Cold emailing is a tricky business. You can have the best outreach strategy in the world, but if your emails aren't getting delivered, your efforts are all for nothing. Thankfully, cold email deliverability services can help with that. These tools can boost deliverability rates and performance, ensuring your emails land in the right place and perform well once they're opened. In this blog, we'll explore cold email services, how they work, and how they can help you achieve your outreach goals. I'll also share my favorite tools for improving cold email deliverability so you can get started right away. 

Inframail’s email infrastructure can help you achieve your goals by boosting your cold email deliverability rates and improving your overall email performance. 

Table of Content

• What Are Cold Email Services?

• 8-Step Strategy for Winning Cold Email Services

• 20+ Best Cold Email Software Tools

• Start Buying Domains Now and Setup Your Email Infrastructure Today

  
  

  What Are Cold Email Services?

Cold email services help businesses reach out to potential customers or clients with whom they have no prior relationship. A cold email is an email aimed at gaining a benefit in terms of sales, opportunities or any other dual-sided benefit from someone with whom the sender has no prior relationship or connection. The goal of cold emailing is to establish a relationship with the recipient that can eventually lead to a desirable outcome for both parties.

Basically, cold emailing is a way to introduce yourself to someone you don’t know and try to build a relationship with them in the hopes of eventually turning them into a customer.

How Cold Email Services Help Businesses

Cold emails are a great way to connect with prospects who can benefit from your product or service. They can be particularly effective if you have limited resources to reach your audience. 

Let’s say you have a software company that sells a powerful data analysis tool to enterprise-level businesses. Many companies could benefit from your software, but you have limited resources to promote it. So, in such a situation, what do you do? How do you reach out to your prospects? 

That’s where “cold email” comes into play. It is an effective strategy for reaching new prospects and closing deals. However, many people confuse cold emailing with email marketing. Although both are powerful, their approaches and outcomes vastly differ.

What’s the Goal of Cold Email Services? 

Cold email services help you automate reaching out to potential prospects to generate sales leads. They allow you: 

• To find and verify prospect email addresses

• Create personalized email templates

• Schedule your outreach

• Analyze your campaign performance to improve results

Cold Email Services vs. Email Marketing: What’s the Difference? 

Isn’t cold emailing and email marketing the same? No, cold email and email marketing aren’t the same. Both are different approaches to reaching potential customers or clients. The key difference is in the relationship between the sender and the recipient.

How Successful Brands Leverage Cold Emailing for Growth and Client Acquisition

Cold emailing involves sending out highly personalized emails to someone you don’t have a prior connection with. The goal is to initiate the contact and try to establish a relationship to pitch the product or service. There are many companies that use cold emails for their sales outreach efforts. 

Some of the famous brands include:

• HubSpot: HubSpot has a dedicated team to cold email outreach, and they use personalized emails to introduce their software to potential clients. By offering free trials and demos, they’ve been able to convert many prospects into paying customers.

• Dropbox: They use cold emails to reach out to potential users and offer them additional storage space if they sign up through a referral link. This helped Dropbox rapidly expand its user base and become one of the most popular cloud storage providers.

• Grammarly: To reach out to potential users, Grammarly offers free trials to businesses and enterprises. With the help of cold emailing, they’ve been able to generate leads and grow their user base.

Here’s an example of a cold email:

Cold Email Template:

Subject:
{Let’s talk {{First Name}}!

Subject:{Let’s talk {{First Name}}!

Hey there, {{First Name}}
How are you doing today? I am {{Name}} and I work at {{company name}}.

We work with companies like {{their company name}} to:
{{mention pain points and the solutions offered}}

I was wondering if you are the right person to have a conversation with about this? I would love to get in touch with you over the phone, as having an actual conversation could be beneficial.

If you are interested, you can reply to this email and let me know your availability.

Cheers,
{{Your Name}}

Building Strong Subscriber Relationships Through Targeted Email Marketing Campaigns

In contrast, email marketing involves sending targeted emails to a list of subscribers who have opted to receive your emails. The goal is to build a relationship with the subscribers by providing them value regularly and ultimately converting them into customers. Many businesses use email marketing for their inbound sales efforts; here are some of them

Legal Considerations: Are Cold Emails Spam? 

Sending cold emails can feel like contacting recipients without permission, which often raises the question of whether they are spam. While cold emails reach out to people without prior consent, they are not illegal or considered spam as long as they comply with relevant laws. 

In the United States, cold emails fall under the CAN-SPAM Act, which sets the requirements for commercial emails. These include precise email opt-out mechanisms and accurate information. Failure to comply can result in penalties. 

Cold emailing is 100% safe and legal as long as your outreach strategy complies with the relevant national and state spam laws. Before sending an email, it is essential to understand the regulations of the sender and the recipient’s country.

What Are the Benefits of Using Cold Email Services? 

If you are trying to reach potential customers, cold emailing can be an effective strategy for your business. Professional lead generation experts use cold emailing software to automate the process. 

Here are some key benefits of cold emailing:

• Targeted: Cold emailing allows you to target specific individuals or businesses you believe could benefit from your product or service. You can personalize your message to each recipient, increasing the chances of a response.

• Scalable: Cold emailing is a scalable method of reaching potential customers or clients. You can send hundreds or even thousands of emails at once, reaching many potential clients quickly.

