — target 9/10 or higher
4. Review flags for spam words, missing DNS records, or blacklist issues

Glock Apps (glockapps.com) — $79/month

1. Create a test campaign with Glock Apps
2. Send to their seed list (addresses across Gmail, Outlook, Yahoo, corporate domains)
3. Review inbox placement results:

Google Postmaster Tools (free)

1. Verify your domain at postmaster.google.com
2. Monitor ongoing metrics: spam rate, IP reputation, domain reputation, authentication
3. Set up alerts for any reputation drops

Red Flags That Require Immediate Action

Module 2 Quiz

1. Why should you never send cold email from your primary business domain?
2. What is the recommended maximum number of mailboxes per domain?
3. What do SPF, DKIM, and DMARC each do?
4. What Mail Tester score should you target before launching a campaign?
5. At what spam rate should you immediately pause campaigns?