this is the technical bit. get each item ticked off before you send a single campaign email from any domain.

lookalike domain strategy

NEVER send cold outreach from your primary business domain. if anything goes wrong (and eventually something will), your main domain's reputation takes the hit. and rebuilding domain reputation takes months.

• [ ] Primary domain reserved for warm communication only (clients, partners, inbound)
• [ ] Bought 2-4 lookalike domains dedicated to outbound

→ example: if your domain is premiumwidgets.com, your lookalike domains might be getpremiumwidgets.com, premiumwidgets.co, trypremiumwidgets.com

• [ ] Each lookalike domain has its own DNS records configured (not just pointing to the primary)
• [ ] Lookalike domains registered for at least 14 days before sending

SPF record setup

SPF tells receiving servers which IPs can send on behalf of your domain.

• [ ] SPF record added to DNS as a TXT record
• [ ] Record includes all authorised sending services (Google Workspace, your sequencer, etc.)
• [ ] Only ONE SPF record per domain (multiple SPF records = automatic fail)
• [ ] Record ends with ~all (soft fail) or -all (hard fail)

example SPF record:
v=spf1 include:_spf.google.com include:sendgrid.net ~all

• [ ] Tested via MXToolbox SPF lookup and showing PASS

DKIM configuration