1. Research the Contact Before Reaching Out

A generic, one-size-fits-all email is always likely to end up in the trash. Before hitting send, take the time to understand your prospect’s business structure, trends in their industry, and potential needs. It shows that you respect their time and are genuinely interested in building relationships. So, how should you research?

Always Start with LinkedIn

Depending on the prospect, you can request a connection with them on that platform; it enhances the credibility of eventual cold email outreach and differentiates your communication from generic sales pitches. You can also examine the prospect’s company website, especially their recent achievements. Use this info to create a highly personalized cold email. This will make your outreach efforts stand out and demonstrate that you understand their unique situation and want to help them succeed.

2. Write Catchy Subject Lines

It’s essential to get B2B cold email subject lines right. If you fail to convince leads to open your email, your chances of a response plummet to nil. The topic of crafting “clickable” subject lines, while avoiding sounding spammy, is frustratingly complex. But for now, here are the three most essential steps for compelling subject lines that earn clicks:

Lean towards shorter subject lines:

• AWeber’s research of over 1,000 email subject lines found that 82% of experts send subject lines with 60 characters or less.

• As a side note, shorter email subject lines also prevent them from becoming truncated on mobile devices.

Tickle interest and tease curiosity:

• Speaking of mystery, it's good to leave a little to the imagination.

• “Meeting at 10?” is more clickable than baring all with “Are you willing to meet up at 10 for a demo?”

3. Keep It Short, Under 50 Words is Best

According to Lavender, the email intelligence company, emails under 50 words see 60% more replies. This shows that brevity is key for successful cold emails. Just look at Bryan Harris’s successful pitch to HubSpot’s editorial team. 

Not only does it deliver a lot of value in a way that respects the recipient's time, but it is also short, sweet, and to the point. Leads are busy, and their inboxes are inundated with pitches and offers. Articulating value with fewer words helps you win and keep attention.

4. Personalize and Lean Towards an Account-Based Marketing Approach

“Dear customer,” Urgh! Does anything scream “boring message ahead” louder than these two words? Avoid addressing leads with generic terms and unedited sales email templates. It drains personality from your email, replacing it with a robotic corporate tone that repels leads. Find the person's first name and always use it. Even better, write personalized emails, and personalize your email around a lead’s hobbies or recent activity.

From Exhibitions to $1M Sales: Smart Cold Email Tips

Like Denis Oakley’s team did to turn a strong but struggling product into a business doing $1 million in sales, they attended exhibitions in the client’s market. They greeted the relevant salespeople manning the booths  while collecting 1200 business cards. They later reached out to them and received a great response. Most of the salespeople recognized the company from the exhibitions and forwarded the “cold” email to the right person. Find a blog comment, a LinkedIn post, or even a hobby they publicly champion, then weave it into your B2B cold email template.

Boost ROI with Account-Based Marketing (ABM)

You can even take the power of personalization further with account-based marketing (ABM), which 76% of B2B marketers report delivers a higher ROI than other marketing activities. Often described as the “flipped funnel” approach, ABM amplifies the idea of personalization and applies it to your overall sales strategy. Instead of casting a wide net and targeting a broad quantity of leads, sales and marketing unite and aim for “zero-waste” selling, sales campaigns, and content target highly relevant companies and influencer groups (or accounts).

5. Use Short Paragraphs and Sentences

Did you read every single sentence leading to this question? If you did, congratulations! Your online reading habits are atypical compared to most people, who typically scan content when reading, focusing only on relevant and valuable information. To make your cold email easier to scan and digest, stick to 2-3 sentence paragraphs with short, simple sentences, like this. 

Or, like how Lemlist keeps their follow-up emails easy to read and fun.

6. Have a Simple, Single CTA

The more options you present, the harder it is for a lead to choose. This is known as "The paradox of choice." Not only do excessive links and attachments flag your email as spam, but they also trigger the effects of too much choice; taking action becomes harder for the recipient. Like a content marketer, Sophia Seltenreich from Yesware shares below how to funnel your message down to one main point and guide your lead to one call to action.

7. Experiment with GIFs and Emojis to Emotionally Engage

We like to buy things from people we like. With B2B email marketing templates, communication often becomes bland because we’re doing business. But it’s important to remember that another human is on the other end of your cold email. Just like you. Experiment with images, GIFs, or emojis to enhance the personality and warmth conveyed in your cold emails. For example, let’s say you’re sending a cold email that ends with: “Let me know if there’s anything you need, OK? I’m here to help.” Does it sound supportive? Sure. But what if you finish with a cheeky gif? It catches the eye and drives the sentiment home with humor.

