Marketers' Space: The importance of warming up your sender domain

Marketers' Space: The importance of warming up your sender domain

Hello Marketers,
Welcome back to yet another post! Today, we'll talk about why warming up your sender domain matters. Imagine you've recently started a business and want to share the news with your customers. You've designed a great email campaign using Zoho Campaigns. Naturally, you're excited and want to send it to all your contacts in one go; but if you skip the domain warm-up step, there's a good chance your emails will end up in spam instead of your contacts' inboxes.

What is a domain?

A domain is the unique address that marks a person's or business's identity on the internet. It's used for creating websites and sending emails, and helps recipients and service providers recognize who the message or website belongs to and whether it's coming from a trusted source.
If your email address is adam@zylkermotor.com, then zylkermotor.com is your domain.

What is domain warming?

Domain warming is a way of introducing your new domain to email service providers (ESPs) like Gmail, Yahoo, Outlook, and Zoho Mail. Instead of sending an email campaign to all your contacts at once, you start with small batches and send them to the people who are most likely to open and interact with your emails. This step is important because ESPs want to make sure you're a genuine sender. When they see you sending emails slowly and consistently—and your recipients are opening them—they start trusting your domain. But if you suddenly send thousands of emails from a brand new domain, it may look suspicious to them, like spam activity. Since they don't have any record of your past sending behavior, they may block your emails or push them to the spam folder. Warming your domain helps avoid that by showing ESPs that you're a real business sending valuable messages to people who want to hear from you.

This isn't so different from other aspects of our day-to-day lives. For example, if we decide to start weight training, we don't walk into the gym and immediately try to lift the heaviest weight possible; we know that in doing so, we'll not only fail but also likely cause ourselves serious injuries. What we can do is start with lighter weights and fewer repetitions and allow our muscles and joints (in this case, our domains and IP reputations) to adapt to the stress gradually. This process of progressive overload is necessary to build the strength and capacity to handle heavier loads later. In the same way, sudden, massive email volumes are like lifting the "heaviest weight" at the gym; it stresses the receiving systems. A slow, controlled increase in volume helps you safely build your sending capacity without "injuring" your reputation.

Why domain warming matters

As ESPs identify new and unknown domains as suspicious, sending large volume of emails suddenly without a sending history can lead to the following consequences:
  1. Low deliverability: Your emails will consistently land in spam folders, rendering all of your campaign efforts useless.
  2. Higher bounce rates: Since your sender reputation hasn't been established yet, mailbox providers may reject your emails, which may cause excessive hard or soft bounces and signal poor sending hygiene.
  3. Reputation damage: Once your domain/IP is flagged as a potential spammer, it's very difficult and time-consuming to repair that bad reputation.
  4. Blacklisting: In severe cases, your sending domain could be placed on an industry-wide blacklist, halting your email efforts entirely.
  5. Lower engagement: When emails don't reach inboxes, few people see or interact with them, which means fewer opens, clicks, conversions, and lower overall campaign performance.

How to warm up your sender domain using Zoho Campaigns: A use case

Morris has recently expanded his store, Zylker Designs, into an online presence and set up a domain called zylkerdesigns.com. Excited about the launch, Morris wants to draft a welcome email campaign and send it to 20,000 subscribers in one go. He approaches Eva from the Zoho Campaigns Support team with his requirement, who warns him that sending a large volume of emails from a new domain can trigger ESPs to mark the emails as spam—which is not an ideal start for Morris' new business. She recommends that Morris warm up his domain using Zoho Campaigns before sending his email in bulk.
Importance of domain warming
Here's how he can achieve it:
  1. Step 1: Morris has to authenticate his sender domain under Settings → Domain Authentication using SPF, DKIM, and DMARC to prove legitimacy and security.
  2. Step 2: Instead of targeting all 20,000 contacts at once, Morris can group his contacts into different segments, categorizing them based on most engaged and active subscribers (those who frequently open and click emails), moderately engaged, and so on.
  3. Step 3: He can then send his campaigns to small batches of these contacts, and then gradually increase the number of recipients. He can try sending the campaigns based on recipients' time zones or optimal open times to increase his chances that recipients will notice and open his emails.
  4. Step 4: For the next two to four weeks, Morris must slowly increase his daily sending volume after closely monitoring his open rates, bounce rates, and spam complaints under Campaign Reports.
  5. Step 5: When the engagement metrics start looking healthy and consistent, Morris can scale up and send emails to his entire audience, because by now ESPs will have recognized his domain as a trusted sender with a healthy reputation and good inbox reach.
By following this approach, Morris can ensure better deliverability, brand credibility, and email performance, laying a strong foundation for all his future email campaigns.

