Setup Guide

The Setup guide walks you through getting your own mailboxes ready for cold email: a sending domain, the mailboxes on it, warmup and your first campaign. It takes about 20 minutes of work, then your mailboxes warm up on their own for 2 weeks.

If you would rather not deal with domains and DNS at all, you can order ready-made mailboxes instead. See Buy mailboxes.

Opening the guide

You can open the guide from several places:

• The Setup guide button at the top of Email Accounts.
• The Open setup guide button that Campaigns and the Unibox show while you have no mailbox yet.
• The "My own mailboxes" card on Email Accounts when your account has no mailboxes.

The guide is a checklist of four steps. Each step shows a green tick once it is really done, and the first unfinished step opens by itself. Click any step to open it, or press Next to move on.

When you come back, the guide checks the domain where most of your connected mailboxes are, or the last domain you checked.

Step 1: A domain to send from

Send cold email from a second domain, never your main one. If something goes wrong, your main domain (the one with your invoices and client emails) stays clean.

1. Buy a domain at any registrar. A name like your company plus -mail or -team works well, for example yourcompany-mail.eu.
2. At your registrar, point (redirect) the new domain to your main website.
3. Type the domain into the guide and press Check domain. The check looks at DNS, blacklists and registration and takes about 20 seconds.
4. Fix anything marked orange or red, then press Check again.

The guide also tells you where the domain's mail is hosted ("Mail hosted at …").

What the check looks at

For records you need to add, the guide shows the exact Type, Name and Value, each with a Copy button. Add them in your registrar's DNS settings. "@" means the domain itself (some providers want that field empty). Changes usually show within minutes, sometimes an hour.

Tip: If your email provider gives you its own SPF record, use that one instead of the general one the guide suggests.

Turning on DKIM

DKIM is switched on at your mail host, not in DataSend. The guide shows the right instructions for your host:

• Google Workspace: admin.google.com → Apps → Google Workspace → Gmail → Authenticate email → Generate new record. Add the TXT record it shows, wait a few minutes, then press Start authentication.
• Microsoft 365: security.microsoft.com → Email & collaboration → Policies & rules → Threat policies → Email authentication settings → DKIM → your domain → Create DKIM keys. Add the two CNAME records, then switch "Sign messages with DKIM" on.
• Zoho Mail: Admin Console → Domains → your domain → Email configuration → DKIM → Add. Add the TXT record, then press Verify.
• Other hosting: turn on DKIM in your hosting's email settings for the domain.

If the check fails

Step 2: Connect the mailboxes

1. At your email provider, create 5 mailboxes on the new domain with real names (jan@, jan.novak@, eva@).
2. In the guide, enter each mailbox's Email, Password and, optionally, the name people see.
3. Press Connect. DataSend finds the mail servers and tests the login before saving.

Mailboxes connected here start with a daily limit of 25 emails. If you connect a mailbox on a different domain, the guide switches its domain check to that domain.

If the login is refused, the guide tells you what to change at your provider, for example a Google app password. See Email Accounts for all connection messages and for adding many mailboxes at once with a CSV file.

Step 3: Warm them up

For 2 weeks the mailboxes send a few emails a day to other DataSend mailboxes, which open them, reply and move them out of spam. This builds the trust that keeps your campaign emails in the inbox.

1. Press Turn on warmup. It switches warmup on for every mailbox on the domain.
2. Watch each mailbox's progress: "day 3 of 14 · ready around …" until it says "ready to send".

Warmup is part of paid plans. On the free plan, the button opens the upgrade window instead. More in Email Warmup.

Rotation: 2 weeks on, 2 weeks off

Below the warmup list you can switch on rotation for the domain's mailboxes. Half of them send campaign emails while the other half rests and keeps warming up; every 2 weeks they swap. Follow-ups still come from the mailbox that started the conversation.

• Rotation needs at least 2 mailboxes.
• With rotation on, each mailbox shows "sending" or "resting until …", plus the date the halves swap.

Step 4: Send your first campaign

Press Create campaign to start a campaign from your list right away. You can write and test it while the mailboxes warm up. See Email Campaigns.

How many mailboxes you need

DataSend plans sending with these rules, and the same numbers appear across the app:

• A warmed-up mailbox stays out of spam at about 20 cold emails a day.
• Each company gets 4 emails: the first one plus 3 follow-ups, spread over 20 working days.
• With rotation, as many mailboxes rest as send.
• Put 5 mailboxes on each domain, so one flagged domain doesn't stop the rest.

If you have fewer mailboxes than your plan needs, Campaigns and Email Accounts show a reminder with this math. You can dismiss it for two weeks.

Note: Ready-made mailboxes come with the domains, DNS records, warmup and rotation already done. The link at the bottom of the guide, "Rather have it ready-made? Get a fleet →", opens Buy mailboxes.

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