8. Internalize the Follow-Up

80% of sales require an average of five follow-ups. But the shocking thing? After just one attempt, 44% of salespeople fail to follow up. In recent research, the Woodpecker team found that the optimum number of follow-ups in a cold email campaign is two to three. Following up just once is enough to boost the reply rate of a campaign by 22%. Prospects are busy, they may not have the time to respond promptly, and even if they intend to reply later, they may forget to do so.

9. Proofread Your Cold Email

Ensure you have the basics correct. Fact-check your lead's name, job role, and company. Avoid basic spelling mistakes or incorrect information.

10. Use a Custom Domain Email Address

Nothing screams spam more than a cold sales email from a generic email address. Always use the official email address registered with your company’s domain name when sending B2B cold emails. Using a custom domain email address to send cold emails has the following advantages:

• Creates a good first impression: Recipients can immediately tell the email is from a professional account, enhancing credibility and professionalism.

• Fosters brand recognition: Your company’s name in the email address helps recipients recognize your brand and makes it easier for them to find your emails using your brand’s name as a keyword.

• Fortified security: Custom domain emails are more secure and hosted on private servers with extra encryption and security features like SSL certificates.

Cold emailing using a custom domain email address reduces your chances of landing in spam folders. Most B2B customers expect a custom domain email by default, so using a standard email address can be a significant turnoff.

11. Comply with Data and Cold-Outreach Laws

While cold emailing is legal, depending on how you obtain, process, and store your B2B data, you may breach laws such as:

• General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)

• Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations (PECR)

GDPR and PECR apply if your target email recipients are in Europe or your company is based in Europe. GDPR requires you to collect data legally and secure it from exploitation or misuse. 

Complying with GDPR & PECR in Cold Emailing

You must obtain your prospecting data legally, such as conducting extensive target market research or partnering with a B2B lead generation company like Leadfeeder. Avoid scraping email contacts from websites using random prospecting software. PECR also prohibits you from sending unsolicited commercial messages. To comply with PECR, you must ensure your cold B2B outreach isn’t seen as spam. To make this distinction, we must: 

• Personalize your cold emails

• Send them to a curated email list, not as mass emails

• Do not write clickbait subject lines

• Focus your cold emails on the recipients’ pain points, not your product

The GDPR and PECR are the two leading data-compliance and cold-outreach laws you must adhere to. You should understand how each European Union member state interprets and legislates these two laws to avoid any legal liability.

12. Provide Verifiable, Data-Based Proof of Your Claims

You must provide factual and data-based proof for any claim you make about the viability of your product or service. Remember, the B2B buying cycle is longer (about six to 12 months) than the B2C cycle, and decision-makers do more extensive research before purchasing. B2B buyers read up on your offering's features throughout the buying process to assess whether it fits their pain points well. Thus, you must provide context to help prospective buyers gauge your product’s potential. The best way to do this in a short cold email is to include a link that directs readers to your product or service page. This makes it easy for your email recipients to background check your claims and evaluate your offering.

13. Respect the Prospect’s Privacy

While personalization is vital to cold emailing, avoid using so much personal information that it makes the recipient uncomfortable. Imagine opening an email that reads, “Hi, I saw on your Facebook page that you’re back from a vacation to Hawaii. I bet you had a great time in the poolside suite. By the way, I wanted to reach out about ...” It would make me uneasy, so avoid delving into the person's family life or personal activities. Instead, reference a professional accomplishment to show your genuine interest in their work. Here's an example: “I found your recent article on LinkedIn about sustainable business practices very insightful. I wanted to reach out because ...” The balance between personalization and privacy ensures my message is relevant and engaging without making the prospect uncomfortable.

14. Use Multiple Domains and Inboxes

The most scalable and reliable method of sending mass cold email campaigns is to set up and send emails from multiple domains and inboxes, known as inbox rotation. It’s also best practice to buy numerous domains for general business reasons. Inbox rotation prevents your main domain's reputation from being damaged if your emails are marked as spam, which will happen, no matter how great your campaigns are.

Using Satellite Domains for Effective Cold Emails

What does this look like in practice? Salesforce’s primary domain, for example, is Salesforce.com. This domain enjoys an excellent SEO reputation, domain authority, and sender reputation. Any marketing emails sent from this domain are set up for success. If a Salesforce team were to send cold emails, we’d advise them to use satellite domains like “gosalesforce.com,” “getsalesforce.com,” or “trysalesforce.com.” Salespeople could set up two inboxes per domain, like “eric@gosalesforce.com” and “eric.n@gosalesforce.com.”

