Domain Deliverability Check

Before you begin

Cold email deliverability issues don’t usually come from bad messaging—they come from bad data. Risky domains with no inboxes, recent registrations, or spam traps can quietly wreck your sender reputation before your campaign even gets off the ground.

This Claybook helps you stop that at the source.

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But first, here’s a quick refresher on some key technical terms you’ll see throughout this workflow:

• MX Records (Mail Exchange): These DNS records determine if a domain is capable of receiving emails. No MX = no inbox.
• TTL (Time to Live): A DNS metric that can indicate how secure or stable a domain’s setup is. Very low TTLs can be a red flag.
• WHOIS Data: Public records about domain registration—like when a domain was created, who owns it, and when it expires.
• Trap Domains: Domains set up specifically to catch and block spammers. Emailing them hurts your reputation.
• Catch-All Domains: Domains that accept emails sent to any address (even invalid ones). They’re risky because they hide bounces.

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For RevOps, Demand Gen, and Deliverability teams, the challenge is always the same: how do you catch these risks before the damage is done?

So we created this Claybook to automate domain risk detection before you press send.

It’s a modular workflow that transforms raw domain lists into clean, enriched, and fully risk-assessed records—so you can protect your sender score and filter with confidence.

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Here’s how it works:

1. Domain Intake: Start with any list of emails or domains—Clay parses and normalizes them automatically.

2. Email Config Check: Confirm valid MX records and assess TTL to gauge email readiness and potential red flags.

3. WHOIS Metadata: Pull domain age, expiration timing, and change history to spot sketchy or disposable domains.

4. Risk Detection: Use tools like Hunter.io to flag trap domains, catch-alls, and other high-risk patterns.

5. Aggregated Scoring: Combine all risk signals into a simple “Domain Red Flags” column to make fast decisions.

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With this Claybook, you can avoid three of the most common outbound killers:

Silent Deliverability Decay: Catch dangerous domains early—before they degrade your sender reputation.

• Mystery Bounce Spikes: Know which domains are likely to fail before launch.
• Wasted Effort: Stop chasing unreachable leads that never had valid inboxes to begin with.
• Watch the full walkthrough below, or skip to the step-by-step setup.

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