Set up domains & inboxes

Cold email only works if you protect your reputation and send from real infrastructure. This is the click-by-click to set up secondary domains and warmable inboxes. Do this in Week 1 — warmup takes ~1–2 weeks.

Rule #1: never send cold email from your main brand domain. Use secondary domains so a flag never hurts your primary site.

Step 1 — Buy secondary domains

1. At a registrar (Namecheap, Cloudflare, Google Domains), buy 1–3 variants of your brand: getbrand.co, try-brand.com, brand-hq.com.
2. Keep them close to your real brand so they look legit.

Step 2 — Set up email hosting

1. Create a Google Workspace account (workspace.google.com) — or Microsoft 365.
2. Add each secondary domain: Admin console → Account → Domains → Manage domains → Add domain.
3. Verify domain ownership (Google gives you a TXT record to add at your registrar's DNS).

Step 3 — Create inboxes

1. Admin console → Directory → Users → Add new user.
2. Create 2–3 inboxes per domain using real-looking names: john@, j.smith@, john.s@.
3. Set a profile photo and full name on each (looks human, helps deliverability).

Step 4 — Set a redirect (optional but nice)

1. Point the secondary domain's homepage to redirect to your main site, so a curious prospect lands somewhere real.

The math

Inboxes = your sending capacity. Plan for ~20–40 cold emails/day per inbox. 6 inboxes ≈ 180 sends/day ≈ thousands of prospects/month. You scale by adding inboxes, never by overloading one.

Don't send a single cold email yet — first add authentication (next guide) and warm up. A new inbox blasting cold mail lands straight in spam.

Next: add SPF, DKIM & DMARC.