Wrapping it up

Warming up your sender domain isn't merely considered a best practice; it's a primary step that determines whether your emails reach your recipients' inboxes or not. By gradually building trust with ESPs, authenticating your domain, and sending first to contacts who engage with your emails, you can make sure to avoid deliverability problems right from the start. So before hitting "send" on your next bulk campaign, keep in mind that a warm domain earns a strong reputation, and a strong reputation earns better inbox placement, higher engagement, and healthier results.

Regards,
Aiswarya Jayaprakash
User Education
Zoho Campaigns

    • Recent Topics

    • Zoho CRM - Writing Assistant Tone

      Hi Zoho CRM Team, Text in my emails often gets underlined in yellow because I tend to use a more informal tone with my client's, like using "I'm" instead of "I am". Is there some way for me to tell the system that this is my preferred writing tone, so

    • Hide Contact Number for Field Users & Agents

      Is it possible to hide the contact number in both the Service Appointment and Work Order modules for field users and agents? The agents are using the Zoho FSM mobile app, and we want to restrict them from viewing the contact number.

    • Form Submission Emails

      Is there a current delay with submission emails being sent? We've had 10-20 forms completed today but only a handful of emails.

    • 【Zoho CRM for Everyone】設定画面のアップデート

      ユーザーの皆さま、こんにちは。コミュニティチームの藤澤です。 今回は「Zoho CRM アップデート情報」の中から、Zoho CRM for Everyone の設定画面のアップデート情報をご紹介します。 目次 設定ホーム画面の追加 設定画面での検索結果の表示形式の変更 設定画面でのよく使用する機能の表示 設定メニューの展開/折りたたみ状態の保持 1. 設定ホーム画面の追加 ホーム画面の設定項目は、直感的に分類できるように"カテゴリごと"で分けられています。 このような一元化された表示により、各ツールが1つの画面に集約され、必要な機能をより簡単に見つけられるようになりました。

    • What's New - November 2025 | Zoho Backstage

      A new month, a new set of updates. With a mix of new features and thoughtful improvements, you get smoother workflows and better control across registrations, exhibitors, and communications. Let's take a look at what's new and enhanced in Zoho Backstage

    • Zoho Checkout - Duplicate Customer record created for each payment received

      Hi All. We are using Zoho Checkout to capture online payments for a club membership form (in Zoho Forms). We've noticed that each new payment seems to create a new customer record, regardless of whether the customer already exists in the Zoho Finance

    • Templates for Zoho Desk - Knowledge Base

      We are looking at migrating our Knowledge base into Zoho Desk. Is there a way of creating templates for article in Knowledge base. We want to be able to set templates for certain types of content. Is this possible

    • Import KB template OR Export template for zoho desk?

      Greetings. Can you tell me if there is a way to get an EXPORT of my KB articles? OR is there a template you supply for importing KB articles into my zoho desk? I am looking for a method of understanding what fields can be imported, and what their possible

    • What KPIs Do You Use to Measure Your Support Team’s Performance in Zoho Desk?

      Hi everyone, We hope you’re all doing well. We are trying to improve how we measure the performance and effectiveness of our support department, and we would really appreciate learning from the community. We assume there are several common and widely-used

    • Backorder quantity change

      New Purchase Order × Almost there, but... Quantity of items in this purchase order is greater than the quantity that can be backordered from that sales order. Why can't I change the quantity of a backorder purchase? It looks like a normal order form and I would like to use it as one because I increased the amount and added some items. 

