How to prepare a new sending account (and how quickly to increase sending)

A new mailbox or domain has no sending history, so mailbox providers have nothing to judge it by. Start small, behave like a real person, and increase volume only while your results stay healthy. There is no universal schedule: how fast you can grow depends on your domain, your list and how recipients react.

Before you send anything

1. Set up authentication for the domain: SPF, DKIM and DMARC, and make sure MX records work so replies and bounce notices arrive.
2. Make the mailbox look real. Add your full name, a profile photo and a short signature. In Distro you can add a signature under Templates → Signatures and pick it per campaign.
3. Use it as a normal mailbox first. Send everyday emails to colleagues, partners and existing contacts, and reply to what comes in. Real two-way conversations are the best history a mailbox can have.
4. Connect it to Distro. On Sending accounts, click Add sender, then Enable next to Google account. See Connect your Google account to Distro.
5. Accept the responsible-use policy. Distro asks you to confirm you have a lawful basis to contact recipients and will not use purchased lists before your first send.

Start with low volume

A new campaign in Distro starts with Max emails per day set to 50, sending Monday to Friday, 09:00 to 17:00, with 5 minutes between emails and a randomized gap. During the free trial, each campaign is also capped at 50 emails a day.

For a brand-new mailbox, consider starting below the default:

1. Open the campaign and select the Autopilot settings.
2. Lower Max emails per day. A small first batch lets you check bounces and replies before you scale.
3. Keep Randomize the gap on, and consider a longer Delay between emails.
4. Select Apply.

The daily limit counts every email in the campaign, first emails and follow-ups together. If you run several campaigns from the same mailbox, each has its own limit, so add them up. See Choose your daily sending volume.

When and how to increase

Increase gradually, for example every week or so, and only when the signals below look healthy. Small steps are safer than big jumps.

If anything in the right-hand column happens, lower the limit, fix the cause (usually the list or the targeting) and wait before trying again. See Why emails bounce and Why cold emails go to spam.

Mistakes to avoid with a new account

• Importing a large list and launching at full speed on day one.
• Raising the daily limit and adding campaigns at the same time. Change one thing at a time so you can see what caused a problem.
• Spreading the same poor list across more mailboxes. More mailboxes do not fix bad targeting; they spread the damage.
• Heavy first emails with many links, images, attachments or tracking. See Links in cold email.

Google also enforces its own sending limits on every account, separate from Distro's settings. Read Gmail sending limits explained.