Why Use Domain Variants for Cold Emailing?

This way, any one inbox getting marked as spam will not affect the deliverability of the others. Some people worry that sending emails from domain variants will look suspicious. Don’t fret! In our experience, emailing customers from these variants isn't an issue as long as you have a .com domain with a plausible name. As a side note, if your company has enough email volume from either transactional or marketing emails with high open rates and you’re sending a small amount of cold emails, you can get away with not setting up multiple domains and inboxes. This would work for companies sending, e.g., around 1-5% of the cold email volume as their marketing or transactional email volume.

15. Buy Cold Email Domains from High Quality Sources

As mentioned above, a core part of cold emailing is buying enough domains. When you’re buying cold email domains, follow these few core rules. Buy from top-tier brands, like Google or GoDaddy. Do not use Namecheap or other subpar brands; you’ll make the technical setup harder for yourself. Include your brand name in your domain. Use permutations that include prefixes like go, try, get, fix, or access, or suffixes like emails, hq, etc. Do not use characters, numbers, hyphens, etc. ONLY buy .com domains. Add these domains to your Google or Outlook admin account.

16. Set Up the Right Number of Inboxes to Ensure Cold Email Deliverability

How many domains and inboxes do you need? It’s just a math problem! Choose how many emails you hope to send daily and work backwards.

• Up to 50 emails per inbox per day

• Up to 2-3 inboxes per domain

• Up to 3-4 domains per admin console or tracking account

Calculating Domains and Inboxes for Cold Emailing

• Emails per day / 50 = Inboxes needed

• Emails per day / 100 = Domains needed

Setting up more cold email inboxes and domains than your calculated minimum is a good idea. The extra capacity allows you to switch domains or inboxes if issues emerge. Aim for 20% above your target volume to account for errors and maintain smooth sending. In the case above, that might mean setting up four inboxes on two domains.

17. Set Up MX, DKIM, SPF, and DMARC Records

MX, DKIM, SPF, and DMARC authentications sound obtuse, but they’re critical for cold emailing: they tell email service providers that you're a valid sender from your domain. These authentications are simple to set up. When you buy a domain, Google “how to set up a DMARC record” with your provider and follow the instructions.

Email Authentication Essentials for Cold Emailing

If you buy your domain and inboxes from the same provider, they will set up the MX, DKIM, and SPF for you; all you have to do is buy a DMARC. (This applies if you have a Google domain with Google Workspace inboxes, for example.) When you’re done setting up your authentications, check that you did everything right using tools like Mailgenius or Mailtester before starting your cold emailing. Here is what each acronym stands for. Feel free to skip ahead!

MX records

An MX record is a type of DNS record that specifies the mail server responsible for accepting email messages on behalf of a domain. The MX record contains the mail server's domain name and may also have a priority value determining the order in which multiple mail servers should be contacted.

DKIM records

DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail) is an email authentication method that allows senders to associate a domain name with an email message through cryptographic authentication. Validating the signature included with DKIM-signed emails against the public key in the DKIM record allows receivers to confirm that the domain owner authorized the emails.

SPF records

SPF (Sender Policy Framework) is an email authentication technique that verifies the IP address of the server sending an email by checking it against the domain's DNS records. Mail receivers perform SPF checks to validate that incoming emails originated from an IP address designated by the SPF record of the sender's domain.

DMARC records

DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting and Conformance) is an email authentication protocol that builds on SPF and DKIM. The DMARC record contains details like the domain's SPF and DKIM settings, requested actions for non-compliant emails, and reporting options.

18. Automate Your Domains and Inbox Setup Process

Setting up domains and inboxes can be extremely tedious when cold emailing, especially as your campaigns scale. Even so, you can streamline this process using automation scripts and bulk actions, all in a single Google Sheet. In summary, use a workflow automation tool like Inframail to automate the setup process. Add your domains manually to your Microsoft/Outlook account and run the automated workflow, which will:

• Add the DKIM selector records to the domain's DNS settings

• Add a DMARC policy record

• Set up open tracking

• Set up forwarding so emails sent to the domain redirect properly

Automate DNS Setup & DKIM Activation for Cold Emailing

The workflow handles adding all the necessary DNS records, such as DKIM, DMARC, MX, etc. After the automated workflow runs, you still need to manually activate the DKIM keys in your Microsoft/Outlook account. The workflow uses the duplicate DKIM keys for Microsoft/Outlook every time, so that you can copy/paste those from another domain setup.

