If you want your emails to be read, clicked on, and generate sales... they first need to arrive at the right place.

This article gives you all the concrete actions—the same ones we apply ourselves at CrocoClick—to boost your deliverability today.

No complicated theory.

Just simple, effective, and proven actions to improve your reputation and avoid unwanted tabs (especially Spam 🗑️).

1. Warm up your domain: the basis of email reputation

Even if your domain has been around for a long time, your email reputation is constantly changing.

Mailboxes like stability. They hate irregular volumes and sudden spikes.

Best practices:

• ✅ Send regularly (e.g., one newsletter per week rather than 10 at once).

• ✅ Start each campaign with your most engaged contacts

• ✅ Send regular batches rather than one large mailing (500 emails sent over 5 days rather than 2,500 emails at once), starting with the most engaged segments.

• ✅ After a period of inactivity, start again gently (small volumes to the most engaged contacts).

Why?

Because Gmail and Outlook continuously evaluate your domain. They want to see that your mailings are predictable, realistic, and well received.

2. Smart segmentation: the #1 secret to deliverability

The best indicator of quality for mailboxes is engagement:

• Opens

• Clicks

• Replies

• No spam

Every time you send an email to cold contacts, you send a negative signal.

Best practices:

• ✅ Create a "Engaged 30 days" segment for your important campaigns.

• ✅ Exclude contacts who have been inactive for 60+ days (or put them in a reactivation sequence).

• ✅ Identify contacts who mark your emails as spam.

Why?

Because an email opened by 40% of your subscribers is worth infinitely more to Gmail than an email opened by 5%.

💡 The better your campaigns perform, the better your reputation becomes. It's a virtuous circle.

3. Clean up your list regularly: essential housekeeping

A clean email database means a solid reputation. Dead or mistyped addresses are toxic.

Best practices:

• ✅ Automatically remove hard bounces.

• ✅ Unsubscribe (DND) or "put to sleep" (exclude from mailings) contacts that have been inactive for 90 days.

• ✅ Monitor disposable addresses if you offer a lead magnet.

Why?

Because every bounce or inactive contact lowers your domain score and weakens your position in Gmail's eyes.

💡 In CrocoClick, hard bounces are automatically disabled by default.

4. SPF, DKIM, DMARC: the technical foundations of your reputation

These three settings are the equivalent of a digital passport. Without them, your emails instantly lose credibility.

What you need to check:

• ✅ SPF: authorizes CrocoClick to send emails on your behalf

• ✅ DKIM: signs your messages to prove that they come from your domain

• ✅ DMARC: indicates how to handle unauthenticated emails

Why?

Because without proper authentication, you look like a spammer... even if you're completely innocent.

💡 CrocoClick automatically guides you through the configuration of your domain. Just make sure all three lights are green :)

5. Content that breathes: simple, readable, personal

Gmail's AI analyzes the style of your emails.

It can tell the difference between:

• a personal message

• a newsletter

• a commercial offer

• an automated email

The goal is not necessarily to avoid the Promotions tab (which is NOT a punishment), but to avoid any confusion with spam.

Best practices:

• ✅ Don't overload your emails with images or heavy blocks

• ✅ Avoid overly complex templates, unless you already have a solid reputation

• ✅ Use a natural, human tone

• ✅ Limit the number of links

• ✅ Avoid words that trigger spam filters

Why?

Because emails that are "heavy," "flashy," or overly aggressive resemble spam marketing patterns.

💡 A simple email often converts better than an overly designed email.

6. Encourage responses: the most powerful deliverability hack

Email inboxes love one thing: when your subscribers reply to your messages.

A reply is:

• a strong signal that your email is legitimate

• proof of human interest

• a massive boost to your reputation

👉 Sometimes add a simple sentence:

"Reply with a simple 'OK' to confirm that you have received it."

Why?

Because Gmail loves conversations.
An email that generates a reply will almost never be classified as spam.

💡 This is the most underrated yet most effective strategy.

7. Avoid mass "cold" mailings

Sending 15,000 emails at once to contacts who have been inactive for a year is the best way to ruin your reputation.

Best practices:

• ✅ Split your mailings, starting with the most active contacts (5,000 → pause → 5,000 → pause)

• ✅ Reactivate cold contacts BEFORE including them in your campaigns (see point 6)

• ✅ Avoid last-minute mailings right after a long period of silence. Instead...

• ✅...Do a "Warming Ramp Up" (100 emails → pause → 250 emails → pause → 500 emails → pause → 1,000 emails → pause → 2,000 emails → pause → 4,000 emails)

Why?

Because a sudden mass mailing looks like an attempt at spam to AI.

8. Monitor your reputation: a professional reflex

You can't improve what you don't measure.

👉 Some useful indicators:

• ✅ Your open rate

• ✅ Your bounce rates

• ✅ Your spam complaints

• ✅ Your IP reputation (visible in your logs)

• ✅ Your domain reputation (via Google Postmaster Tools)

Why?

Because deliverability is not a one-off event: it's a living ecosystem.

In summary: the 3 actions that change everything

Here are the top priorities:

1. Send regularly to engaged contacts

→ This is the number one sign of quality

2. Keep a clean database and an authenticated domain

→ This is the technical foundation

3. Encourage human behavior (responses, interactions)

→ This is the ultimate proof of legitimacy

If you follow these rules, your deliverability will skyrocket within the next 30 days.