Digital PR is a cold outreach campaign. You're emailing journalists in bulk that you've likely never emailed before.

The challenge here lies in making sure that your emails are successfully delivered, avoiding bounces or the dreaded spam folder. The solution? Using a "warmed-up" email address.

The importance of a warmed-up email

A "warmed-up" email is one that's recognised as reputable by Email Service Providers (ESPs).

ESPs have rigorous spam detection in place and monitor email accounts for spam-like activity (i.e. sending out mass emails). If a new email account suddenly sends out hundreds of emails, this would set alarm bells ringing and the emails would be marked as spam.

How to warm up your email

Luckily, there are lots of service providers out there who will warm up an email address for you (we've used warmupinbox and instantly.ai).

These providers mimic natural email activity with your account by automatically sending, receiving, and interacting with emails as a human would. They gradually increase the volume of emails to build your account's reputation while staying below the radar of spam filters.

Timeline for warming up

Generally, it will take around 3-4 weeks to warm up a brand-new email account. But you can start sending small numbers of emails before then. If your account is old but has never been used for mass outreach before, 2-3 weeks will be enough to warm it up.

It's really important not to get impatient with this process because once an account is 'ruined' and marked as spam, it's not easy to fix it. Start the warming process as soon as possible to prepare your account for future campaigns.