PRE-SEND CHECKLIST

The pre-send cold email
checklist

What to check before launching any cold email campaign. Eight areas that cover every preventable failure mode — from DNS misconfiguration to broken merge tags.

01

Why pre-send checks matter

Most cold email deliverability problems are not caused by spam filters reacting to your copy. They are caused by infrastructure failures that were already present before the campaign launched — broken DNS records, un-warmed inboxes, unverified lists, broken merge tags.

Once a domain takes damage — a spike in bounces, a spam complaint rate above 0.1%, a blacklist listing — recovery takes weeks of reduced sending, active warmup, and monitoring. The inbox reputation that took months to build can be lost in a single bad send.

Pre-send checks do not guarantee a campaign performs well. They guarantee it does not fail for a preventable reason. That is the goal of this checklist: remove every variable that you can control before the first email leaves.

FORGESEND

How this maps to ForgeSend

ForgeSend brings these pre-send checks into the campaign builder as launch-readiness guardrails. Before a sequence can be activated, the campaign builder surfaces DNS health, list quality, suppression coverage, variable resolution, schedule settings, and sending limits as a structured review. Critical risks are treated as blockers rather than passive warnings — a campaign should not go live until they are resolved.

The checklist sections below map directly to what that pre-send review covers. Where a check is best done with an external tool before you import into a campaign, the relevant free tools are linked inline throughout this guide.

See how the pre-send guardrail checklist works →

02

DNS and authentication

DNS authentication is the foundation. Inbox providers check SPF, DKIM, and DMARC before deciding whether to deliver, quarantine, or reject your email. A missing or misconfigured record is a hard blocker — not an advisory warning.

For a full walkthrough of each record, see the SPF, DKIM, and DMARC explained guide →

Use the free DNS Health Checker to verify SPF, DKIM, DMARC, and MX records across your sending domains, and the Blacklist Checker to scan your sending IP and domain before launch.

03

Inbox health and sender limits

Even with valid DNS records, a cold inbox — one that has not been warmed — will fail. Inbox providers use sending history and engagement patterns to assign a sender reputation score. Sending volume that outpaces warmup destroys that score quickly.

Use the free Warmup Calculator to plan a safe sending ramp for new inboxes before your first campaign goes live.

04

List verification and risky contacts

Unverified lists are the most common cause of bounce rate spikes. Invalid addresses, deactivated inboxes, and role-based addresses all produce hard bounces that damage sender reputation. Verification should happen before the list enters any campaign, not during it.

05

Suppression and unsubscribes

Sending to contacts who have previously opted out, bounced, or indicated they are not interested is both a compliance failure and a deliverability failure. A suppression list must be checked against every new campaign before launch.

06

Personalisation variables and fallbacks

Broken merge tags are one of the most visible campaign failures — and one of the easiest to prevent. An email that begins with "Hi {first_name}" or "I noticed {company_name} recently" goes directly into the trash. Every variable needs a fallback value, and every fallback needs to make grammatical sense.

Use the free Spintax Generator to build and validate variation blocks before importing them into your sequence steps.

07

Sequence timing and daily caps

Timing and volume controls prevent two distinct problems: sending at hours when recipients are not at their desks (which reduces reply rate), and sending more than your inboxes can safely handle (which raises bounce rate and flags your domain).

Use the free Send Time Optimiser to find the best send windows for your target audience's timezone before locking in your schedule.

08

Final review before you click send

Once the technical checks are done, a final human review catches the things automation cannot — copy that sounds wrong, CTAs that ask for too much, and structural issues that reduce reply rate.

Run your copy through the free Spam Checker and Subject Line Tester before finalising your sequence. If you need a starting structure for any step, the Email Template Generator can help.

QUICK REFERENCE

Full checklist summary

Print or bookmark this list. Work through it before every campaign launch.