• Cost Effective: Unlike traditional marketing and sales methods, you do not need to spend much on advertisements or referrals. All you need is an email address and a well-crafted message.

• Better ROI: If done correctly, cold emailing can provide a better return on investment (ROI) than other outreach methods. You can easily track your open rates, reply rates, and conversion to determine the effectiveness of your campaign and make adjustments as needed. 

What Are the Various Use Cases of Cold Email? 

There are multiple use cases for sending out cold emails. The actual use case may differ based on your requirements. 

Here are some of the most common use cases of cold emailing:

Lead generation

Cold emailing can effectively generate leads. An example can be, let’s say, you run a B2B software company, and you’re trying to generate leads for your product/service. You can research your target audience and prepare a list of prospects. Once you identify the needs of your prospects, you can craft a compelling message and pitch your services to them.

This way, you can reach hundreds of thousands of prospects with targeted messages and generate unlimited leads. You start with building a relationship and slowly move towards converting them into valuable customers.

Business partnerships 

Cold emailing can also be used to establish partnerships with other businesses. This involves reaching out to potential partners and explaining how your company can benefit theirs. Let’s say you run a digital marketing agency specializing in social media management and want to partner with popular influencers in your client’s niche. 

You can start by researching influencers in your desired industry and creating a list of potential partners. Once done, you can email them a compelling offer, ultimately closing the deal. A well-written cold email can start a conversation that leads to a mutually beneficial partnership.

Networking

Cold emailing can expand your professional network. You can contact people you admire or who want to work in your industry or related fields.

For example, you want to network with others in your industry with whom you have just connected at a webinar or a seminar. You can start by: 

• Visiting their website

• Finding their email addresses

• Creating a list using a third-party tool

Once done, you can send them targeted and personalized emails and build connections.

Link Building

You can use cold emailing to acquire links for your website. You need to identify websites relevant to your niche and then give them a personalized pitch about why they should link to your website or content.

Recruitment 

You can also recruit potential employees by cold emailing. This involves reaching out to people who may be a good fit for a job opening at your company.

An example can be you are a hiring manager for a software company looking for senior engineers. As an HR, you have identified & created a list of a few qualified candidates, but they aren’t currently looking for a new job. To reach out to them, you can draft a personal cold email letting them know about my company and the position. You can also highlight how the candidate’s experience and skills match the role and how they can be an excellent fit for the position at your company.

A well-written cold email can grab their attention and encourage them to apply.

Related Reading

• Automated Lead Generation
• Email Prospecting
• How to Generate B2B Leads
• How to Warm Up Email Domain
• How Many Emails Can You Send Before Considered Spam
• Best Time to Send Cold Emails
• How to Cold Email
• Best Cold Email Templates B2B
• Email Outreach Best Practices
• Email Outreach Strategy

8-Step Strategy for Winning Cold Email Services

1. Identify Your Target Audience and Build an ICP

The first step of cold email outreach is to identify your target audience. Cold emailing prospects must consider their needs and interests to be effective. According to a Gartner report, only 23.9% of sales emails are opened. Ensuring that your email is sent to the right person at the right time and at regular intervals is paramount to improving the chances of a response. By narrowing down your target audience, you can craft emails that are relevant and compelling to each person you want to connect with. 

Crafting an Ideal Customer Profile (ICP): Key Elements and Strategies for Targeted Outreach

Once you are done with your research, the next thing you need to do is create an Ideal Customer Profile (ICP). An ICP contains details of the individuals or companies who would benefit from your offerings. It identifies the most valuable prospects and customers who are more likely to purchase or close a deal with you. 

To create an ICP, based on what you’ve gathered from your research, create a list of crucial customer characteristics you’d like to see in your prospects. Some factors to consider may include: 

• Location

• Budget

• Department

• Annual Revenue

• Company size

• Industry, etc.

After successfully identifying your target audience and creating an Ideal Customer Profile (ICP), you must build a lead list based on your ICP for a targeted approach. Thus, the next step.

2. Build Your Lead List

A well-organized lead list can help you manage outreach efforts and increase the chances of converting ideal customers into paying customers. A lead list is a collection of potential customers which is by your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP). It typically includes the contact information of your prospects, such as: 

• Name

• Email

• Designation

• Company name, among others

Having a lead list is important because it provides a highly relevant pool of potential customers. It saves you time and effort in reaching out to people likely interested in your offering. 

When it comes to building a lead list, there are two approaches:

• The Trigger/Intent-based approach 

• The General Prospecting approach 

Comparing Trigger/Intent-Based and General Prospecting Approaches for Lead List Building

Let’s check each of them. 

Trigger/Intent-Based Approach

The trigger/intent-based list-building approach involves identifying a specific trigger or intent indicating that a potential customer may be interested in your offering and then targeting those customers with personalized and timed cold emails. To go with this approach based on your ICP, you need to identify triggers & intents that indicate a potential customer may need your product or service. It can be anything from: 

• A company’s recent funding announcement

• A change in leadership or designation

• A recent press release (indicating a requirement or launch of a new product or service) 

After identifying your triggers, you can set up alerts via a third-party tool (like Google Alerts or Mention) or extract information from existing databases (like Apollo.io or Lusha). Once you set up trigger alerts or remove the existing data based on your ICP, compile a list of potential customers (what we call a lead list) to send them highly targeted and personalized cold emails. Next, let us examine the general prospecting approach to list building. 

