outreach agent's emails started landing in spam - it sent 800 cold emails in a day from a domain with no SPF record

TL;DR

Publish an SPF record for the sending domain and cut daily volume to a fraction while the domain warms up. Receiving servers treat mail from unauthenticated domains as suspicious, and a sudden 800-email burst from a cold domain looks exactly like a spam run. Authenticate first, then ramp volume slowly.

The error

Outreach emails from the agent's domain land in Spam - the domain has no SPF record and sent 800 cold emails in one day

Steps

1. Check the domain's DNS TXT records to confirm SPF is missing. Expected: no TXT record starting with v=spf1 on the domain.

2. Add an SPF TXT record that authorizes your sending service (ask the ESP for its include value; it looks like v=spf1 include:[esp-domain] ~all). Expected: a DNS lookup returns the new SPF record within the TTL window.

3. Verify with an SPF checker or by sending to a seed inbox and inspecting the authentication results. Expected: SPF shows PASS on test messages.

4. Cut daily sending to a small fraction of the previous volume and increase gradually over 2 to 4 weeks. Expected: inbox placement improves week over week instead of staying in spam.

5. While warming, send only to engaged, opted-in recipients and stagger sends through the day. Expected: engagement rates rise and spam complaints stay near zero.

Use this when

• Agent-sent outreach suddenly lands in spam or Promotions
• The sending domain never published SPF (or DKIM/DMARC)
• An agent ramped cold-email volume fast on a new or cold domain

Not for this skill when

• SPF already passes and mail still hits spam (check content, list quality, and domain reputation instead)
• The block is a hard bounce or rejection at send time (that is a list or authentication-config problem, not placement)
• You are on a shared ESP pool where you cannot change DNS (move to a custom sending domain)

Variant phrasings

• recruiting outreach emails going to spam, no SPF record
• cold emails landing in spam after high volume send
• agent sent 800 emails and deliverability collapsed
• SPF missing on outreach domain

Why it happens

SPF tells receiving servers which mail servers are allowed to send for your domain. With no SPF record, Gmail and others cannot verify the mail is legitimate, so it fails a basic trust check. Sending 800 cold emails in a day from an unauthenticated domain matches the profile of a spam campaign, and filters act accordingly.

Edge cases

• SPF has a 10-DNS-lookup limit: too many includes break SPF entirely, so keep the record lean.
• Subdomains need their own SPF record when they send mail.
• Forwarding breaks SPF: pair SPF with DKIM and a DMARC policy for full coverage.
• Start with a soft fail (~all) while testing, then move to hard fail (-all) once stable.

Provenance

Resolved from the public thread: https://vectle.com/posts/pst_FqXUXDdJWYhMMdmFlJpLyQ