19. Set Up a Custom Tracking Domain

When setting up a cold email campaign, tracking open rates is essential to ensure that your emails don’t go to the spam folder. For example, if you're cold emailing with open rates above 35%, you’re probably landing in the inbox. Email management platforms will help you track cold email campaign open rates by including an invisible pixel in your cold emails. When the cold email loads, the pixel fires to record that it was opened. These cold emails are sent with a custom tracking domain or a separate domain name that you can use within an email service provider's infrastructure to track your cold email opens.

Why Custom Tracking Domains Are Crucial for Deliverability

You should always set up your custom tracking domains. Using a public tracking domain will tank your deliverability, because email list providers will recognize and blacklist the link used by others. Other senders’ poor campaigns can contaminate your reputation. For example, if you use a shared pixel from a platform like Hubspot, you’ll likely share it with many other users, including spammers. If Google sees that your email includes a pixel associated with spam, it may also move your email to the spam folder.

20. Set Up Domain Forwarding

As the final step of setting up your cold email delivery infrastructure, configure forwarding of your secondary sending domains to your primary brand domain. Forwarding provides two key benefits when cold emailing. Recipients who investigate the source of your emails will be redirected to my main website, which establishes legitimacy and trust. Permanent 301 forwarding also creates a link between my secondary domains and primary domain, which can improve deliverability.

21. Warm Up Your Inboxes

Inbox warming is gradually sending more cold emails from a new domain to build its reputation before you start using it for live campaigns. The longer you warm your inbox and wait to send campaigns, the longer they’ll last. Why is this important? When you start cold emailing from a new domain, the recipients view it as an unknown entity. If you immediately blast out cold emails in high volume, receivers may see that as suspicious behavior. This can cause spam filters to stop your messages from reaching the inbox. Use warmup tools like Inframail or Instantly to warm your inbox. These services send a few emails a day from your new domains to verified inboxes to build your sender reputation.

Warm Up Your Inbox for Higher Open Rates

As your domain establishes a pattern of sending legitimate engagement, these tools slowly increase your volume. Warm your inbox for 3 weeks. (Warming the inbox for 3 weeks instead of 2 increased our open rates by 30%.) Start with five warm-up emails for the first day of warm-up and ramp up your sending by five emails/day, with a cap of 50 emails/day. You should set a 25-40% response rate on your warm-up emails. Don’t put it at 100% because when you start your cold email campaign, it won’t be nearly that high, and the decrease won’t look good.

22. Start Sending Cold Emails Slowly

Once your inboxes are properly warmed, you can increase your email volume. When you launch your campaign, keep the inbox warming up, but only send 10 cold emails per day with a 100% response rate for your warm-up. Distributing volume intelligently across multiple warmed inboxes and domains will allow you to scale cold email outreach safely and sustainably over the long run.

Risks & Tips

If you need to start sending campaigns ASAP and don’t have time for inbox warming, you could start by sending 10-15 cold emails a day out of my inbox. Just be prepared for the possibility that your inbox might get flagged. Be prepared to lose those inboxes faster. In a matter of weeks, you should have other inboxes ready to replace them. Send a cold email every 8-15 minutes per inbox. Keep the same sending level across your inboxes.

23. Check Your Cold Email Technical Setup

The first thing to check is whether your emails are set up correctly. Look for obvious small errors. Are your DKIM, DMARC, and SPF set up? Services like Mxtoolbox.com, mail-tester.com, and mailgenius.com can help.

24. Avoid Spam Trigger Words to Avoid the Spam Folder

Many words immediately trigger spam filters (mention Jesus, Bitcoin, or Viagra, and you’re putting yourself in trouble!). It’s good practice to sanity-check your subject lines and email body to avoid spam trigger words. Hubspot has an excellent spam trigger word list broken down by industry that includes phrases such as:

• “eliminate credit”

• “increase your sales”

• “remove wrinkles” and more

25. Don’t Use Images or Links in Cold Emails

When sending cold emails, it's best to keep them in a simple, plain text format without any images or links. Embedded images can be blocked by email clients and hurt cold email deliverability, while links are seen as red flags for spam, making your email more likely to get flagged or blocked. Sticking to plain text eliminates these risks, so your message gets delivered. The lack of links and images forces you to perfect your copywriting to make the email compelling.

26. Include an Opt-Out or Unsubscribe Link

Some geographies, like California, mandate that you include an unsubscribe link in cold emails. Unfortunately, unsubscribe links may lower cold email deliverability because:

• They are links.

• They mark you as more likely to be spam or promotional.

• They usually flag to users that they’re part of an automated email sequence.

We like to use lines like “if this is not relevant to you, let me know” to let email recipients opt out of a sequence without clicking an unsubscribe link.

