Overview
Email is the most important tool in cold outreach, and 96% of prospecting teams use it in cold outreach. Get it right, and using email as part of a multichannel outbound strategy can lead to more meetings and more meaningful relationships with your ideal prospects.
But domain setup and maintenance for cold outreach can be complicated and costly. There's a lot that can go wrong. Luckily, Apollo offers out-of-the-box domains ready for your team to use.
To get started, generate a new domain, select mailboxes, and assign email addresses to your team. You can even generate lookalike domains to match your main website. Apollo handles the domain authentication for you. Just follow email best practices, and you're ready to begin outreach!
The number of domains and mailboxes you can generate depends on your Apollo plan. If you need to create more, upgrade your plan. If you have questions about upgrading, reach out to the Apollo sales team.
Check out the following sections to generate a domain and mailbox.
Generate a Domain
To generate a domain, you need permission to access domain and email purchase flows. If you don't have access, reach out to an Apollo admin at your organization for help.
To generate a domain:
- Launch Apollo and click Settings > Mailboxes > Domains.
- Click Add domain.
- Enter your primary domain, preferred domain, or use keywords to search for a new related domain.
- Then click Generate.
Pro-tip: Don't mess with the spelling on your domains. For example, heyapollo.io or hey.apollo.io are okay, but heyapo11o.io could be flagged as suspicious, impacting your domain reputation. Additionally, be sure to correlate with your main domain. For example, if your domain is heyapollo.io and your email mentions Apollo.io, mailbox providers are more likely to consider the domain legitimate because both entities reference each other.
- Apollo generates a list of suggested domains. Select each domain you want to use, or click Suggest more to find alternatives.
- Apollo shares the credit cost for each domain you choose.
- Next, enter a redirect URL.
Apollo recommends that you use your primary domain as the redirect URL. The redirect URL is used for the newly purchased domain so it doesn't look like an abandoned site and will have some authenticity.
- Enter your DMARC email. When you generate a domain, Apollo handles domain authentication for you, but the DMARC email is where reports about email security and authentication failures are sent.
- Click Next and enter your personal and company information. This information is required to register your new domain.
- When finished, click Next.
- Review your domain registration, and click Register.
- Apollo generates your domain. This process can take a few minutes.
You have now generated a domain. As a best practice, wait 30 days for your domain to establish authenticity. After 30 days, you're ready to create and assign mailboxes for the new domain.
Create and Assign a Mailbox
To generate and assign mailboxes, you need permission to access domain and email purchase flows. If you don't have access, reach out to an Apollo admin at your organization for help.
After you create a domain, as a best practice, wait at least 30 days for the domain to establish authenticity. Then you can generate and assign mailboxes to your team.
To generate a mailbox:
- Launch Apollo and click Settings > Mailboxes.
- Click Purchase mailbox.
- Select a mailbox type:
| SMTP | Generate a standard mailbox that uses Apollo SMTP and IMAP servers. Choose this if you want a basic mailbox that you can connect to any email client or service using the generated credentials. |
|---|---|
| Google Workspace | Generate a fully managed Google Workspace mailbox under your domain. Apollo automatically provisions the account and returns the credentials. |
| Microsoft Outlook | Generate a fully managed Microsoft 365 (Outlook) mailbox under your domain. Apollo automatically provisions the account and returns the credentials. |
- Search for and select one or more users to assign to mailboxes.
- Verify the first and last name, then enter a name for the mailbox, such as
maria.yortryapollo. - Select one or more domains. If you haven't purchased a domain yet, generate a domain directly on Apollo.
You can only purchase mailboxes for domains that you've generated directly on Apollo.
- Next, enter a forwarding address where all email to your new mailbox is sent.
The mailbox name you choose becomes the user's email address, like maria.y@trysumwaresoftware.com.
- When finished, click Generate.
- Click Register to confirm.
- Apollo generates mailboxes for the users you selected. This process can take a few minutes.
You have now generated mailboxes for your domain.
If you generate a Google Workspace mailbox, you need to take an additional step to link the mailbox to your Apollo account:
- Open Gmail.com in a separate browser tab.
- Login to your new email. Use the email and password found in Apollo under Settings > Mailboxes > ... beside your mailbox > Show credentials.
After logging in, return to Apollo to link your mailbox.
Set your mailbox preferences if you own the mailbox, or let your team know to customize their new mailboxes. Then warm up the mailbox before beginning cold outreach.
As a best practice, Apollo recommends that you run email warmup for a minimum of 6 weeks before using the mailbox for cold outreach. Learn more email deliverability tips in Apollo's ebook Outbound Sales.
Set Mailbox Preferences
To set your mailbox preferences:
- Click your mailbox name to set email sending limits and configure your email signature.
