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Anyone who’s sent a cold email or two in their lifetime can tell you that a high-quality bulk email service needs features like:
Strong deliverability
Sophisticated personalization tools and email automation features
Advanced analytics and reporting
But lead gen agencies have specific needs – and most bulk email sender tools just don’t cater to them. That’s why we’ve rounded up 12 key factors to look out for when choosing a truly agency-grade bulk sending solution.
Let’s get into it…
12 Key Features of Agency-Grade Bulk Email Software
#1: Free Email Warmup
What Is It?
Email warmup involves gradually ramping up email sends from new email accounts in order to:
Strengthen the account’s reputation with email service providers
Reduce the chances of emails sent from the account triggering spam filters
Traditionally, email warmup was a simple process. As long as you didn’t ramp up too fast, you couldn’t really go wrong. Five emails on day one, 10 on day two, 15 on day three… easy.
But things have become a little more complex as spam compliance gets stricter. Now, inbox providers don’t just look out for high-volume email campaigns – they also want to see that recipients are engaging positively with messages sent from the new account (e.g. opening them, replying to them, and/or marking them as “important”).
Additionally, it’s worth noting that it takes longer to warm up a new domain (like @yourbusiness.com) than a new email account on an existing domain (like name@yourbusiness.com).
Why Is It Important?
If you don’t warm up your email accounts before launching a campaign, a high proportion of those emails will end up in spam folders, destroying your inbox placement rate.
Not only will this tank your campaign, but it’ll also screw up your sender reputation.
That’s why all QuickMail pricing plans include free access to MailFlow, a market-leading automated email warmup tool.
Further reading: How to Warm Up Your Cold Email Inbox
#2: Unlimited Inboxes
What Is It?
This is a simple one:
Some mass email platforms charge you more for adding new email inboxes, whereas others give you unlimited inboxes at no additional cost.
As a lead gen agency, you’re definitely going to need a lot of inboxes – so you don’t want to pay extra for them.
Why Is It Important?
Even if you invest time and effort in warming up new email accounts, it’s still highly likely that some of your emails will end up in the junk folder. After all, cold email content is unsolicited.
That means you’ll have to regularly ditch inboxes with poor deliverability.
Also, when it comes to scaling cold email marketing campaigns, it’s safer to simply add new accounts than to keep sending higher and higher volumes of emails from your existing inboxes. Because, sooner or later, those inboxes will get flagged as spam.
Either way, you’ll need a constant stream of new inboxes to bring on-stream as required.
So it helps to have a bulk email solution like QuickMail, which includes unlimited inboxes with all agency plans.
#3: Unlimited Team Members
What Is It?
Another self-explanatory feature:
Some mass email services – particularly those that aren’t built for agency users – only give you a set number of users or “seats”. Worse still, some platforms charge per user, massively increasing costs for all but the smallest agencies.
Instead, we’d strongly recommend choosing a solution that lets you add unlimited colleagues at no extra cost.
Why Is It Important?
You shouldn’t be “punished” with a higher invoice for your cold email software simply because you’ve built a larger team.
And you also shouldn’t have to rely on sharing login details to keep costs under control – trust us, you don’t want to keep losing unsaved campaign changes because a different user has logged in.
That’s why QuickMail includes an unlimited user allowance on all agency plans.
#4: AI-Powered Deliverability Solutions
What Is It?
Email deliverability is about how likely your emails are to hit the recipient’s main inbox, rather than bouncing or landing in spam.
Every bulk email tool promises high deliverability.
But if you’re serious about getting results for your clients, you’ll choose a platform that leverages the power of AI to boost deliverability rates.
QuickMail offers two AI deliverability tools:
Deliverability AI
Reword with AI
First up, Deliverability AI helps you maintain high email deliverability through real-time data-backed automation by swapping out inboxes with low deliverability scores:
This automated approach to deliverability monitoring and inbox rotation saves you a ton of time on manually checking deliverability rates across dozens of email accounts.
And then there’s Reword with AI, which automatically rewrites every email you send (while retaining the original meaning, of course).
That way, email service providers won’t flag you for sending identical messages to large numbers of recipients, which can help you avoid the spam folder.
With all that technology in our corner, it’s no wonder QuickMail users enjoy a 98% average inboxing rate.
Further reading: Ultimate Guide to Cold Email Deliverability
Why Is It Important?
The higher your email deliverability, the more people will see your beautiful emails – which (should) mean higher open, click, reply, and conversion rates. As such, email deliverability is one of the most important cold email metrics.
#5: Email Inbox Creation
What Is It?
As we’ve already mentioned, creating new email accounts can help you scale your mass email campaigns while steering clear of the spam folder.
But there’s a problem: creating new inboxes is a real drag. You have to…
Buy the domain
Set up all the technical requirements (like SPF and DMARC)
Purchase the Google Workspace
Create a bunch of users
Verify the domain
Generate and add DKIM credentials
Add an avatar for the email address
Set up two-factor authentication
Sort out domain redirection
Add the inbox to your chosen bulk email marketing software
…and that’s before you’ve even started the process of warming up your new account. Sheesh.
Or you can cut out all the heavy lifting by choosing a bulk mailer tool with built-in email inbox creation. QuickMail handles the full process – all you have to do is pay $3 per month per email address, plus domain purchasing fees.