    • How to Associate multiple contacts with deal in Sales Inbox

      Hello, I have many deals that have multiple potential customers associated with a single deal, for example an engineer and a manager. The manager is the Deal's primary contact in CRM and the Engineer is added to the deal in the "Contact Roles" Associated

    • "code": "500","description": "Account not exists", mail api

      I have been through all the steps and have a functioning Oath access_token etc etc... I then GET https://mail.zoho.com/api/organization And get my zoid then GET http://mail.zoho.com/api/organization/<hidden>/accounts and get the account details, which

    • RTL Support for Webforms in Zoho CRM

      Dear Zoho CRM Support Team, We are writing to request an enhancement to the webform builder functionality within Zoho CRM. Currently, to create a webform in a right-to-left (RTL) language, the entire CRM instance must be set to RTL, which can be inconvenient

    • Imported contacts succesful but contacts do not show up in Contacts

      I imported +300 contacts. I can see them in import history. When clicking on a contact in import history I see all the imported contact details for any given contact. So import seems to be successful.   However the imported contacts do not show up in the contacts tab. Not in All contacts, and not in a filtered view where they absolutely should show up. The search function also does not find any imported contact.   Help?

    • Zoho Voice lance BYOC (Bring Your Own Carrier) : intégrez votre opérateur

      Pour accompagner sa croissance, une entreprise a besoin d’une infrastructure téléphonique flexible et évolutive. Les solutions de téléphonie s’adaptent aux exigences du centre de contact, tout en intégrant aisément les opérateurs locaux de votre choix.

    • Digest Novembre - Un résumé de ce qui s'est passé le mois dernier sur Community

      Bonjour chers utilisateurs, Avec l'arrivée du dernier mois de l'année, il est temps de résumer les activités de novembre dans la communauté Zoho France. Ce mois-ci, Zoho Webinar se dote de deux nouvelles intégrations ! La première est avec Zapier : connectez

    • E-Invoicing in Belgium with Zoho Books

      Starting January 1, 2026, Belgium is introducing mandatory electronic invoices (e-invoicing) for all B2B transactions between VAT-registered businesses. This means that invoices and credits notes must be exchanged in a prescribed digital format. How E-Invoicing

    • Announcing new features in Trident for Mac (1.30.0)

      Hello everyone! We’re excited to introduce the latest updates to Trident, bringing you a more seamless, intuitive, and secure communication experience. Let’s take a quick look at what’s new. Work with PST/EML files more efficiently. You can now do more

    • Open Form in Same window as Page from embedded Report

      I have a page that has an embedded report, as shown below. When I click the + sign to add a new record, the form shows up inside the page where the report was embedded. I know that I can add a custom action to the report grid or report detail view and

    • Pricing Strategies: #4 Counting on Discounts

      "Is there any chance I can get a little discount on this month's service?" Maya hears this almost every time at her fitness studio. She offers monthly subscription plans for various services, including yoga, strength training, wellness sessions, and personal

    • Introducing Query Workbench in Zoho CRM

      Hello everyone! We’re excited to announce the Query Workbench, a brand-new interface designed to improve developer experience of building Queries in Zoho CRM faster, simpler, and more intuitive. In the past, constructing queries required navigating across

    • Limitation with Dynamic Email Attachment Capture

      I've discovered a flaw in how Zoho Creator handles email attachments when using the Email-to-Form feature, and I'm hoping the Zoho team can address this in a future update. The Issue According to the official documentation, capturing email attachments

    • Add Customer in Books on Creator Form Submit Params

      Hi guys, Were integrating a creator app with books however what were doing is adding a books customer on submit of creator form.  We have some parameters but some fields aren't coping, All were seeing is the contact name in books,.  Any help of the params for this would be great. below is a sample of the script... response = zoho.books.createRecord("contacts", "XXXXXXXXX", { "contact_name" : input.Name, "address" : input.Email }); 

    • Weekly Tips: Protect Confidential Information with PGP in Zoho Mail

      We deal with confidential information almost every day, whether it is being sent out or received. Though emails sent using Zoho Mail are encrypted both during transit and at rest, attempts to access and steal your sensitive data are always a threat that

    • Suggestion : link KB with Accounts

      Hi Zoho teams.  I think it could be good to link KB articles with  : accounts in order to easily  find articles dedicated to some account specificities. I tried to use tags , but tags are free text with not easy way  to retrieve it directly from ticket or list article for one tag. Tickets : It would be a good way to measure usage of KB directly from ticket when we don't need to copy/paste KB in solution. And : Great Tool , keep going ! 

