What to check before your first campaign
13 July 2026 · 5 min read
Before anything else
- SPF, DKIM and DMARC published, and passing on a real test send.
- The From: domain aligned with whichever of those passes.
- A reverse DNS record for your sending IP that resolves back to it.
- A working postmaster@ and abuse@ that a human reads.
Then the list
- Every address opted in, and you can show when and how.
- No purchased data, ever.
- Bounces processed and hard bounces removed.
- One-click unsubscribe honoured within a day.
Then the send
Start small. A few hundred to your most engaged recipients, then grow over days. Send one test message to yourself first and read the headers, because that is where the surprise usually is.
More on guides
How to read email headers without guessing
Received lines read bottom to top, Authentication-Results is the verdict, and the timestamps tell you who was slow.
Use a subdomain, unless you really mean it
Pointing your main domain’s MX at a new service takes over all of its mail. A subdomain gets you the same feature with none of the risk.
Getting to DMARC p=reject without breaking your mail
The policy is the easy part. Finding everything that sends as you is the work.