Transcription
All right, so we might be in the middle of the Google mailbox apocalypse, which could be the worst thing that's happened to cold email in years. Now, I'm making this video in the midst of like dealing with a thousand fires because we do Google mailbox infrastructure for clients. We have thousands of clients and right now a lot of them are losing their mailboxes. So, I felt I had to make this emergency video.
I'm also in group chats right now with some of the biggest names in cold email, Zapmail, instantly all of the big biggest players in the cold email infrastructure game. So I wanted to update you on what is exactly happening and what you should think and what you should prepare for.
So over the past 3 to four weeks, Google has gone through and started to do some light suspending of cold email mailboxes. And then this past two days, it got really, really bad. Everybody is losing their Google Google mailboxes. They're not able to log in. It's showing as suspended. The same thing is happening to a lot of our clients. Maybe about 25% currently, and I'm expecting it to get a lot worse. This is going to cost us probably hundreds of thousands of dollars. I've already spent tens of thousands just trying to fix it.
So, what does this mean for cold email? Is is it over? Is the game over? Well, I've heard that every year for the past 10 years since I've been doing cold email. And sometimes it's scarier than others. And I'm not going to lie, this is not a great one. Especially for me as somebody who offers cold email infra. Not fun. Not fun for me, not fun for my clients. But is it the end of cold email? Absolutely not.
Remember last year there was an issue with Microsoft. Basically, nobody was able to inbox to Microsoft. Then we figured out why. And now we're at getting almost 100% deliverability to Microsoft. There was a couple simple changes that we had to make to keep the cold emails safe.
Now, right now, what's probably happening is Google's going through these cold email mailboxes, and they're looking at one specific thing. It could be a CNAME record pointing to Instantly. It could be one of the app IDs that's connected to Instantly and all of the other big providers. They're looking and they're saying, "Oh, they're connected to a cold email platform. Ban." And then what happens is we have a scary month and then the software adapts to figure out what that thing is and fixes it.
Now, I don't know what that thing is yet, but what I'm thinking and what I'm doing about it is as follows. So, with all of our clients, we're holding off on new Google setups until we kind of know what this thing is. We have several other options. And even if Google doesn't allow us to create cold email boxes, that's okay. There's other infrastructure options. There's Microsoft 365. There's private SMTP.
So, right now we're moving all of our a lot of our high ticket clients onto Microsoft 365 mailboxes. Uh we're moving a lot of our Google clients onto our own private SMTP infrastructure so that we can get them back up and running really quickly.
Now, one of the crappy things about this whole thing is once a domain is suspended from Google, they went through and they said, "That's a cold emailer. Let's suspend that account." you pretty much can't get that domain back and use it in another Google panel. Uh that domain can no longer be used in Google, but you can still use it inside of Microsoft and use it inside of other SMTP providers like an in for mail or a mailin. Uh so that's what we're doing. We're using those domains because we from what our our initial tests show those domains are not flagged. It's the entire Google admin and mailbox that's flagged. But if you move that domain to like a Microsoft 365, create the same mailboxes and start sending from those mailboxes, deliverability is fine. So that's what we're doing as a short-term solution.
Now, as a long-term solution, I'm very confident that we're going to figure out how Google is deciding which accounts to ban and just not do that thing or set them up a separate way. There's very safe ways to send cold emails with Google. And there's a lot of things that I've suspected Google and Microsoft can just look at a domain and their DNS records quickly and say they're doing cold email. Uh, and my guess is that's what's happening today. So, a month from now, hopefully we know that what that thing is and we're able to start setting up mailboxes again with Google. Uh, but right now I would say hold off on your Google Mailbox setup and opt for an alternative like a Microsoft 365 or an SMTP.
Uh, if you're looking for some recommendations for services that you can do that on, I'm going to link my just my recommended software list. You don't have to opt in. You don't have to give me your email addresses. These are just the tools and applications that I use. just go to that list, click the the cold email, and you'll see the actual tools that I'm using to to set up my mailbox infrastructure. And even if I lost all of my Google mailboxes today, like for me personally, I'd be fine because I've got lots of SMTP, I've got lots of Microsoft 365, I'm diversified. Same thing you want to do with investing. You don't want to put all of your eggs in one basket.
So, my advice to you is diversify and then just hang in there. uh once we figure out what this thing is, we'll be able to create solutions and workarounds for it. But right now, you should just know that the industry is panicking. Uh everybody's losing their clients mailboxes. Clients are losing their Google mailboxes and it's a temporary suck and there's just no way around it. I'm dealing with the blunt of it right now because I have thousands of clients that I'm talking to trying to explain to them what's happening and giving them options uh where they want to transfer their mailboxes to and it it sucks. I've lost this is going to cost me a ton of money. But I know because I've been through this time and time again that come this time next month, this will hopefully I'll I'll all I'll all be in the past. And that's what history has taught me. That's what the pattern has has continued to show me over and over again.
So whether you're providing cold email infra or you're a client who just lost their Google mailbox, believe me, this is not the end of cold email. This is a momentary hiccup in which one of the email service providers decided to try something new to fight back and then the counteratt attack to that is from us cold emailers. Let's figure out what they did and let's not do that the next time. And it's it's an ongoing push and pull that happens every single year. So just hang in there. Uh be with somebody reputable hopefully like myself or one of these other um big companies who's going to stay on top of it and be patient. That's my biggest call to action.
So, I hope you enjoyed this style of video. I've actually never done one like this before where I just get up here and start talking without any fancy editing or graphics or or screen share. So, if you like it, go ahead and and drop a like and comment. And I I'll continue to provide updates kind of as as we see this thing play out. Thank you guys so much for your loyalty. If you are a mailbox infra client, just know that I'm looking out for you. We are not taking new Mailbox Infra orders right now, but we're taking care of the clients that we currently have. If you need to set up Mailbox Infra, go to the recommended tools and services in my list. Mission inbox for SMTP is great. Inboxing.com, we've got an exclusive partnership with them. Use the code LGJ25 to save on those Microsoft mailboxes. It's all going to be in the tools uh sheet. Hope you enjoyed enjoyed this. Wish me luck. I'm going to be right here working my butt off um to get all of this fixed.