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If you are sending cold emails in 2025 you need to be using dedicated domains to send emails. Automating cold outreach from your primary domain puts your domain reputation at risk. Important emails could end up in the spam folder if you're not careful.
Senders need to use dedicated email addresses, and dedicated domains just for cold email outreach. You have to spread your cold email volume out across multiple domains. This is the best way to build and maintain a strong sender reputation.
Hacked BD does outsourced business development for companies looking to generate more opportunities. We've sent millions of cold emails and have a lot of data on how to maintain high deliverability rates.
Dedicated sending domains are an important part of your cold email marketing strategy. Here are a few best practices you should consider when choosing domain variations.
Hacked BD believes that you should have your cold email domains be similar to your primary domain. Your prospects will be receiving emails from this domain, and you want it to look legit.
A business called ACME Corp. with a primary domain acme.com should not use a sending domain like reallygoodproducts.com. This domain doesn't look related to ACME Corp.
It won't look like the email came from someone at ACME Corp., and the prospect might suspect that this is a phishing email. When you do this, people are more likely to report you for spam.
If we were setting up an email sending domain for ACME Corp. we would use something like the following:
acmecorp.com
acmeproducts.com
acmeusa.com
It looks like ACME Corp. owns these domains. You can purchase domains like this for your business at a relatively low cost. We never spend more than the minimum price on sending domains.
Hyphens, numbers, and symbols should not be included in any of your domain variations. This can hurt your email deliverability and make it harder to get into the inbox.
Domain names with these types of symbols can seem spammy. Email service providers are more likely to put you in the spam folder. Recipients will be more likely to report your messages as spam.
Which domain looks more legitimate: acmeproducts.com, or acme-products99.com?
Your should always be using the domain TLD ".com" for your cold email domains. Any other TLD's will have weaker deliverability, and will be more likely to go to the spam folder.
Hacked BD recommends sending a maximum of 25 emails per day per email account, and 3 email accounts per domain. We send cadences of 3 emails to each prospect, and we only send cold emails on weekdays.
You will need 2 domains and 6 email addresses (3 each) to reach 1000 prospects in a month based on this math. We have rounded up to 6 email addresses so you'll have a bit of capacity left over.
You should choose your domain registrar based on how easy it is to configure DNS settings, and how expensive the domains are. If you already have domains with one registrar that's ok, you can buy new domains with them for simplicity. It might cause you extra work when adding authentication protocols or connecting with an ESP (email service provider).
Our favourite is Cloudflare if you are just buying and managing domains. The domains are cheap, and their platform makes it easy to update DNS settings.
We like Infraforge if you are buying email domain variations and mailboxes from the same place. This is an option tailored towards volume senders that have a lot of domains to set up.
Cold email marketers have two different types of options to choose from when selecting email service providers. They can get email accounts from traditional providers like Gmail and Outlook, or from dedicated providers like Infraforge.
Each type of provider comes with pros and cons. If you're only looking to send cold email from a couple of addresses then you're probably fine going with Gmail/Outlook. If you're looking to set up a lot of accounts you should consider a dedicated cold email account provider. They will make it quicker and easier to set up accounts in bulk.
Email authentication protocols are necessary for anyone sending cold email in 2025. Email service providers spam filters will be more likely to block your emails if you don't have them set up.
The protocols you need to configure to send cold email safely are SPF, DKIM, and DMARC. You need to add these policies to your domain's DNS settings. Email on Acid has a great post that explains what these protocols are and why they are important.
Dedicated providers like Infraforge will set up these policies up for you automatically. This is one of the perks of working with a provider like them.
If you buy your domains from a traditional registrar like Cloudflare you will have to set them up yourself. Access your DNS settings and add SPF, DKIM, and DMARC records. I have linked record creation tools for these below.
This tool from Dmarcian will show you whether you have added the records to your email sending domains correctly.
The best domain variations for cold email sending are domains that look like your primary domain. They are clean, without any symbols, numbers, or unrelated text. You need to always use .com domains because they will have better deliverability.
Hacked BD does our own cold email lead generation, and we use these sending domains:
www.hackbd.com
www.hackedbusinessdevelopment.com
www.hackedbusdev.com
www.hackbusdev.com
www.hackbusinessdevelopment.com
These domains are closely related to our main domain so they look legitimate to the prospects that we target.
Forward your domains for cold email to your primary domain so that your prospects go to your main website. Cold email recipients will sometimes go to your website to check out your business before responding. Make sure you're sending them to your main domain where they can get the information they need about your business.
Automated cold email is a great way to do B2B lead generation. Choosing the right domain variations will help get your messages to the inbox and generate leads for your business.
If you need help with email automation or lead generation feel free to reach out to our team at Hacked BD. We would be happy to set up a quick consultation to see if we can help.