General Prospecting Approach 

In contrast to the trigger/intent-based approach, the approach based on your ICP is to look for potential sources where you can find the contact information. It can be their: 

• Website

• A forum or a community

• An existing database

• Extracting information manually or using a tool

After identifying the potential sources, gather your prospects' contact information in a list. This may include: 

• Email addresses

• Designation

• Company

• Phone numbers, etc. 

Once you have this information, it becomes easy to reach out to your prospects with highly personalized cold emails. Those were the two approaches to building your lead list. 

Four Lead List Building Methods: Pros, Cons, and Best Practices

Now you must wonder, “But HOW can I build a lead list?” Whichever approach you choose, there are four ways to build your lead list: 

• Manually Building your lead list involves researching potential leads online and creating a list of their contact information, such as their: 

• Email

• Job title

• Company, among others

This approach is time-consuming and challenging if you’re trying to reach a large audience. It can be useful if you’re targeting a specific niche or industry with a small prospect size and want to ensure the quality of your leads. 

• Using Email Scraping Tools: Let’s say that to maintain the quality of your leads, you decided to go for the manual method, and you can use email scraping tools to fasten your process. These automated tools can help you extract email addresses from websites and social media platforms. They are quite helpful if your prospect size is large to save you time. Be sure that some email scraping and extracting tools may not comply with your nation's or region's regulations, so be sure to review them before using them. 

• Opt for Third-Party Databases & Software: Third-party tools and databases can be useful if you need clarification on the regulations in your region. These tools comply with most of the guidelines and provide access to a wide range of contact information for professionals & businesses in your niche and industry. Nevertheless, be careful when using these tools and databases since the data they provide isn’t always accurate. This may increase your email bounces and affect your deliverability. 

• Buying a list from the Third Party Provider: Lastly, you can consider buying a lead list from a third-party provider. This method involves purchasing a contact information list from a provider specializing in lead generation. While this method can save time and effort, it can also be costly and have the same issue: outdated or irrelevant email addresses. 

Whatever the case, once you have successfully created a lead list, be sure to verify it, as it is very important for better deliverability. Now that we are talking about email deliverability, let's see how to ensure the highest deliverability for your cold email efforts in our next step.

3. Setup & Email Deliverability

Email deliverability setup is essential for cold emailing because it directly impacts the effectiveness of your outreach efforts. 

Here are a few crucial things you should consider to ensure better deliverability: 

• Choosing Domain: Using your primary domain for cold emailing can negatively impact your domain reputation, particularly if you want to achieve a high open and response rate. In addition to this, having secondary domains and email accounts is crucial for maintaining good email deliverability. 

• Email Deliverability in cold emailing refers to the ability of your email(s) to reach the inbox of your ideal prospects and not in the spam or junk folder. Email deliverability is one of the most important reasons for having secondary domains and email accounts. Some emails may flag your account as spam if they come from a single domain or address. This could lead to your primary domain or account being blacklisted if too many emails are flagged as spam from a single account. 

Domain Setup and Warm-Up: Best Practices for Optimizing Email Deliverability

Now that you know this let us see some of the crucial things you should remember when purchasing and choosing domains: 

• Make sure your domain is unique and stands out from the competitors. 

• Check for the ESPs sending limit to see if it aligns with your needs. 

• Make sure domains are from trustworthy registrars that won’t misuse your data. Look for ESPs that support authentications like SPF and DKIM, which ensure you are a genuine sender, keeping your account safe from spammers. 

Once you have chosen your domains, it’s time to warm them up. 

Domain Warmup: According to recent research, over 20% of emails fail to reach the recipient’s inbox. One primary reason is the lack of email warm-ups in new accounts. Email warm-up establishes a reputation for a new email account and gradually increases the sending limit. The process is simple; it involves sending a small number of emails initially and increasing the number sent daily. 

There are two methods to warm up your email: 

1. Manual Method: In the manual method, you must send emails daily and manually increase the number. Manually increasing the reputation of the new account requires a lot of time and effort.

2. Automated Method: Automated is the most recommended option because it’s an effortless way to warm up your email account. A tool like TrulyInbox can automate your email warmup process, allowing you to grow your email reputation and improve email deliverability. By automating the warmup process, you can save time and effort and focus on other essential tasks. 

Mastering Email Authentication: Key Records to Ensure Better Deliverability

Once your email accounts are warmed up to improve your email deliverability, the next thing you need to focus on is authentication records and technical setup. 

Authentication Records (for better Email Deliverability): When you have a new email account, you must authenticate it and make it deliverability-friendly. You may think hitting the send button and having a valid email address will ensure your email is delivered successfully. The lack of primary authentication is one of the reasons that many cold emails land in the spam folders. 

Here are the most crucial email deliverability records you must authenticate: 

• SPF, or Sender Policy Framework, is a security mechanism that prevents email spoofing and confirms that the incoming email is authentic. It works by verifying the DNS records of the sender and recipient, ensuring that the communication is legitimate. Here's a guide to learn more about SPF and how to set it up. 

