Learning that your email domain has been locked down can send a shiver down the spine of any communications or marketing professional. “What do we do now?” you might ask, with a significant amount of anxiety in your voice and an eye on your internal clock that’s now ticking off the seconds/hours/days since your last successful outbound email.

But fear not! You can overcome an email-sending domain lockdown and return to your normal email marketing cadences.

Let’s dive into what to do if you suddenly can’t use your email-sending domain.

Setting the Stage: The Sender Domain Authentication Changes in Early 2024

February 1, 2024, was an important date for business communications and marketing pros. That’s when email services (Google, Yahoo, etc.) began mandating the implementation of protocols with acronyms like SPF (Sender Policy Framework), DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail), and DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting, and Conformance).

These conventions enhance email security and authenticity, which is helpful to email recipients and senders. Customers and prospects want to get emails from senders they trust, and you want to send messages when and to whom it makes sense for your marketing efforts.

If you haven’t taken steps to authenticate your sending domain, it’s crucial that you do.

Companies that fail to comply with the requirements can find their sending domains locked down. Then, they must act quickly to ensure communications with their audience aren’t interrupted for too long. Customers and clients might be tempted to look elsewhere for the products or services they need if they’re kept waiting.

The good news is that, in addition to complying with protocol requirements to reduce your risk of this scenario occurring, you can take steps to recover from it.

Leveraging an Interim Sending Domain

Businesses that experience a complete sending domain lockdown have to use a different sending domain while working to address the problems and get the primary domain operational again. If you find yourself in that situation, and your interim domain is new, it’s crucial to “warm it up.” That means building up its reputation so it’s not seen as suspicious.

To warm up an interim domain, do the following:

  • Start slowly. Begin by sending a small number of emails per day to addresses you know (like your personal accounts or colleagues).
  • Increase volume gradually. Slowly increase the number of emails you send each day. There are no hard and fast rules, but a common approach is to increase by 10-20% daily.
  • Prioritize engaged recipients. Send emails to people who are likely to open and interact with them. This positive engagement signals to email providers that your emails are wanted.
  • Use email authentication. Implement SPF, DKIM, and DMARC to verify the interim domain’s identity and improve deliverability.
  • Monitor your sender reputation. Keep an eye on your bounce rate, spam complaints, and email open rates. If you see any negative trends, adjust your warm-up strategy accordingly.
  • Be patient. Warming up a domain typically takes a few weeks to a few months.

There are also services like instantly.ai that can warm up an email domain for you.

Some companies choose to use a third-party service to warm up their interim domain and send their outreach emails. That’s a more expensive approach, but it protects the domain and can reduce stress and headaches for a marketing or communications team!

HubSpot’s Plan for Building Back Trust in Your Primary Sending Domain

When it comes to rebuilding the reputation of your primary email-sending domain, nobody knows better than HubSpot. Their expert advice includes the following measures:

  1. Send only to contacts who clicked on one of your emails in the past two weeks. You should take this action for the first two weeks of your repair plan.
  2. Send only to contacts who opened one of your emails in the past four weeks. This step should occur once your cumulative click-through rate improves to 20% or higher.
  3. Send only to contacts who have opened one of your emails in the past six weeks. Once your cumulative open rate increases to 20-25%, take this step.
  4. Expand criteria to include contacts based on older email engagement data. You can take this step once your cumulative open rate stays in the 20-25% range for another four weeks.

Other advice for HubSpot users specifically includes that you should:

  • Select the “Suppress contacts with low engagement” checkbox when sending marketing emails.
  • Limit engagement with contacts who haven’t clicked or opened a promotional email in over six months.
  • Don’t email contacts who haven’t opened a message in over a year. They pose a high risk for deliverability problems. In addition, they don’t meet HubSpot’s minimum requirements for marketing emails.

Final Thoughts

If you’ve ever realized an hour into a road trip that you left your phone at home, you have an idea of the sensation you’ll likely experience when discovering your email-sending domain has been locked down. It’s pretty alarming! After all, at most businesses, email is essential for communicating with existing customers, connecting with prospects, interacting with business partners, and just staying in contact with the “outside world.”

Fortunately, you can avoid that stressful situation by complying with the 2024 email protocols. If you don’t, or you do, and somehow still find your domain locked down, there are steps you can take to recover. It takes time, effort, and patience to recover your email reputation, but you can do it. The key is following the guidance provided by experts like HubSpot or our team at Simple Machines.

Contact us if you have questions or concerns about email protocols and deliverability. We can ensure your critical messaging gets to recipients consistently.