How to Use Mailshake to Send and Track a Cold Campaign

The short answer: connect a mail account on a domain separate from your main one, set the sending calendar, check SPF, DKIM and DMARC and add a tracking domain, turn on warm-up and ramp volume over five weeks, then run the campaign wizard: settings, prospects, sequence, personalisation, start. Replies arrive in the Lead Catcher.

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Mailshake's setup is short. Its ramp-up is not: the help docs describe five weeks before a new address reaches full volume. The steps below follow Mailshake's own getting-started guide and the articles it links. For the product and plans, see the Mailshake glossary entry.

Check these first

• A paid plan. There is no free trial; Mailshake collects payment upfront. Starter is $29 a month on monthly billing for 1,500 sends, per the pricing page (checked on 23 October 2026).
• A sending domain that is not your main one. The getting-started guide recommends sending cold email from a different domain than your main business domain, to protect the main one.
• Access to that domain's DNS, or someone in IT who has it.
• A list that the law allows you to email. The Dutch regulator ACM's spam rules are a useful example of how strict a country can be: consent first and provable for up to five years, the sender clearly named, unsubscribing quick and free in every message. Other countries set other thresholds. Check yours before importing anyone.

1. Connect the mail account

Click Mail Accounts and check whether your address is already connected from sign-up, as the getting-started guide suggests. If not, click + Add Account and follow the prompts. For a Microsoft account, the guide suggests logging out of Microsoft in a separate tab first. For other providers you need the SMTP and IMAP settings, which Mailshake lists for common hosts or which your provider's support can confirm.

2. Set the sending calendar and signature

Open Sending Calendar, then Settings, choose Custom and click Edit, as the sending calendar article describes. Pick the sending days, a time window in waking hours, and whether to space emails across the window or send them as fast as possible. Set a maximum per day: when more mail is waiting than the cap allows, Mailshake spaces it out, which can push a two-day follow-up back. Only team admins can edit the calendar. Add your signature while you are in the account settings.

3. Check the DNS and add a tracking domain

Run your domain through MX Toolbox, the free checker the guide names, and look for red errors on SPF, DKIM and DMARC; yellow warnings can wait. Fix any missing record in the domain host's DNS settings, using Mailshake's DNS explainer and its separate guides for Google and Microsoft. Then set up a custom tracking domain, so tracked links point to your own subdomain.

4. Turn on warm-up

Warm-up is free with a Mailshake subscription. Click Deliverability, then Email WarmUp, then + Connect Email Account, and choose the mail account type, according to the warm-up article. Google and Microsoft accounts with two-factor sign-in need an app password rather than the normal one, and Microsoft accounts need SMTP access switched on. GoDaddy-hosted Microsoft 365 accounts often need GoDaddy's support to enable SMTP.

5. Plan the ramp

Mailshake's cadence article gives a five-week plan for a new address: 20 emails a day in week one, then 40, 55, 75 and 100 by week five. It advises keeping daily volume to about 100 at most, and stepping back to the previous level for a week if you hit Google's quota or bounces rise above 5%. Set the calendar's maximum per day to match the week you are in.

6. Start a campaign and fill in the basics

In the left menu, click Campaigns, then +New Campaign, per the getting-started guide. A Simple campaign is the quick route; an Advanced one adds control over CRM sync, scheduling and other settings. In Basic Settings, check the general options and the Lead Catcher rule, which most teams leave on the default of one reply. Sync To Apps connects the campaign to a CRM if you have one linked.

7. Import prospects

Upload a CSV file, not an Excel file. Mailshake's CSV formatting article asks for a header row without special characters, one email address per row, no empty rows or columns, and a file of 1 MB or less; it also caps a campaign at 5,000 prospects on Email Outreach and 10,000 on Sales Engagement. To import from HubSpot, Pipedrive or Salesforce instead, connect the CRM first under Integrations.

8. Write the sequence

Write the first message and add follow-ups with the pink plus button; each waits a delay you set after the previous email, and the follow-up article says they continue until the prospect becomes a lead, skipping anyone who unsubscribed or bounced. Drip messages and on-click messages are alternatives for different structures. Use text replacements, Mailshake's mail merge, to personalise every message, and an A/B test on the subject line or the copy. SHAKEspeare, the built-in AI writer described on the Mailshake homepage, can draft versions once you tell it the basics about your business.

9. Personalise, then start

The Personalize step in the getting-started guide shows individual prospects, so you can confirm the text replacements filled correctly and rewrite a message for one person if needed. Click Confirm, then Start Campaign. Scheduling takes a few minutes, so the sending calendar may look empty at first. If you start and then want to hold, switch the Running toggle off; Exit Campaign leaves it in draft.

10. Work the Lead Catcher

Replies go to the Lead Catcher. Open each lead, reply from there, and mark it Won, Lost or Ignored with the Lead Action button to clear it from the open queue, as the lead handling article explains. Leads go to whoever the campaign is assigned to, and can be reassigned or moved to another campaign. If the prospect writes again, the lead comes back.

Pitfalls named in Mailshake's help docs

• Raising the daily cap in one jump. The calendar article warns against going from 20 a day to 300; the provider will throttle you.
• Relying on quota detection. The sending limits article says Mailshake pauses sending when it detects a Google quota, but often only after the quota is exceeded, so the calendar cap is the real protection. It also caps Microsoft and SMTP mailboxes at 1,000 emails a day.
• Excel files. Imports need CSV.
• Cold email from the main domain. The getting-started guide advises a separate domain.

Weighing alternatives? Mailshake vs Reply.io compares Mailshake with a broader multichannel tool.

FAQ

How many emails a day should a new Mailshake address send?

Start at 20 and build to 100 over five weeks, then hold, per the cadence article. It treats about 100 a day as the ceiling and suggests stepping back a week when bounces pass 5%.

Can I stop a campaign after starting it?

Yes. Switch the Running toggle off to stop emails going out, as the getting-started guide describes, and switch it back on when ready.

Can one campaign use several sending addresses?

Yes, on plans with email rotation. Select "I would like to send from multiple email addresses" under Mail Account, and sending splits evenly across up to 50 addresses, per the rotation article.