27. Send Only to Valid Email Addresses

Make sure you only send cold emails to valid accounts. Cold emails that bounce to invalid addresses will hurt your deliverability and domain reputation. Before you send a campaign, clean your email list. Several tools can help. ZeroBounce is the highest-quality and highest-cost tool on the market. Other tools, like Debounce, are more affordable and have yielded similar results. If you have a pre-validated list, you can clean it up using a lifetime deal with a service like Appsumo.

28. Use Spam Checkers or Seed List Tests

Tools like GMass Spam Checker (free) or Glock Apps allow you to run seed list tests to check if your emails land in the spam folders instead of the inbox. This involves sending test cold emails to a small sample of seed inboxes and seeing where they are filtered. Remember, though, seed tests can be inaccurate for many reasons. Seed accounts may not mimic real users filtering through their inboxes. They’re also a lagging indicator. When a seed test detects a problem, you’ve likely been missing people’s inboxes for a while.

Low Open Rates? Focus on Copy & Infrastructure

If your cold email open rates are under 30-35%, it might make sense to skip seed tests and focus your efforts on improving the most critical parts of your campaign, your copy. (If I have a 30% open rate, even if I amn’t landing in spam, I need to set up more inboxes and domains, warm them, and develop better content.

29. Use MX Matching to Send Emails from the Same Domain as Readers

MX matching is one of the newest features of the cold email deliverability landscape in 2024. This means sending emails using the same domain as your recipients, from Google inboxes to Google inboxes, from Outlook to Outlook, and so on. How can MX matching help you land more emails in recipients' inboxes? Email providers like Google and Outlook generally track their domain reputation information and don’t fully share it with others. When Google receives a cold email from an Outlook inbox, it must trust Outlook’s sender scores on that inbox, and vice versa. Email providers may block some extra accounts from different providers, because they don't completely trust each other.

30. Use Spintax to Generate Variations of Your Cold Emails

Spintax is a technique that generates multiple variations of any text in a cold email. It uses a specific syntax, where curly braces {} and pipes | indicate different options for a given word or phrase. A subject line using spintax could be: "{Don't miss out|Don't let this opportunity slip by|Don't miss your chance} to save 10% on your purchase," resulting in three different subject lines to send to a recipient. Using spintax to generate multiple variations of cold email subject lines and content can increase your odds of landing in the inbox. Providers are more likely to mark you as spam if you send templated cold emails to many people, changing only minor variables like “first name.” 

Subject Line Variations with Spintax

There are many ways to generate synonymous variations of a cold email or its subject lines. You can rotate through different headings (“hey [first name]” versus “hello [first name]”), use Google Docs or Grammarly to find synonyms, or even rotate a variation of motivational quotes through your signature. You can use tools like sp1in.me to set these up quickly.

31. Track Blacklists

If you notice that your cold email open rate or reply rate is tanking, make sure that you aren’t on any email blacklists. Blacklists like Spamhaus or Barracuda Central mark senders as spammers, causing emails from listed entities to be automatically filtered. Getting off a blacklist sometimes requires a fee, but other times, it only takes an inquiry. Tools like MXToolbox, Glock apps, or Gmass can help you see if your IP address or domain is listed on any blacklists and help you get off them.

32. Keep It Mobile-Friendly

We live in a mobile-first world, and your recipient might be checking their email on their smartphone. So, ensure your cold emails are optimized for the small screen. Here’s what to keep in mind:

• Concise is King: Stick to short, scannable paragraphs and avoid lengthy blocks of text

• One Point at a Time: Focus on a single value proposition or call to action to prevent overwhelming the reader

• Large, Clear Font: Use a font size and style that’s easy to read on a mobile device

• Test Before You Send: Most email platforms offer a preview function

Utilize it to see how your email looks on a mobile device and adjust if needed.

33. Turn Off Bad Campaigns ASAP

As soon as you notice a bad cold email campaign, turn it off. (You’ll know what’s “bad” when you hear it, look for angry replies or mass instances of people asking to get off your list.) Don’t risk your domain reputation by attempting to save a languishing campaign. Step back to re-evaluate your copy, product positioning, and email strategy. This will increase your odds of future cold email campaign success and prevent you from getting extra spam reports or unsubscribes.

Related Reading

• How to Send an Email to a Prospective Client
• Best Email Warm Up Tools
• Cold Email Manifesto
• How to Warm Up an Email Address
• Cold Email Manifesto
• Cold Email vs Spam
• How to Cold Email a Recruiter
• How to End a Cold Email