• DKIM, or DomainKeys Identified Mail, is another protocol that uses an encrypted signature to verify the email sender’s identity. It also provides the recipient’s DNS server key to check the sender’s DNS record. Here's a detailed guide to learn more about DKIM and how to set it up. 

• DMARC, or Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting, and Conformance lets you specify what receiving servers should do with outgoing messages that don’t pass SPF or DKIM authentication. 

Here's a detailed guide to learn about DMARC and how to set it up.

Custom Tracking Domains: Boosting Email Performance and Deliverability

Here's a guide if you want to learn more about DMARC and how to set it up. 

Custom Tracking: A custom tracking domain is the domain that you can use to track “opens” and “clicks” in your emails. Custom tracking is known to preserve: 

• The sender's reputation

• Boost email deliverability

• Improve the click-through rate (of links inserted in emails)

If you want to learn more about the custom-tracking domain and how to set it up, here’s a guide. Until now, you have successfully configured your account to achieve the highest email deliverability. It’s time to craft your emails.

4. Write

A well-crafted cold email can capture: 

• The reader’s attention

• Communicate your value proposition

• Persuade them to take action

Investing time and effort into writing effective cold emails is important. A cold email has three essential components: 

• The subject line

• The preheader text

• The body

Let’s look at each one in detail. 

Mastering the Preheader Text: How to Compliment Your Subject Line for Higher Open Rates

A compelling subject line can grab the reader’s attention and entice them to open the email and read further. Crafting a subject line is crucial because it can determine whether or not your email is opened and read. A catchy subject line can also make your email stand out from the rest of the emails in their inbox and increase the chances of a response. 

Crafting a compelling subject line is crucial for the success of your cold email outreach. But how do you craft a compelling email subject line? Let’s find out. What is a good subject line for a cold email? 

To craft a perfect cold email subject line, it’s essential to ensure the following: 

• Keep it short and relevant (less than 60 characters). 

• Personalize your subject line. 

• Use action-oriented language. 

• Be clear and make sure it accurately reflects the value of your email. 

• Avoid the usage of spammy words. 

Here are a few examples of some practical subject lines: cold email subject lines Once you have successfully crafted a compelling subject line, the next thing that grabs a recipient’s attention and entices them to open your email is the preheader text.

Optimizing Preheader Text for Maximum Engagement: Tips and Best Practices

An email preheader text summarizes the emails in one line and can be viewed in the recipient’s inbox. It is typically next to the subject line. Your prospects can see this text without opening my email. 

Cold email preheader text: 

The preheader text should be aligned with your subject line and email content. You can communicate your message directly, but be careful what you write, keeping your ICPs in mind. The preheader text and subject line should work together to create interest and encourage recipients to open your email. Keep your preheader text short (recommended 30-140 characters). 

What to Avoid in Cold Email Body Copy: Common Mistakes and How to Fix Them

Once you have crafted a compelling email subject line and preheader text, the body of your email is where you make the pitch and convince your recipient to take action. 

It would be best to consider a few things while writing the body of your cold email: 

• Start with a personalized greeting

• Address the recipient by name, and use a formal yet compelling tone. 

• Please introduce yourself and your reason for contacting them: Mention yourself, your company, and why I am contacting them. 

• Be clear and specific about your prospect. Highlight the benefits for the recipient: Explain how your product/service can help them and what value it can bring to their business. 

Provide social proof 

If you have any relevant credentials, experience, or testimonials, include them in the email to establish credibility and trust. 

Call to action 

End the email with a clear and concise call to action, such as scheduling a call or meeting. 

Closing 

Thank the recipient for their time and consideration, and sign off with a professional and friendly tone. 

How to Track and Analyze the Performance of Your Cold Emails for Continuous Improvement

There are a couple of things you should avoid adding to your cold email: 

• Avoid using spammy words like “Exclusive” or “Offer.” 

• Avoid making false promises or claims you cannot fulfill or back up. 

• Remember the research part while writing your email; your message should be based on what interests the recipients the most. 

• Don’t make your email sound robotic; avoid using overly formal or stiff language. 

• Avoid asking for too much before establishing a relationship or demonstrating value. 

• Once you have crafted and sent the cold emails, tracking and analyzing their performance is time.

5. Analyze

Tracking and analyzing is one of the most crucial steps of your cold email outreach. Based on your emails' performance, you can make accurate decisions and make changes. 

Here are a few metrics you must measure while cold emailing: 

Deliverability Rate 

Email Deliverability in cold emailing refers to the ability of your email(s) to reach the inbox of your ideal prospects and not in the spam or junk folder. You should know that “email deliverability” does not mean “email delivery.” Both are different. Email deliverability determines whether your email will land in the prospect’s inbox (based on factors like the sender’s reputation, the domain’s reputation, and your domain setup). 

Email delivery means the number of emails accepted into the prospect’s mailbox. Here are a few metrics that can help you decide my email deliverability: 

• A 3-5% bounce rate can compromise my email deliverability. 

• A delivery rate of 95% (or higher) is considered reasonable by Email Service Providers (ESPs). If you’ve more than a 5% unsubscribe rate, your spam rate increases, and you risk losing your account. 

