Real Estate Technology
Market News & Data
General Info
Real Estate Strategies

Landlording & Rental Properties
Real Estate Professionals
Financial, Tax, & Legal


Real Estate Classifieds
Reviews & Feedback
Updated about 10 years ago on . Most recent reply
Gmail permanently blocked me from sending outgoing mail after emailing only 16 house rentals on Craigslist
I created a new gmail account to handle my internet marketing stuff for lease options, and as my first foray into the game I decided to mail some rentals/FSBO's in my area on Craigslist. What I figured I'd do is first hit up the rentals from 7 days back and work my way up to the front, and then do the same with FSBO's. Never made it that far ;)
I clicked reply and selected gmail on 8 ads yesterday and 8 today and sent a couple sentences saying I'm an investor and would they consider a lease option, if they're interested in having their home maintained while it gets sold, they should call me at my number. After that every single one of my outgoing emails on this gmail account was instantly rejected by gmail on a permanent basis due to their antispam setup. Essentially this gmail account is completely unable to send outgoing email, permanently.
Based on what I've seen, it seems 25 mails per day is a pretty small and reasonable number that many people subscribe to as being a decent marketing stream for Craigslist. And yet I do 8 per day and my email address is shitcanned ;) I find this most puzzling because I hear about hiring VA's to do 25 a day and even making a new gmail or other account specifically to share with them for this purpose.
Where did I go wrong? Is Craigslist not in the stars for me?
Most Popular Reply

Hey Max - I have a few thoughts on Craigslist...
First, I only send emails to Craigslist ads that do not have a phone number. If they have a phone number, I would much prefer to send a text message or a voicemail.
I send my texts thru MightyText.net. You can't really use Google Voice anymore for texts (for the same reasons you brought up in your post).
For voicemails, I like to use SlyDial.
My texts and voicemails say something simple like... "Hi. Saw your rental on Craigslist. You wouldn't have any interest in selling it, would you?"
Or if it's a FSBO, "I saw your property on Craigslist. I am an investor. Is you price negotiable."
I only send emails if the ad does not have a phone number. (I actually have my VA do all this for me.)
I created three different email accounts - Yahoo, Gmail, Hotmail. I also wrote 5 different email scripts. The emails are really simple - maybe 2-3 sentences. They are very personal and do not have any links.
My VA has instructions to alternate between all the email accounts and all the different emails. When they only send 3-5 emails a day, I never have any problems.