When Gmail slams the door on your cold emails
You kick off a Lemlist campaign and—boom—Gmail stops an email mid-send. Error message reads “Google has blocked an outgoing email.” No bounce-back, no explanation, just silence in your prospect’s inbox. Annoying when you’ve prepped your list perfectly.
What’s really happening?
This isn’t a simple quota issue—you’ve got plenty of daily allowance left. Instead, Gmail’s security filters have flagged your message as potentially harmful:
Reputation warning: Past campaigns triggered spam reports, lowering your sending reputation.
Strict recipient filters: Enterprise firewalls and advanced filters reject messages with certain patterns or flagged domains.
Spammy content: Excessive links, promotional keywords, or generic phrasing can trip Gmail’s heuristics.
When Gmail blocks your send, Lemlist marks the step as failed/blocked, alerting you in the campaign report. It doesn’t ban your account—it stops that one email for now.
1) Quick-fix: unblock your email in minutes
Review the blocked message: identify if it contains unusual links or flagged terms (e.g., “free,” “urgent,” many URLs).
Split your sends: send one test email to a personal Gmail/Outlook address. If it arrives, adjust remaining content.
Warm up your inbox: send a few simple, low-volume personal emails before relaunching your campaign—it signals Gmail you’re human.
Resend your campaign: after tweaks, restart only the failed step rather than the whole sequence.
These steps often clear the block without waiting out hours of suspension.
2) Additional deliverability best practices
Limit external links: use only essential URLs and shorten them sparingly.
Personalize every message: swap out generic greetings and reduce repetitive content.
Monitor reputation: tools like GlockApps or Postmark can pre-check your campaign’s spam score.
Stagger sends: reduce send volume per hour to avoid spike detection.
Adopt these habits to keep Gmail’s filters friendly.
3) Why ReactIn removes email deliverability headaches
If wrestling with Gmail filters drains your time, switch to LinkedIn outreach via ReactIn:
No spam folders: your invites and DMs land directly in the LinkedIn inbox—nobody’s email filter can touch them.
Guaranteed deliverability: LinkedIn notifications ensure your message is seen, boosting response rates.
With ReactIn, forget about bounces and blocks—just focus on genuine conversations.
Stop losing time on blocked emails—scale safely with ReactIn.
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