Tips to Improve Email Deliverability to Outlook Inboxes | Clay

Tips to Improve Email Deliverability to Outlook Inboxes

Very much in need of your help guys... I've been testing my ass off and it just seems that I'm getting in Gmail inboxes fine, but almost always land in spam with Outlook. Since the majority of my lists always have Outlook, I rarely get any replies, or even OOO's.. I've tested the content of my emails too with GlockApps and Folderly, but everything was fine. Also not blacklisted on any IP's. Been warming-up for at least 2-4 weeks before running campaigns, and I'm sending 30 daily campaign emails (decreased this now to 20), and 30 warm-up emails. Does anyone know if I can do anything to land more emails in Outlook? Does anyone have any insights please as to what works for them to be landing in Outlook inbox?

16 comments

Abdul
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Outlook’s tough even with warmup and clean content. What’s helped us: use a custom tracking domain, send plain text (no images/links), rotate inboxes, and build reputation on a subdomain. We boosted Outlook inbox rates by 30 40% this way happy to check your template if you want!
Walid J.
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Thanks Abdul! Yeah I've been using custom domain tracking clean content without images or links in Smartlead, and I believe they rotate the inboxes right? And with a subdomain you mean secondary domains I think?
Abdul
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Exactly! Smartlead does rotate inboxes if you’ve set it up that way and yep by subdomain I mean something like mail.yourdomain.com instead of sending directly from your main domain builds a separate reputation and keeps your primary domain safe.
Walid J.
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Oh what I mean with secondary domain is for example: useclay.com, tryclay.com, clayai.com etc. I have been creating new domains that are similar to my own domain. Didn't know that creating subdomains like you say and sending emails from that was possible?
Stephen v.
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Make sure you've set your DMARC policies - I know microsoft implemented new rules recently (https://sendmarc.com/dmarc/microsoft-dmarc-requirements/). These guys also have an analyser tool on the home page you can use to check your domain
Walid J.
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Hey Stephen, thanks voor je hulp! Ga even naar de guide kijken. Heb jij gemerkt dat je daardoor vaker in de inbox kwam bij Outlook?
Stephen v.
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I've had DMARC in place the whole time so didn't notice any change specifically
Walid J.
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Yeah my DMARC, SPF and DKIM are setup correctly too, so no gains to be won there unfortunately. Still thanks!
Max E.
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Outlook seems to prioritize domain age over anything at the moment. 2-4 weeks of warmup on fresh domains is a bit low. We've seen way better results with 60+ days of warmup before sending 1 actual mail.
Max E.
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Also are you setting up your inboxes yourself or using resellers?
Walid J.
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Thanks Max! so in your strategy you're first only targeting google & SMTP inboxes? And after 60 days you're targeting Outlook as well? Or some other way?
Walid J.
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Using resellers, Zapmail and Coldsire. They are real Google workspaces
Max E.
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If possible I'd wait before sending to either but if not possible then yes I'd try to delay sending to outlook
Max E.
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I'm not a big fan of those resellers as they still get flagged for Indian IP's
Walid J.
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Yeah thought that might be a problem too, but I check every domain today, and all IP’s are either in America, or Europe, so don’t think that that’s the problem
Walid J.
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I setup a few campaigns to test the difference between outlook and gmail, so we’re gonna see