20 terms
Cold email glossaryCold email and deliverability, in plain words
Short, definition first explanations of the terms you meet when you send cold email, each with an example and the free tool or guide that goes with it.
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5 terms
Authentication and DNS
The records that prove your mail is yours.
- SPFSPF (Sender Policy Framework) is a DNS TXT record that lists the mail servers allowed to send email for a domain, so a receiving server can reject or flag mail from anywhere else.Read the definition
- DKIMDKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail) adds a cryptographic signature to every email you send, and publishes the matching public key in DNS, so the receiver can confirm the message came from your domain and was not changed on the way.Read the definition
- DMARCDMARC is a DNS record that tells receiving servers what to do with email that claims to be from your domain but fails authentication, and where to send reports about it.Read the definition
- BIMIBIMI (Brand Indicators for Message Identification) is a DNS record that points supporting mailbox providers to your logo, so it can show next to your authenticated emails in the inbox.Read the definition
- MX recordAn MX (mail exchanger) record is a DNS record that names the servers that receive email for a domain, each with a priority number.Read the definition
5 terms
Deliverability
What decides whether your email lands in the inbox.
- Email warmupEmail warmup is the process of slowly raising how much a new mailbox sends while it builds a record of wanted mail, such as opens, replies and messages moved out of spam, so mailbox providers learn to trust it.Read the definition
- Sender reputationSender reputation is the trust score mailbox providers keep for your sending domain and IP addresses, based on how people and filters have reacted to your mail.Read the definition
- Catch-allA catch-all (or accept-all) domain is set up to accept email sent to any address at that domain, real or not, so an email verifier cannot tell whether a specific mailbox exists.Read the definition
- Spam trapA spam trap is an email address that mailbox providers or blocklist operators keep only to catch senders with poor list habits.Read the definition
- Inbox placementInbox placement is the share of your delivered emails that land in the recipient's inbox rather than the spam folder.Read the definition
5 terms
Metrics
The numbers that tell you how a campaign is doing.
- Bounce rateEmail bounce rate is the percentage of the emails you sent that the receiving servers did not deliver, counting both permanent (hard) and temporary (soft) bounces.Read the definition
- Hard bounceA hard bounce is a permanent delivery failure: the receiving server says the message will never be delivered, usually because the address or the domain does not exist.Read the definition
- Soft bounceA soft bounce is a temporary delivery failure: the receiving server cannot accept the message right now, but the address exists and a later attempt may succeed.Read the definition
- Reply rateReply rate is the share of the people you emailed who wrote back, usually counted per prospect contacted across the whole sequence rather than per single email.Read the definition
- Open trackingOpen tracking records when an email is opened by adding a tiny invisible image, a tracking pixel, to an HTML email.Read the definition
5 terms
Leads and AI
Finding the right people, and the AI that works with them.
- ICPAn ICP (ideal customer profile) is a description of the type of company that gets the most value from your product and is most likely to buy, written as attributes you can search and filter on.Read the definition
- AI SDRAn AI SDR is software that does the work of a sales development representative: it researches leads, writes personalised outreach, runs email sequences and handles replies, so a person can focus on the conversations that turn into meetings.Read the definition
- Lead scoringLead scoring gives each lead a number or grade that says how well it matches your ideal customer and how likely it is to buy, so you spend time on the best leads first.Read the definition
- MCPMCP (Model Context Protocol) is an open standard that lets AI assistants such as Claude, ChatGPT and Cursor connect to outside tools and data through an MCP server, so the assistant can look things up and take actions in other apps.Read the definition
- Email permutationEmail permutation is the practice of listing the likely work email formats for a person from their name and company domain, such as first.last@ or flast@, and then verifying which one exists.Read the definition