Score your cold email setup
Twenty checks in four weighted areas, out of one hundred. The weights are published because a scorecard that hides its weighting is a marketing device.
- 20 checks, weighted
- Scored out of 100
- No email required
The short answer
- Four areas with deliberate weights: authentication 35 points, list hygiene 30, sending behaviour 20, domain setup 15. Authentication is heaviest because failing it makes everything else unmeasurable.
- Two items are pass or fail rather than scored. If SPF, DKIM and DMARC are not all publishing correctly, or your suppression list is not enforced, the total is meaningless until you fix them.
- Below 70 means the campaign will underperform for reasons that have nothing to do with your copy, which is worth knowing before you rewrite it for the third time.
The rubric, not a widget
Authentication, 35 points
The heaviest section, because a failure here hides every other problem.
| Check | Points | How to verify |
|---|---|---|
| SPF published and listing every sending service | 10 | Look up the TXT record and check every tool you send through is in it |
| SPF within the DNS lookup limit | 5 | Exceeding it makes the record fail rather than degrade |
| DKIM signing, confirmed in a received message's headers | 10 | Send yourself a message and read the headers, do not assume |
| DMARC published, at least at p=none with reports going somewhere read | 5 | Look up the record and check the reporting address is a real inbox |
| One-click unsubscribe header on bulk sends | 5 | Required by major mailbox providers for bulk senders since 2024 |
List hygiene, 30 points
Where most problems actually originate, dressed up as technical ones.
| Check | Points | How to verify |
|---|---|---|
| Every address verified before the first send | 10 | By your own verification pass, not a status inherited from a data provider |
| Suppression list imported and enforced | 10 | Check it applies at audience freeze, not only at send |
| Bounces write back to suppression automatically | 5 | Send to a known bad address and check it appears |
| Role addresses removed unless deliberately targeted | 3 | Search the list for info@, sales@, admin@ |
| Duplicates handled with a stable identifier | 2 | Re-import a file and check counts do not double |
Sending behaviour, 20 points
Configuration rather than discipline, if your tool supports it.
| Check | Points | How to verify |
|---|---|---|
| Per-mailbox and per-domain daily caps enforced | 6 | Not intended. Enforced by the tool |
| Business-hours send window | 4 | Check what happens to a step whose timer expires overnight |
| At least three days between touches per contact | 4 | Look at the guardrail setting, not the cadence design |
| A reply pauses the sequence automatically | 4 | Reply from a test address and confirm the next step does not send |
| Working opt-out line on every commercial message | 2 | Read the last line of every step, including the personal-sounding ones |
Domain setup, 15 points
Cheap to get right at the start and expensive to fix later.
| Check | Points | How to verify |
|---|---|---|
| Cold outreach on a separate domain from your main one | 6 | Check what domain your invoices leave from |
| Sending domain resembles the main one recognisably | 3 | Would a recipient connect the two without thinking? |
| The sending domain has a real page, not a parked one | 3 | Open it in a browser |
| A deliberate number of mailboxes per domain | 3 | A number someone chose, rather than one that accumulated |
Weights reflect how much each area determines whether mail arrives. There is no benchmark score here for companies like yours, because that figure would be invented.
Reading your score
- 85 to 100. Your setup is not the problem. If replies are poor, it is the list or the offer.
- 70 to 84. Workable with specific gaps. Fix the highest-weighted misses first.
- Below 70. Stop sending and fix the setup. Copy changes cannot be measured while mail is being filtered, so every test you run in this state teaches you nothing.
- Any pass-or-fail item failing. The number does not apply until that item passes.
Two things SalesCrew does not do, so they cannot lift your score here: it does not warm mailboxes and it does not verify addresses. The sending behaviour section is where it helps, because caps, windows, spacing and suppression are configuration rather than something a person remembers.
Score the setup before you rewrite the copy
Most copy problems in cold email turn out to be authentication problems wearing a disguise.