Email Deliverability Decline: Accounts Lasting Less Than a Month Despite Low Daily Sends

Oli M. · 2026-03-20T03:47:17.552Z

I’m finding our outreach email accounts are performing worse much more quickly recently. Whereas our account used to last around 3 months before we noticed a drop in deliverability, they now last less than a month. Has anyone seen similar? We send 15 per account per day, and redirect each burner domain to our main website.

6 comments

· Sorted by Oldest

Igor S.
·
·
Hey Oli M. ✋ This is a rather complex issue as there are many variables in the health of a burner domain. Moreover, I don’t have any access to your internal systems. Which service are you using? Mailforge, Mailreef etc.? If I have to guess randomly, my best assumption is that your provider allows multiple customers to use the same mail server. Each mail sever has an IP. When the server is shared, the IP is shared as well. If customer A that shares the same server with you sends spammy emails, they will very likely get blocked. The downside is that you will get blocked too ie. the domain will be burned (temporarily). In the case you described, it seems as if previously you were sharing the server with “good” senders who cared about their domain reputation. In the latter case, it seems as if a “spammy” customer joined the tribe. Again, my conclusion is based on multiple assumptions so what I said might not be necessarily the case. I framed my answer based on the limited info I had.
David T.
·
·
Hey Oli M., Igor makes a great point about shared infrastructure (the 'Mailforge' trap), but there’s a massive 2026 signal you’re tripping that’s likely causing that 1-month burn: The Domain Redirect. In 2026, Google and Outlook AI are hyper-aware of 'Symmetry.' When you redirect a burner domain to your main site, you are essentially 'signing' that burner with your main domain's fingerprint. If the filters see 50 different domains all redirecting to one destination, they flag the entire cluster as a 'Syndicated Spam Operation' rather than a human outreach effort. I’m a Cold Email Architect based in Chicago, and we’ve seen that 'Redirection' alone can trigger a deliverability drop of 40% in the first 30 days. The 'Plain Vanilla' Fix: > 1. Infrastructure Isolation: Stop using shared-IP 'Mail' tools. You need a private, isolated relay (no shared reputation). 2. Metadata Symmetry: Your sender, your links, and your landing pages shouldn't just 'redirect'; they need to be technically aligned in the headers. 3. The 500-Cap: 15/day is a safe volume, but if the 'Metadata Fingerprint' is loud, even 1 email will hit the Junk folder. Happy to run a quick Header Audit for you to see if your 'Redirect' is what's leaking your identity. Shoot me a DM if you want the X-ray on your last send
Igor S.
·
·
David T. thanks for the extremely useful tips & tricks on deliverability, I am sure they will help a lot of outbound folks
Oli M.
·
·
Thanks for the replies Igor S. David T. I use Instantly. Do you think i’m best off just not doing the redirects? And maybe putting my company name in my sign off so people can google us instead?
David T.
·
·
Oli M. Igor S. Yeah, this stuff is not easy right now. It really does feel like whack-a-mole sometimes. I’d treat the redirect as a risk, not the only cause. The human reason for it makes sense — it helps the domain look legit. But on the filtering side, it can also make it easier to connect multiple burner domains back to one main destination, especially if links or tracking are involved. My bias for first-touch cold email:
no links
no open tracking / pixel
no redirect in the email click path
just use a clean signature with your real company name
Something like: David Tan ChatReply If they’re interested, they can Google you or reply. That’s usually safer than forcing a tracked click on email one. Also, if one domain/account keeps underperforming while the rest are fine, I’d pause it and test a fresh one. But I wouldn’t assume the domain is the whole issue — content, targeting, tracking, and overall setup can all play a part too. Feels like human vs AI half the time now, so the cleaner and simpler you keep the first touch, the better.
Igor S.
·
·
David T. another great input. I've seen cases where deliverability was hurt when tracking pixels were involved. Also, few years ago a domain burned probably because we were using full singnatures (logo as a picture included). Oli M. I and David learned some things the hard way - you don’t have to :)

Email Deliverability Decline: Accounts Lasting Less Than a Month Despite Low Daily Sends | Clay

Igor S.
·
·
Hey Oli M. ✋ This is a rather complex issue as there are many variables in the health of a burner domain. Moreover, I don’t have any access to your internal systems. Which service are you using? Mailforge, Mailreef etc.? If I have to guess randomly, my best assumption is that your provider allows multiple customers to use the same mail server. Each mail sever has an IP. When the server is shared, the IP is shared as well. If customer A that shares the same server with you sends spammy emails, they will very likely get blocked. The downside is that you will get blocked too ie. the domain will be burned (temporarily). In the case you described, it seems as if previously you were sharing the server with “good” senders who cared about their domain reputation. In the latter case, it seems as if a “spammy” customer joined the tribe. Again, my conclusion is based on multiple assumptions so what I said might not be necessarily the case. I framed my answer based on the limited info I had.
David T.
·
·
Hey Oli M., Igor makes a great point about shared infrastructure (the 'Mailforge' trap), but there’s a massive 2026 signal you’re tripping that’s likely causing that 1-month burn: The Domain Redirect. In 2026, Google and Outlook AI are hyper-aware of 'Symmetry.' When you redirect a burner domain to your main site, you are essentially 'signing' that burner with your main domain's fingerprint. If the filters see 50 different domains all redirecting to one destination, they flag the entire cluster as a 'Syndicated Spam Operation' rather than a human outreach effort. I’m a Cold Email Architect based in Chicago, and we’ve seen that 'Redirection' alone can trigger a deliverability drop of 40% in the first 30 days. The 'Plain Vanilla' Fix: > 1. Infrastructure Isolation: Stop using shared-IP 'Mail' tools. You need a private, isolated relay (no shared reputation). 2. Metadata Symmetry: Your sender, your links, and your landing pages shouldn't just 'redirect'; they need to be technically aligned in the headers. 3. The 500-Cap: 15/day is a safe volume, but if the 'Metadata Fingerprint' is loud, even 1 email will hit the Junk folder. Happy to run a quick Header Audit for you to see if your 'Redirect' is what's leaking your identity. Shoot me a DM if you want the X-ray on your last send
Igor S.
·
·
David T. thanks for the extremely useful tips & tricks on deliverability, I am sure they will help a lot of outbound folks
Oli M.
·
·
Thanks for the replies Igor S. David T. I use Instantly. Do you think i’m best off just not doing the redirects? And maybe putting my company name in my sign off so people can google us instead?
David T.
·
·
Oli M. Igor S. Yeah, this stuff is not easy right now. It really does feel like whack-a-mole sometimes. I’d treat the redirect as a risk, not the only cause. The human reason for it makes sense — it helps the domain look legit. But on the filtering side, it can also make it easier to connect multiple burner domains back to one main destination, especially if links or tracking are involved. My bias for first-touch cold email:
no links
no open tracking / pixel
no redirect in the email click path
just use a clean signature with your real company name
Something like: David Tan ChatReply If they’re interested, they can Google you or reply. That’s usually safer than forcing a tracked click on email one. Also, if one domain/account keeps underperforming while the rest are fine, I’d pause it and test a fresh one. But I wouldn’t assume the domain is the whole issue — content, targeting, tracking, and overall setup can all play a part too. Feels like human vs AI half the time now, so the cleaner and simpler you keep the first touch, the better.
Igor S.
·
·
David T. another great input. I've seen cases where deliverability was hurt when tracking pixels were involved. Also, few years ago a domain burned probably because we were using full singnatures (logo as a picture included). Oli M. I and David learned some things the hard way - you don’t have to :)