Open Rate

You can determine whether my emails are being opened by looking at my open rate. The open rate is an important metric to keep track of – ensuring my message gets across to my readers. According to recent research, 39% or more is an excellent open rate for your outreach campaign, and if you hit over 57%, consider your campaign very successful. 

You should note that the rate of your email opened might differ from campaign to campaign, and it’s not just limited to this; other factors make a difference in an email’s open rate. So, it’s always trying and testing based on your goals. 

Reply Rate 

The reply rate refers to the percentage of total emails sent that receive a reply. To make it easy to understand, here is an example: 

If you sent 1,000 emails and got 100 replies, your cold email reply rate is 10%. Though no solid/accurate research or survey has been done in the past, according to some cold emailing experts, the average email reply rate ranges between 10-20% of total emails sent. 

Click-through rate (CTR) 

A CTR in cold emailing means several people who have taken action (be it scheduling a call or signing up for a product or service, etc.) based on the goal of that cold email. According to a recent study, the average CTR for cold emailing is 2.3%. Though it may differ from industry to industry, you can consider this a benchmark when starting with cold emailing. Now that you know some of the critical metrics you should analyze. Let us see how to optimize your cold email outreach efforts based on the insights gathered.

6. Optimize

After analyzing your cold emailing results, the next step is to optimize and make the necessary adjustments to improve your future campaigns. 

Here are a few things you should consider while optimizing your cold emailing efforts: 

Timing

One critical factor to consider when optimizing your cold email campaign is the timing of your outreach. Understanding and finding out what time works best for your target audience and the industry you’re targeting is essential. You might have this question: “What is the best time to send a cold email?” There is no “one best time” to send a cold email. It will differ based on the prospects and the country you are targeting. 

For instance, if your target audience is tech companies, emailing on Monday mornings might be the perfect timing. If you’re targeting HR professionals, afternoons may work best. It’s crucial to remember that different industries have different preferences, so it’s advisable to research and test out various times before settling on what works best for you. 

Email Length 

Another crucial aspect to consider is the length of your emails. The ideal email length and the type of content within the email that works best for you may differ based on the preferences of the different industries. Research has shown that cold emails ranging between 50 to 125 words received the highest response rates. 

It’s essential to test different lengths and types of content to see what works best for your audience and make necessary adjustments. 

Value Optimal 

Value Optimal open rates but low reply rates indicate that you must rethink your value proposition. Restructure and write a new pitch to make your offer more relevant to my ICP. If my open rates are high but my reply rates are low, then my email content is irrelevant to my target. In contrast, it’s the thumb rule that relevance is vital in any business, even in cold emailing! Analyzing the results of your cold email campaign and making the required adjustments can help you improve your future campaigns’ effectiveness. 

Understanding your target audience’s preferences and crafting your cold email campaign will result in better response rates and ultimately achieve the desired goals. But wait, your work doesn’t end here. There are certain best practices you should be aware of that can help boost your outreach efforts.

7. Follow-Ups: Automated Responses If You Don’t Get a Reply — And Non-Automated Responses If You Do

Following up is critical to effective cold emails that many overlook. It has less to do with crafting your cold emails and more to do with how to approach the task of cold email outreach. It’s easy to think if people don’t respond to your first email, they’re just not interested. But that’s rarely true. People are busy. They have: 

• Meetings

• Project deadlines

• A trip to the store to make after work

• A gift to get for someone’s birthday next week

Maximizing Cold Email Response Rates with Automated Follow-Up Sequences

Often, it’s not until the third or fourth follow-up email that you’ll receive a response. Using automated follow-ups: It’s prohibitively time-consuming and difficult to send multiple manual follow-ups to every campaign. So you’ll need to rely on the robots to handle the heavy lifting here. 

Set up a sequence of auto follow-ups for any cold campaign. Send as many as you think it’ll take to hit that sweet spot between “impressively persistent” and “disqualifying irritating.” If your goal is to get email replies — the common goal of many cold campaigns — trigger auto follow-ups to go out until you get a reply.

Efficient Cold Email Response Management with Templates and Auto Follow-Ups

Use the GMass settings to send auto follow-ups. We recommend sending these follow-up email messages as responses to my prior emails so they’re all in one thread — not messages with new subject lines that start new threads. 

Using reply templates for quick responses: 

• Good news: Your cold emails were tremendous, and the replies poured in. 

• Bad news: Now you must sort through those replies and write back to everyone. 

Reply templates can be helpful in this case. Not every cold email platform offers reply management, but those who do can help you with message triage and responses. For instance, GMass runs sentiment analysis on replies to determine if they’re: 

• Positive

• Negative

• Neutral

Then, with The Reply Project, you can use reply templates or ChatGPT to send quick responses. Sending segmented, behavior-based campaigns for re-engagement.

Segmenting and Retargeting: Maximizing Cold Email Campaign Results Based on Recipient Behavior

You’ve sent a campaign. Some people opened, some clicked, some replied, some opened but didn’t reply, and so on. You can turn any of those behavior segments into a new campaign. After all, they aren’t pure cold leads anymore — they’re already familiar with your name and offer. 

