@Sent from your own inbox
Your email leaves your outbox
In a split second, the receiving provider decides where it goes: the inbox, a promotions tab, junk, or nowhere at all.
Safety and deliverability, explained properly.
Two things decide whether outreach works: whether your emails actually land in the inbox, and whether your LinkedIn account runs into trouble. Both are widely misunderstood, so here's how they really work, and what we do about them.
An email's journey
Where does your email actually land?
Three things decide where your email ends up. Here’s how one gets there.
- @Sent
- 1Who you are
- 2How you behave
- 3What you send
- ✓Inbox
Who you are
Is your domain properly authenticated?
SPF, DKIM and DMARC prove the email really came from you. We look at your set-up during onboarding and flag anything that needs attention.
How you behave
Volume, pace, bounces and complaints
Daily limits kept low and built up gradually, sends spread through your working hours, and verified lists so bounces stay low.
What you send
Does it look personal and relevant?
Mostly plain text, written for one clearly defined audience. Like a normal email from a real person, because it is one.
Where it lands
Inbox
Where it should be
Junk
Where bad habits send it
Nobody can guarantee inbox placement. Getting these three right is how you earn it.
Email deliverability
"Delivered" doesn't mean "in the inbox"
An email can be accepted by the other side and still be quietly filed in spam. Deliverability is about inbox placement, and it's earned through reputation.
When you send an email, the receiving provider (Microsoft 365, Google Workspace and so on) decides in a split second where it goes: inbox, a promotions or "other" tab, junk, or nowhere at all. That decision rests on three things: who you are (is your domain properly authenticated?), how you behave (volume, pacing, bounces, complaints) and what you send (does it look personal and relevant, or like a mass mailing?).
SPF
A DNS record listing which servers are allowed to send email for your domain.
DKIM
A digital signature that proves an email really came from your domain and wasn't altered.
DMARC
Tells receiving servers what to do if SPF or DKIM fail, and sends you reports.
Sender reputation
A running score for your domain and mailbox, built from how recipients react to your emails.
Bounce rate
The share of emails sent to addresses that don't exist. High bounces signal a poor-quality list.
Spam complaints
When someone clicks "report spam". Even a small number damages reputation quickly.
Since 2024, Google and Yahoo have required bulk senders to authenticate their domains, keep spam complaint rates below 0.3% and offer easy unsubscribes. Microsoft has followed with similar rules. Personal, low-volume B2B outreach sits well below "bulk", but the same principles decide whether you reach the inbox.
What lands you in spam
It's usually behaviour, not bad luck
Most deliverability problems are self-inflicted, and most are avoidable.
Hurts deliverability
- Sending hundreds of emails a day from a new or cold mailbox
- Bought or scraped lists full of dead addresses
- Identical, templated copy sent to everyone
- Heavy images, lots of links and tracking
- Emails fired in bursts at the same minute
- Following up people who've already replied
- No way to opt out
Protects deliverability
- Modest daily volumes from your own, established inbox
- Carefully built, verified lead lists
- Personal, relevant messages written for one audience
- Mostly plain text, like a normal email
- Sends spaced naturally through the working day
- Sequences that stop the moment someone replies
- A clear unsubscribe option
How we protect your email
Built to look and behave like a person
Zest+ Outreach isn't a mass-mailing tool, and we don't set it up like one.
Your own inbox
Emails go from your real mailbox, not a shared sending pool whose reputation you can't control.
Set-up checked
We look at your email set-up as part of onboarding and flag anything that needs your IT team's attention.
Conservative volumes
Daily limits are kept low and built up gradually, never blasted.
Natural spacing
Sends are spread through your working hours, in your time zone.
Written for people
We write relevant, personal copy for a clearly defined audience, which is what keeps complaints near zero.
Stops on reply
Anyone who replies drops out of the sequence automatically, and every email includes an unsubscribe option.
LinkedIn account safety
What LinkedIn allows, and the risk
We'd rather be upfront about this. LinkedIn's User Agreement doesn't allow third-party tools that automate activity on its site, and that includes the platform behind Zest+ Outreach.
That means any automated LinkedIn outreach, ours included, carries a risk of warnings or restrictions on the account it runs from. We configure Zest+ conservatively, with controlled volumes, working hours and carefully targeted activity, but we don't describe any level of third-party automation as risk-free. LinkedIn can act at any time, whatever the volume, so staying under a limit doesn't make it approved or risk-free. You connect your own LinkedIn account, so it's important you're comfortable with that before we start. What we can do is keep the risk as low as possible. These are the things LinkedIn pays attention to:
Weekly invitation limit
LinkedIn caps how many connection requests you can send each week. It's typically around 100, but it varies by account and changes over time.
Acceptance rate
If lots of people ignore or decline your invites, or mark "I don't know this person", LinkedIn takes notice.
Pending invitations
A big pile of unanswered requests looks like spray-and-pray. Old ones should be withdrawn.
Unnatural patterns
Sudden spikes, activity at 3am, or hundreds of identical messages don't look like a real person.
If LinkedIn does act, it usually starts with a warning or a temporary restriction on sending invites. High volume and poor targeting make that far more likely. Nobody can honestly promise LinkedIn will never restrict an account. Keeping activity modest, relevant and human-paced lowers the risk, but it doesn't remove it.
Prefer to avoid it altogether? We can run Zest+ Outreach as email only, with no LinkedIn automation at all.
How we keep the risk low
Light touch, human pace
We use LinkedIn for light, context-building touchpoints: a profile view, a follow, a like, a relevant connection request. Here's how we keep that activity modest.
Working hours
Activity only runs on the days and hours set for your account, in your time zone.
Conservative activity limits
Invites, messages and profile visits are deliberately kept low.
Weekly invite pacing
Campaigns pace themselves around LinkedIn's weekly invitation limit.
Old invites withdrawn
Unanswered requests are tidied up automatically to keep pending invites low.
Warm-up for new accounts
Newer or quieter profiles start gently and build up over a few weeks.
Targeting that gets accepted
A well-defined audience and a relevant note means more acceptances, which is the best protection there is.
Your data and GDPR
Your data stays yours
The platform runs on enterprise-grade cloud infrastructure and is designed to meet GDPR and international data protection standards.
- Data is encrypted in transit and at rest
- Secure logins and access controls
- Only essential systems and people can access data
- Regular, tested backups
- Data deleted on request
- Zest never sells, reuses or repurposes client data
Depending on who you contact and how their data is used, B2B outreach may rely on legitimate interests under UK GDPR, which means weighing your interests against the rights of the people you contact rather than assuming it applies automatically. The Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations (PECR) also treat corporate subscribers differently from individuals such as sole traders and some partnerships. We build targeting, suppression and opt-out processes into every campaign, but you remain responsible for deciding the appropriate lawful basis for your activity, so check with your own adviser if you're unsure.
The short version: most risks come from poor setup, not the software
Problems start when tools are used without a strategy, teams chase volume, messages lack relevance and there are no clear rules. We design the strategy before anything goes live, control pacing and limits, write the messaging for you and train your team before launch.
Structure = safety.
Zest+ what you need
Let's talk about your outreach.
We take on a limited number of Zest+ Outreach clients at a time, so every campaign gets proper attention. Apply for a place, or book a quick call first.