    • Drag and Drop in Creator Application

      Hi, I am in the planning phase of a new application and I would like to use 'Drag and Drop' in the user interface of my new Creator application that I am sketching out, but I don't seem to be able to find any reference that this is available to developers. In my instance I have table of entries and I would like to be able to allow users to move an entry to another table (much like you do in your own interface when creating a Pivot Table report. In addition, I would like the user to be able to re-order

    • Is there any way to integrate Zoho with Zapier?

      Is there any way to integrate Zoho with Zapier? I'd like to use it to create a workflow, sharing posts from our Wordpress website to all our channels.

    • Popular Articles Report

      From data to decisions: A deep dive into ticketing system reports Content management teams can use various metrics to assess the effectiveness of knowledge base articles, improve content quality, and ensure articles are regularly updated. Predefined article

    • Invoice Ref. Field

      Hello Team, Currently, the Invoice Ref. field is set to a Number type with a maximum limit of 9 digits. However, we often receive customer invoices that contain up to 12 digits. In some cases, the invoice reference includes not only numbers but also letters

    • Turning off the new UI

      Tried the new 'enhanced' UI and actively dislike it. Anyone know how to revert back?

    • XML format to import knowledgebase into Zoho Desk

      Hi, We just started to use Zoho Desk and want to import our knowledgebase from our old support system (Freshdesk) to Zoho Desk. Can anyone give us information about the format of xml file to import? There is no explanation on the related page.

    • Pushing Zoho People leave into Microsoft calendar: how to chose how "event" is shown (busy, free etc)

      Hi, how can I select how a "leave" event is pushed into Microsoft calendar? I want for leave "working elsewhere" to show as working elsewhere and NOT as busy.

    • Duplicate Accounts

      Hi There, I am looking for a solution, script, workflow or anything to solve an issue we have - in our customers section we have a rule that doesn't allow duplicates, however Zoho will allow customers with xxxxx and xxxxx PLC or LTD so effectivley we

    • Error with If formula

      I've got this super simple If formula, what is the reason for the error? If ( LEN(${Leads.Trial Slot Option}) == 3,'y','n') Syntax Error. Check the examples for any functions you're using to see if you formatted them correctly. Make sure your fields are

    • Announcing Multi-language Support in Zoho FSM

      Zoho FSM now speaks your language. The much-awaited multi-language support is now available in Zoho FSM. The following languages are supported in Zoho FSM: Dutch (Nederlands) English - United Kingdom English - United States French (français) French -

    • Creating multiple CRM leads from a Zoho Forms subform

      Hi all, We have a heavily used intake form that is used for new leads as a part of our intake. There is a subform that allows the lead to add additional team members, their titles and other basic info. That form submission creates a new Lead and the subform

    • Free webinar! Build smarter apps with Zoho Sign and Zoho Creator

      Hello, Bring the power of digital signatures to the apps you build in Zoho Creator! Connect Zoho Sign as a microservice and enable seamless e-signature workflows in your applications. This integration allows you to automate signing tasks using Deluge.

    • Restrict Addresses in Zoho Forms?

      In the address field, is there a way to restrict the addresses that auto populate (via Zoho Maps or Google Maps) to a specific state (I know it's possible with the country). Additionally, how often does the address in Zoho Maps get updated? Certain addresses

    • Weekly Tips: Secure your attachment downloads with Zoho Mail

      Safety is one of our main concerns, whether it’s about device security or online protection. We use tools like fingerprint scanners, facial recognition, and two-factor authentication to keep our devices and email accounts secure. We use methods like OTP

    • Resume Harvester: New Enhancements for Faster Sourcing

      We’re excited to share a set of enhancements to Resume Harvester that make sourcing faster and more flexible. These updates help you cut down on repetitive steps, manage auto searches more efficiently, and review candidate profiles with ease. Why we built

    • Next Page