Create a new campaign based on the action (or inaction) of a group of recipients in a previous campaign. You can even send that new campaign as replies to the prior campaign to continue the“simulate one-on-one sending” rule. (If your initial campaign was connected to a Google Sheet, the mail merge tags will carry over to your new segmented campaign.)

8. A/B Testing and Reporting: Sending the Ideal Version of All Cold Emails

Your goal is to send cold emails that are as effective as possible. And while you could trust your instincts (or, you know, all the stuff we’re saying on this page) — your audience’s behavior is the ultimate source of truth. With A/B testing, you can test a campaign as you send it. And with campaign reporting, you can learn from a campaign to apply those lessons in the future. 

A/B testing If you’re unfamiliar with an A/B test, it’s a way to test two (or more) variations of an email to see which is most effective. You can base your test on which variation gets more: 

• Opens

• Clicks

• Replies

The best part: You A/B test a campaign as it’s live. So, one variation will go out to a designated portion of your list (say 15%). Another variation will go out to an equal portion. Then, after a specified time, you’ll see which variation is getting better results — and that variation will go out to the remaining portion of your list. (The remaining 70% in this example.) 

Using A/B Testing and Campaign Analytics to Optimize Cold Email Performance

A/B tests a portion of your list and automatically sends an email with campaign analytics. Your campaign reports will show how your emails performed on several key metrics: 

• Opens

• Clicks

• Replies

• Bounces

• Unsubscribes, and more. 

Dig into your campaigns to see what worked and what didn’t work. Did this campaign get a much worse rate of replies than a past campaign? 

What was different: 

• Your offer

• Your targeting

• Your subject line, or something else? 

The more you analyze your campaigns after the fact, the more you can improve future cold email campaigns.

Related Reading

• Best Cold Email Software
• How Long Should a Cold Email Be
• B2B Cold Email Response Rates
• How to Improve Email Deliverability
• Unlimited Email Hosting
• Email Testing Tools
• Best Email Deliverability Tools
• Email Scraping Tools
• Best Sales Prospecting Tools
• Email Warm Up Tools
• Email Personalization Tools
• Sales Email Automation Tools
• Mailscale Alternatives
• Mailforge Alternatives

20+ Best Cold Email Software Tools

1. Inframail: Your Cold Email Infrastructure Partner

Inframail revolutionizes cold email infrastructure so you can scale your outreach without technical headaches. Our service stands out from traditional providers by offering unlimited inboxes for a single flat rate. 

With: 

• Microsoft-backed deliverability

• Dedicated IP addresses

• Automated technical setup

It scales its cold email outreach efforts efficiently:

• Agencies

• Recruiters

• SDRs  

Main benefits of using our service: 

• Automated SPF, DKIM, and DMARC setup

• Dedicated email servers for each user

• 16-hour priority support daily

Unlike traditional providers that charge per inbox and leave you wrestling with technical configurations, Inframail streamlines the entire process. We handle the complex infrastructure setup while you focus on reaching more prospects. 

InfraMail provides the robust email infrastructure you need without the usual technical headaches and per-inbox costs, whether: 

• You're an agency looking to scale outreach

• A recruiter connecting with candidates

• An SDR driving sales

Start buying domains now and set up your email infrastructure today with our email infrastructure tool.

2. Salesmate: Email Prospecting Software for Teams

Salesmate is an email service platform for teams to manage and automate their:

• Email prospecting

• Sales outreach

• Cold calling

• Sales productivity

It offers more than just sales email software, but for the sake of this post, we’ll just focus on those features. You can use their Sequences feature to build email campaigns that send on a predefined schedule. You can even integrate automated SMS messages into those sequences, which is useful for ABM campaigns. 

Maximizing Cold Email Campaign Efficiency with Personalized Settings and Team Collaboration

You can set up a variety of personalized settings on how to handle things like what to do if you get an: 

• Out-of-office reply

• Campaign exit criteria

• Assigning tags to prospects

It’s a powerful email service tool that's great for teams that want to collaborate on sending emails and seeing their CRM activity in one place.

3. Klenty: Personalization and Email Deliverability for Cold Emailing

Klenty helps both outbound and inbound sales teams send personalized cold emails and follow-ups. While it does have multi-channel outreach, it is popular for its cold email features and native integrations with: 

• Zoho

• Pipedrive

• Hubspot

• Salesforce

It will automatically remind sales representatives of their outreach tasks for the particular day–whether sending a follow-up or connecting with a prospect on LinkedIn. Reps can also preview cold emails before sending them, and deliver them when prospects are most likely to check them. 

Leveraging Klenty's Built-In Tools for Email Deliverability and Engagement Tracking

Klenty also has built-in tools for improving email deliverability and ensuring that emails are sent at random intervals. Custom domain tracking is available if you want to track email engagement directly from your links.

4. Outreach: Outbound Sales Software for Email Outreach

Outreach helps sales teams connect with your target audience at scale using multi-channel sales sequences. As the name suggests, it’s full of features specifically for outbound sales teams. You can create multi-step, multi-channel sales campaigns that send reminders to your team to pick up the phone and call, send a follow-up email, or connect with a prospect on LinkedIn. 

It’s an effective platform for teams to manage their email outreach program, as sales managers can see insights into individual performance.