Why Is It Important?
Setting up inboxes manually is a labor-intensive task that distracts you from higher-value email strategy actions.
So if your cold email tool can do it all for you, you’ve got more time to spend generating leads for your clients.
#6: Multichannel Sequences
What Is It?
Multichannel sequences are outreach campaigns that target prospects through 2+ channels.
Whereas some tools only allow you to reach prospects via email, QuickMail makes it easy to build multi-step email workflows that also include:
LinkedIn
Cold calling
SMS
Why Is It Important?
Sure, email sequences are often the most effective way to reach prospects.
But, in our experience, multichannel campaigns are typically more effective than single-channel bulk email strategies. Because the more channels you use, the more likely people are to see your messages. Which should mean you generate more leads for your clients.
#7: Advanced Analytics
What Is It?
Again, every bulk email platform claims to offer “advanced”, real-time analytics, but most only include basic email metrics (like open, click, and reply rates).
Sure, those are important.
But, for best results, choose a tool that helps you instantly understand what’s going on with your bulk email campaigns. QuickMail is the only solution that provides time-based data, tracking individual user actions – like opens and clicks – back to the day an email was sent.
That way, you can quickly identify any issues (like a drop in bulk email deliverability) and course-correct.
Why Is It Important?
Without advanced analytics to inform your decision-making, you’re basically operating on guesswork. Your clients deserve better than that.
So you’ll be glad to hear that QuickMail’s advanced analytics tools are included as standard with all agency plans.
Further reading: How to Choose the Best Sales Analytics Tools for Your Agency
#8: Unified Inbox
What Is It?
A unified inbox combines messages and replies from multiple email accounts in a single view.
It’s an essential tool for agencies, which might be sending marketing emails from dozens of accounts across Gmail, Outlook, and other email service providers.
As well as doing all the basics, QuickMail’s unified inbox has some neat advanced features.
For instance, you can:
Read, label, and triage replies without marking them as “read”
See how long replies have been waiting for follow-ups
Assign follow-ups to individual reps
Reply from any inbox
All of which helps to ensure that you never miss a warm opportunity for your clients.
Why Is It Important?
Without a unified inbox, your reps will be forced to check for replies across multiple different inboxes. This massively increases the chances of missing positive responses from email contacts.
#9: Built-In Email Verification
What Is It?
Email verification is the process of confirming that a prospect’s email address is:
Valid
Active
Receiving messages
Verifying email addresses on your contact email list before launching a campaign helps to reduce your bounce rate. Which, in turn, can improve your email deliverability.
Why Is It Important?
Unlike many bulk email solutions, QuickMail features built-in, real-time email validation:
Not only does this save you time by streamlining the email authentication process, but it also saves you money by eliminating the need for a third-party email verification tool.
#10: Agency Dashboard
What Is It?
Think of an agency dashboard as a one-stop shop for all your most essential data.
Your dashboard brings together all your clients and campaigns, allowing you to get a quick snapshot of email performance. Here’s how it looks with QuickMail:
QuickMail allows you to add up to 20 custom tiles to your agency dashboard so you can closely monitor the metrics that matter most to you and your clients.
Why Is It Important?
An agency dashboard makes it easy to identify bulk campaigns or clients that need immediate attention. That way, if a campaign is underperforming, you can take action fast – so your clients stay happier for longer.
#11: A/B Testing
What Is It?
A/B testing allows you to test one or more variants of a cold email so you can understand what drives user behaviors like clicks and replies. For instance, you can test different…
Cold email subject lines
Intro copy
CTAs
Footers
Personalized message elements
…and pretty much anything else, for that matter.
QuickMail offers built-in A/B testing on all agency plans.
Why Is It Important?
Every lead gen agency is constantly searching for ways to optimize campaign performance and improve key metrics like:
Email open rates
Click-through rates
Response rates
A/B testing is one of the most effective ways to make this happen. Once you understand what works best for a segmented or broad audience, you can roll it out across your other campaigns.
#12: Agency-Friendly Pricing
What Is It?
As we’ve already noted, lots of bulk email tools charge per user.
That’s fine for businesses with small B2B sales teams sending their own bulk outreach emails. But lead gen agencies might have half-a-dozen (or more) reps, making per-user pricing way too expensive.
Similarly, lots of cold email marketing tools “paywall” essential features behind top-tier price plans, meaning they’re out of reach for smaller agencies with tighter budgets.
QuickMail does neither. We charge a flat fee rather than a per-user price, and we offer all our most business-critical tools – like advanced analytics and Deliverability AI – on every QuickMail agency plan.
Why Is It Important?
As an agency leader, you’ve got enough costs to worry about. So the last thing you want is to choose a bulk email solution that gets super expensive as you increase your headcount and/or forces you to pay more for essential functionality.
Choose the #1 Bulk Email Sender for Lead Gen Agencies
There are literally hundreds of mass email platforms on the market.
But very few are an ideal choice for lead gen agencies.
QuickMail is an exception. From our scalable pricing to our efficiency-driving AI tools, everything we do is designed to help agencies like yours save money and generate more leads. And with the ability to reach prospects via multiple channels, we're an all-in-one solution for lead generation.
Find out what we can do for your lead gen agency by booking your QuickMail demo call.
