---
title: "How to get your campaigns into the inbox"
description: "You spent hours on a newsletter, you hit send, and the report says 99% delivered. And still almost nobody responds. Chances are that a good part of it is sitting in the Junk folder.\"Delivered\" only means that the recipient's mail server accepted the message. Whether it then lands in the inbox or in spam is up to the mailbox provider: Gmail, Yahoo or Microsoft (Outlook.com, Hotmail and Microsoft 365). Every email in spam is revenue you miss, and it makes your next campaign harder too."
url: https://ahasend.com/blog/how-get-your-campaigns-inbox
markdown_url: https://ahasend.com/blog/how-get-your-campaigns-inbox.md
lang: en
type: blog_post
published: 2026-11-12
updated: 2026-11-12
author: "Mark Kraakman"
category: "Deliverability"
image: https://cms.ahasend.com/sites/default/files/2026-11/cover-campagnes-inbox_0.jpg
---

# How to get your campaigns into the inbox

_By Mark Kraakman, November 12, 2026, in Deliverability_

![How to get your campaigns into the inbox](https://cms.ahasend.com/sites/default/files/2026-11/cover-campagnes-inbox_0.jpg)

You spent hours on a newsletter, you hit send, and the report says 99% delivered. And still almost nobody responds. Chances are that a good part of it is sitting in the Junk folder.

"Delivered" only means that the recipient's mail server accepted the message. Whether it then lands in the inbox or in spam is up to the mailbox provider: Gmail, Yahoo or Microsoft (Outlook.com, Hotmail and Microsoft 365). Every email in spam is revenue you miss, and it makes your next campaign harder too.

The good news: where your email ends up is largely in your own hands. These are the steps that make the difference.

## How a mailbox provider looks at you

A mailbox provider wants to know one thing: do my users want this email? It works that out from your reputation, which is tied to your sending domain. It watches what recipients do with your email. Do they open it, click, reply? Or do they delete it unread and click "Report spam"?

A new domain has no reputation yet. That is not neutral, it is suspicious: spammers start with a fresh domain every time too. In our experience Microsoft is the most cautious here. Expect it to take one to two weeks before a new sender has built up trust there. In those weeks, your first sends decide which way it goes.

## 1. Get the technical basics right

Without authentication you start behind. Set up SPF, DKIM and DMARC for your sending domain. Gmail and Yahoo require this from everyone who sends in bulk, and [Microsoft now does the same](https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/blog/outlook/strengthening-email-ecosystem-outlook%E2%80%99s-new-requirements-for-high%E2%80%90volume-senders/4399730) for senders of more than 5,000 emails a day to Outlook addresses. If you send through AhaSend, this is always in order: you can only send once the records of your domain are correct.

Do you also send transactional email, such as password resets and invoices? Then use a separate subdomain for your campaigns, for example `news.yourcompany.com`. That way a disappointing campaign does not get in the way of your order confirmations.

## 2. Start with your most engaged subscribers

This is the most important step, and the one that gets skipped most often. The first impression a mailbox provider gets of you decides how it treats you afterwards. You want that first impression to come from people who like getting your email.

So send your first campaigns only to the people who are most engaged:

- subscribers who opened or clicked an email in the past 30 to 90 days
- customers who bought something in the past 90 days
- people who signed up recently

They open, click and reply, and those are exactly the signals Microsoft and Gmail look for. Subscribers who have not opened anything for a year can wait, or you let them go.

With [AhaSend's Campaign Builder](https://ahasend.com/campaign-builder) you make a segment for this. In a rule, choose "Any campaign", then "Opened", and type `90 days ago`. That gives you everyone who opened a campaign in the past 90 days. AhaSend keeps the segment up to date for you, and opens by bots do not count.

That segment looks at the campaigns you sent through AhaSend. Just switching from another tool? Then export your most engaged subscribers there and import them as a separate list.

## 3. Ramp up slowly on a new sending domain

Never send to your whole list in one go from a new domain. From zero to ten thousand emails in a day is exactly what a spammer looks like. Start small and double with each send:

| Send | Recipients | Who |
| --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | 200 | Your most loyal readers |
| 2 | 400 | The rest of your most engaged group |
| 3 | 800 | Engaged subscribers |
| 4 | 1,500 | Engaged subscribers |
| 5 | 3,000 | Your wider list |
| After that | Double each time | Until you have reached your whole list |

Ideally, take one step per day. With a list of 10,000 addresses you are at full strength within a week. Sending larger volumes? The full schedule is in our [guide to IP and domain warming](https://ahasend.com/blog/guide-ip-and-domain-warming-when-migrating-ahasend/#the-ramp).

Only step up when the previous send was clean: few bounces, next to no spam complaints and no messages that stay stuck. If the numbers get worse at one provider, do not double. Stay at the same volume or take a step back until things settle.

One thing that helps: on AhaSend every account has a daily limit for marketing email that starts low and grows with your sending history. If a campaign is larger than your limit, it simply continues the next day. See that as a safety net, not as a replacement for the schedule above: the first steps are yours to choose.

## 4. Keep your list clean

Nothing hurts your reputation as fast as emailing addresses that do not exist or people who never asked for it.

- Only email people who signed up themselves. Bought or scraped lists are not part of that.
- Remove addresses that bounce from your list straight away.
- Make unsubscribing easy. Someone who cannot find the unsubscribe link clicks "spam" instead, and that counts far more heavily.
- Let go of subscribers who have not opened anything for six months, or first ask them whether they still want your email.

In Campaign Builder you cannot send a campaign without an unsubscribe link, and the unsubscribe button of the mail client works automatically.

## 5. Be recognizable and predictable

Always send with the same sender name and from the same address, so readers recognize you at a glance. Write a subject line that delivers what the email promises. And pick a steady rhythm: a newsletter that arrives every two weeks builds more trust than three emails in one week followed by two months of silence.

Feel free to ask new subscribers to reply to your welcome email or to add your address to their contacts. To a mailbox provider, a reply is the strongest proof that your email is wanted.

## 6. Check the numbers after every send

After every campaign, look at three numbers: bounces, spam complaints and unsubscribes, per mailbox provider if you can. Gmail and Yahoo treat 0.3% spam complaints as the upper limit. To be safe, stay well below it.

Do opens at Outlook addresses suddenly drop while Gmail stays the same? Then your email is probably landing in spam there. Go back to step 2: send a few campaigns only to your most engaged readers at that provider and build up again from there.

## In short

Good deliverability is not a trick. Show who you are, start with the people who most like reading your email, ramp up slowly and keep watching your numbers. Do that and you reach the inbox, Microsoft included.

Start for free on AhaSend →