5. SalesLoft: Team-Focused Sales Engagement Software

SalesLoft is a platform for sales engagement designed to help you engage with prospects and track your activities to see what’s working. You’ll have a clear overview of your sales activities and important tasks in one place, so you never leave a prospect waiting for a reply for long. SalesLoft integrates with Sales Navigator and Salesforce, so you can easily review your CRM records and ensure every email you send is personalized and timely. 

As you would hope, you can also create and save templates that you can re-use, and see detailed metrics on things like: 

• Open rate

• Reply rates

• Click-through rates

6. Snov.io: Sales CRM and Cold Outreach Automation Platform

Snov.io is an email prospecting tool to help you identify good leads, engage with them using email outreach, and manage deals in a sales CRM. If you want a platform that helps you with everything from prospecting to managing deals in your CRM, it’s a great option. The platform also includes an email finder. 

It collects data on companies and accounts then stores them in a database to help you identify good-fit prospective clients. You can then import your target audience into your campaigns with verified email addresses and automate reaching out and following up. There’s a Gmail extension to track engagement inside your inbox, and you can also see stats on performance inside Snov.io itself.

7. Reply.io: Cold Email Outreach Platform for Sales Teams

Reply.io is cold email software for sales that bundles together: 

• Email finding

• LinkedIn outreach

• Cold email automation tool

You can find emails, build a prospect list within Reply, and then upload prospects to your personalized cold email campaigns. As you would expect, you can track and monitor the performance of your campaigns, and Reply also includes features to help you write a clear, compelling cold email template. It’s a bigger platform than most of the other recommendations here because it integrates a prospect database and LinkedIn outreach with an email-sending platform.

8. Yesware: Email Tracking for Prospecting Teams

Yesware is an ‘all-in-one toolkit’ for sales. It lets you: 

• Send emails

• Track results

• Schedule meetings

• Integrate with both Salesforce and LinkedIn

The tool sits on top of your Gmail and Outlook inboxes, adding functionality rather than making you move your activity into a new tool. You’ll be able to track: 

• How prospects interact with your email

• Seeing if people receive, open

• Engage with content like links to proposals or sales decks

Yesware’s cold email outreach software allows you to schedule emails to send at specific times and send follow-up email campaigns on autopilot, making your sales prospecting simple and predictable.

9. Mailshake: Simple Cold Email Marketing Software

Mailshake is a popular option for cold email outreach software. The platform lets you: 

• Create personalized email campaigns

• Upload your prospect lists

• Schedule follow-up emails if someone doesn’t respond

There’s an integrated phone dialer, so you can also include cold calls in your sequences; however, this is only available on the higher-tier Sales Engagement Plan. Mailshake connects with Gmail, Outlook, and other email providers via SMTP and with popular CRMs like Salesforce and HubSpot.

10. Close: A Complete Sales CRM

Close is a popular CRM and sales platform that’s packed with features. You can send and manage sales and prospecting emails, create tasks, and even cold call right from your dashboard. As you would hope, you can: 

• Create personalized email drip campaigns

• Re-use email templates

• Pause campaigns for any leads that reply

You can upload your prospect list and schedule your campaigns to be sent at any time. You can also create follow-up and other task reminders and track metrics such as open rates to see what’s working.

11. Autoklose: Sales Engagement Software with Cold Email Tools

Autoklose is a sales automation platform that includes tools for cold emailing. You can: 

• Create a CSV file of prospects

• Upload them to the platform

• Add them to a campaign you have ready to send

If they don’t reply you can automatically follow up on a pre-set schedule. As well as sending cold outreach, you can use the platform to: 

• Track your sales team performance in leaderboards

• Organize your full contact list

• Verify your email lists before reaching out to prospects

12. GMass: Send Campaigns Straight from Gmail

If you want to keep things simple and automate your cold email campaigns straight from your Gmail inbox, GMass is for you. It’s installed as a Chrome Extension, and you can access powerful features in your inbox. 

It lets you use Google Sheets to create mail merge fields, so you can still send personalized cold email outreach at scale despite the tool's simplicity. GMass also lets you: 

• Schedule your outreach campaigns

• Follow-up automatically

• Will categorize replies to prevent inbox clutter

13. Streak: CRM Functionality for Gmail

Similar to GMass, Streak integrates directly into your Gmail account. It adds even more functionality by transforming your inbox into a flexible CRM. Handling everything in one place, it saves you having to connect standalone cold email software with a third-party CRM. 

You can also create snippets, templates that you can quickly use to eliminate repetitive work and speed up the time it takes to reply to emails.

14. SalesHandy: Send Bulk Emails from Your Inbox

SalesHandy is a sales enablement tool to help your sales team be more productive and effective. You can use it to track automatically: 

• Email engagement

• Send follow-ups

• Create templates

There’s a built-in send limiter so you don’t send too many emails per day, and it also includes an email verification tool to help ensure you’re only contacting people on their real email. SalesHandy does everything you’ll need to send and follow-up with prospects, and it’s compatible with: 

• Gmail, Outlook

• Yahoo

• Other mail providers

15. MixMax: Schedule Meetings with Cold Leads Over Email

If you regularly book meetings with prospects, MixMax is a solid choice for your cold email service, thanks to the built-in scheduling features. You can add your schedule directly into your emails (although the MixMax logo will show up), which enables your prospects to book meetings to continue the conversation quickly. 