- Click ... beside your mailbox to take additional actions:
| Action | Description |
|---|---|
| Make default | Mark this mailbox as the default when you send messages on Apollo. |
| Check mailbox health | Check the health of your mailbox and set configurations like signature, sending limits, opt-out, and open tracking. |
| Check deliverability | Check the deliverability of your mailbox. |
| Send emails from Sendgrid | If you actively use Sendgrid, enable the Sendgrid integration for your mailbox and send emails from Sendgrid. |
| Send emails from Mailgun | If you actively use Mailgun, enable the Mailgun integration for your mailbox and send emails from Mailgun. |
| Show credentials | Reveal the login credentials and IMAP configuration for your mailbox. |
| Unlink mailbox | Unlink the mailbox. |
| Delete mailbox | Permanently delete the mailbox. This action is irreversible! |
Pro-tip: While you're at it, configure your email unsubscribe link to automatically append an unsubscribe link to each email you send from Apollo. Unsubscribe links allow recipients to quickly and easily unsubscribe from outreach — rather than marking your message as spam which can damage your sender reputation.
You have now set your mailbox preferences. Continue to some next best steps.
FAQs
|
Frequently asked questions |
||
| How many domains and mailboxes can I generate? | How do I use warm up on my mailbox? | How do I delete a domain? |
| Do I own the domain or mailbox after I purchase it? | How do I manage DNS records for my domain? | Can I reassign a mailbox to another user? |
| Can I access my mailbox outside Apollo? | ||
How many domains and mailboxes can I generate?
The number of domains and mailboxes you can generate depends on your Apollo plan. Depending on your Apollo plan, you can have up to an unlimited number of Google or Microsoft mailboxes, as well as up to 15 SMTP mailboxes per user. If you need to generate more domains or mailboxes, upgrade your plan. If you have questions about upgrading, reach out to the Apollo sales team.
How do I use warm up on my mailbox?
After creating a new mailbox, Apollo recommends you use email warmup for a minimum of 6 weeks before beginning cold outreach.
To use email warmup:
- Launch Apollo and click Settings > Mailboxes.
- Toggle Start warm up beside your mailbox.
- Choose Automated warmup.
Complete the steps to complete warm up.
Learn more about how to use email warmup.
How do I delete a domain?
To delete a domain:
- Launch Apollo and click Settings > Mailboxes.
- Click Domains.
- Click . . . beside your domain, then select Delete domain.
FYI: Deleting a domain is irreversible.
You have now deleted a domain.
Do I own the domain or mailbox after I purchase it?
| Domain | Domains are provisioned on an annual basis using credits. As long as your plan is active and you have available credits, your team retains full access to the domain, including the ability to manage your DNS records. If your credits run out, or your plan changes, your domain may be deactivated. |
|---|---|
| Mailbox | Mailboxes are provisioned on a monthly basis using credits. As long as your plan is active and you have available credits, your team retains full access to the mailbox. If your credits run out, or your plan changes, your mailbox access may be deactivated. |
How do I manage DNS records for my domain?
To manage DNS records for your domain:
- Launch Apollo and click Settings > Mailboxes.
- Click Domains.
- Click . . . beside your domain, then select Advanced settings.
- Click Add record to add a DNS record.
- Select an existing record to manage it, or click Delete beside it to delete a record.
- When finished, click Save.
You have now managed DNS records for your domain.
Can I reassign a mailbox to another user?
Yes, you can reassign a mailbox to another user:
To reassign a mailbox linked to you:
- Launch Apollo, and click Settings > Mailboxes.
- Click . . . beside a mailbox and select Unlink mailbox.
- (Optional) Select a forwarding address.
- Click Unlink mailbox.
Learn more how to unlink a mailbox on Apollo.
As an admin you can reassign mailboxes purchased across your team.
- Launch Apollo, and click Settings > Mailboxes.
- Under purchased mailboxes, click . . . beside a mailbox, then select Unlink mailbox.
- (Optional) Select a forwarding address.
- Click Unlink mailbox.
Can I access my mailbox outside Apollo?
Yes, you can. To access your mailbox outside Apollo:
- Launch Apollo and click Settings > Mailboxes.
- Click . . . beside your mailbox.
- Click Show credentials.
- Apollo displays IMAP or SMTP credentials for your mailbox.
- Click Copy to copy a credential.
- Use your credentials to log in to third-party email clients, including but not limited to the following:
To log in to Gmail or Outlook directly, generate a Google Workspace or Microsoft Outlook mailbox.
Next Steps
Use these resources to boost your success with deliverability and sending strategies:
| Use Email Warmup | Let Apollo automatically warm up your new mailbox to build trust with providers and prime your domain for outreach. |
|---|---|
| Email Deliverability Best Practices | Follow email deliverability best practices to avoid common spam traps that could derail your outreach efforts. |
| Configure Your Email Unsubscribe Link | Make sure every email stays compliant when you configure your unsubscribe link on Apollo. |
| Set Email Sending Limits | Control volume and avoid sending spikes by configuring email sending limits per mailbox. |
| Monitor Your Mailbox Deliverability Score | Use Apollo's real-time health deliverability dashboard to track mailbox deliverability and take action before issues arise. |
| Edit the Sending Mailbox on Contacts in a Sequence | Easily switch the sending mailbox on contacts in a sequence to manage workloads or shift outreach by sender identity. |
| Use A/B Tests in Sequences | Quickly test and optimize message variations with A/B tests to see what drives the best engagement in your email sequences. |
Looking for more email deliverability tips? Join Apollo's Email Deliverability 101 webinar to learn from seasoned sales pros about how to use your domains for maximum deliverability. And check out Apollo's master class How to Write Cold Emails Anyone Will Respond To.