You’ll see detailed analytics on how people engage with your emails, and how many people RSVP to your meeting invites. Your emails can be easily personalized thanks to integrations with most CRMs, and you can update your CRM records directly from Gmail to keep your workflow simple.

16. Vocus.io: Daily Email Tracking with Gmail Integrations

You can use Vocus.io to: 

• Draft

• Schedule

• Send cold email campaigns

You can add attachments, which is a good way to increase engagement on your follow-ups (for example, by adding more proposals or portfolios of work). You can also install their Gmail extension to track opens and links and get reminders to follow up inside Gmail. 

You’ll also be able to create a calendar similar to MixMax, so it’s easy for prospects to book meetings with you. After you’ve sent your campaigns, I can see detailed reports that are easily shareable to ensure your whole team stays updated on what’s working.

17. Followup.cc: Lightweight Cold Email Software for Gmail

Followup.cc does what the name suggests: it helps you track conversations and never miss a follow-up opportunity. You add the extension to your browser and it will add tools to your Gmail account that make it easy to set reminders of when to follow up and even schedule automatic follow-ups to be sent after a specific delay. 

The tool also includes open tracking, so you can see how engaged a prospect is. The main downside to Followup.cc is that it’s not specifically made for cold email outreach and lacks more powerful features than most other tools.

18. MailFlow Auto-Warmer

New inboxes must be 'warmed up' before starting your cold email outreach to avoid deliverability problems. Traditionally, this was done by sending back-and-forth emails to your colleagues for a few weeks. MailFlow's Auto Warmer automates this process. Whether you’re using the inbox to send email outreach campaigns or a weekly email sequence with a marketing email, the Auto Warmer will ensure your emails always land in the primary inbox. 

Boosting Cold Email Deliverability with QuickMail's Auto-Warmer Feature

When you sign up for Auto-Warmer, you join a network of real inboxes that exchange emails and reply to each other. This mimics real email engagement like someone would naturally have with their colleagues. This prevents email service providers like Google or Outlook from suspecting any unusual behavior and increases your deliverability. The Auto-Warmer: 

• Opens your emails

• Replies to them

• Marks them as "not spam"

• Auto-archives them

• Monitors my deliverability at all times

The best part? It's entirely free for QuickMail users and has a native integration to a powerful cold email platform, QuickMail. Try it yourself.

19. RightInbox: Track Email Engagement in Gmail

Right Inbox is a productivity tool that can help with your day-to-day sales email workflow. After installing the free email cold email service extension to your Gmail, it adds features such as: 

• Follow-ups

• Email tracking

• The ability to save templates and more to your account

You can also add notes to email threads, which is helpful for when I want to keep track of a conversation’s key points so I can revisit them in the future. Right Inbox is a good start if you’re looking for a free option.

20. Clearbit Connect: Find Emails and Enrich Profiles

Before sending an email, you’ll need someone’s contact details. Tools like Clearbit Connect help you find the email addresses for people you want to reach out to. As well as helping with email details, it’ll also help you find their social profiles (so you can connect with them) and other relevant details about: 

• Their company

• Industry

• Job

• Tools they use at work

If you need help finding email addresses, it’s a great tool.

21. NeverBounce: Verify Your Emails

High bounce rates are a bad sign. If your cold emails aren’t landing in your prospects’ inboxes, email service providers will see that you’re not naturally using email. You’re more likely to end up in the spam folder and see poor results from any email campaign you send. 

To avoid unnecessary bounces, use NeverBounce to verify your email list. Simply upload your contact list, and NeverBounce will tell you if it’s valid or not in under 10 minutes. Email verification is a simple but essential part of any successful outreach plan.

22. Woodpecker: Secure Automated Cold Emailing Solution

Woodpecker is a great tool for sending automated personalized emails. They claim to be one of the most secure cold emailing solutions for automated campaigns. Woodpecker is a great choice for teams that require collaborative tools to share lists of contacts and blacklist domains.

Related Reading

• Amazon SES Alternatives
• Maildoso Alternatives
• Mailgun Alternatives
• Sendgrid Alternatives
• Mailreef
• Cold Email Marketing Services
• Lemlist vs Instantly
• Smartlead vs Instantly
• Salesforge Alternatives

Start Buying Domains Now and Setup Your Email Infrastructure Today

Inframail is revolutionizing cold email infrastructure. The company’s solution provides unlimited inboxes at a single flat rate. Users enjoy: 

• Microsoft-backed deliverability

• Dedicated IP addresses

• Automated technical setup

It scales its cold email outreach efforts efficiently:

• Agencies

• Recruiters

• SDRs  

Main benefits of using Inframail’s service include: 

• Automated SPF, DKIM, and DMARC setup

• Dedicated email servers for each user

• Sixteen-hour priority support daily

Inframail eliminates the headaches associated with traditional email providers that charge per inbox and leaves you wrestling with technical configurations. Instead, the company streamlines the entire process. Users can focus on reaching more prospects while Inframail handles the complex infrastructure setup. InfraMail provides the robust email infrastructure you need without the usual technical headaches and per-inbox costs, whether: 

• You're an agency looking to scale outreach

• A recruiter connecting with candidates

• An SDR driving sales