Outreach

Four emails, sent from a domain you can afford to burn, to people you can justify contacting

Cold email works when the targeting is narrow enough that the message could not have been sent to anyone else. It fails — expensively, and on the domain your invoices go out from — when it is a template blasted at a purchased list.

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In short

A cold outreach sequence is four short emails over about two weeks: an opening email that names a specific observation about their business, a follow-up with a concrete example, a short bump, and a close that ends the thread cleanly. It must send from a separate domain, at low daily volume, to a verified and lawfully sourced list. In the EU, UK, Canada and Australia the rules on unsolicited commercial email are stricter than in the US and differ by country, so check your obligations for the recipient's location before the first send. Full copy for all four emails is below.

Separate domainNever your main one. Cold volume damages sender reputation
4 emailsOver about two weeks, then stop. A fifth costs more than it earns
<100/dayPer sending address as a working ceiling, ramped up over weeks
1 questionPer email, answerable in one line without a meeting

The sequence

1Email 1 — day 1
Subject{{specific_observation}}One question about how you're handling {{problem_area}}.

Hi {{first_name}},

I noticed {{specific_verifiable_observation}} — {{why_it_caught_attention}}.

We work with {{similar_company_type}} on {{problem_area}}. The pattern we usually see at your stage is {{specific_pattern}}, which tends to show up as {{observable_symptom}}.

Is that something you're dealing with, or have you got it handled?

Why it is shaped this way: The first line has to be something you could only have written about this company. Not 'I loved your website' — an actual observation: a job posting, a pricing change, a stack they run, something they published. If you cannot write that line without research, the list is too broad and no amount of copy will fix it. Ending on a question that can be answered with one word, including 'handled', gets more replies than any meeting request, and a genuine no is a useful outcome.

2Email 2 — day 4
SubjectRe: {{specific_observation}}One example, then I'll leave it.

Hi {{first_name}},

Following up on the above with something concrete rather than another nudge.

{{similar_company_descriptor}} had {{specific_situation}}. They changed {{specific_change}}, and {{specific_outcome_with_number}}. It took about {{effort_estimate}}.

Happy to walk through what they did whether or not it turns into anything — the approach transfers.

Why it is shaped this way: Every claim in this email is a factual statement about a third party, so it has to be true and you have to have permission to make it. Anonymise if the customer has not agreed to be named — 'a fifty-person agency in Melbourne' is fine, an invented company is not. Offering the walkthrough with no strings attached is the part that works; it is also the part most sequences drop in favour of a calendar link.

3Email 3 — day 9
SubjectRe: {{specific_observation}}Short one.

Hi {{first_name}},

Is this worth a conversation, or should I stop?

Either answer is genuinely fine — I'd just rather know than keep guessing.

Why it is shaped this way: Two lines, no new pitch, no 'just bumping this to the top of your inbox'. The blunt version earns replies because it is easy to answer and it hands back control. Do not attach anything, do not add a case study, do not restate the offer — the value of this email is entirely in how little it asks.

4Email 4 — day 14
SubjectClosing the loopLast one from me — here's the thing itself.

Hi {{first_name}},

Last email from me on this, so I'll make it useful rather than asking again.

{{genuinely_useful_resource}} — it's the write-up of what we'd have talked about, and it works fine without us.

If {{problem_area}} becomes a priority later, reply to this and it'll find me. Otherwise, good luck with {{their_specific_initiative}}.

Why it is shaped this way: Say it is the last one and mean it. A 'breakup email' followed by a new sequence six weeks later is the behaviour that gets domains blocklisted and turns a soft no into a complaint. Leading with something useful they can keep is what makes this the email that most often gets a reply — and the reply frequently arrives months later, which is why the thread should stay findable.

What goes wrong with this sequence

Sending from your main domainCold volume produces complaints and bounces at rates normal marketing does not. Run it on a separate domain that redirects to your main one, with its own authentication and its own reputation. If it gets damaged you change domains; if you had been sending from the primary, you have lost your invoices, your password resets and your newsletter along with it.
Skipping verificationCold lists decay fast, and a hard bounce rate above a couple of percent is read as a sender who does not know who they are emailing. Verify before the first send, not after the first campaign tells you. This is the cheapest single thing you can do to keep a cold programme alive.
Volume before warmupA new domain sending several hundred emails on day one looks exactly like a compromised account, because that is what compromised accounts do. Ramp over weeks from a low daily figure, and keep a per-address ceiling in place permanently rather than only during warmup.
Assuming the US rules apply everywhereCAN-SPAM permits unsolicited commercial email with an opt-out and a physical address. Canada's CASL requires consent, express or implied, with real penalties. In the EU and UK, business-to-business cold contact turns on lawful basis and the ePrivacy rules, and the analysis differs by member state. Australia's Spam Act requires consent, again with an inferred-consent route. Determine the obligation from where the recipient is, not where you are.
Personalisation that is obviously automated'I loved your recent post about {{topic}}' with the merge tag showing, or a first line assembled from a scraped headline, is worse than no personalisation — it tells the recipient they are one of thousands. If the research cannot be done, narrow the list until it can.
Mixing outreach into the marketing accountCold replies, complaints and bounces have no business touching the sending reputation of the list that people actually opted into. Separate domains, separate sending, separate suppression. The one thing that must be shared is the suppression list — an opt-out anywhere has to be honoured everywhere.

Questions

Is cold email legal?

It depends entirely on where the recipient is. In the US, CAN-SPAM allows it with accurate headers, a clear opt-out and a physical postal address. Canada, the EU, the UK and Australia all require some form of consent, with narrow inferred or legitimate-interest routes for business contacts that vary by jurisdiction. This is a summary, not legal advice — if you are sending across borders at volume, get the position confirmed for each market before you start rather than after a complaint.

How many emails should a sequence have?

Four. Reply rates fall away after the third, and beyond the fourth you are mostly generating complaints from people who have already decided. If the prospect is genuinely high value, a better use of the fifth email is to wait a quarter and start a new, differently-argued sequence.

Do I need an unsubscribe link on a cold email?

You need a clear, working way to opt out, and in most jurisdictions that is a legal requirement rather than a courtesy. A one-line 'reply STOP and I'll remove you' satisfies it and looks less like bulk mail than a footer, but it only works if the removal actually happens — so wire that reply into your suppression list rather than a person's memory.

How much volume can I send per day?

Start in the low tens per sending address and ramp over several weeks. A working ceiling is under a hundred per address per day; scale with more addresses and domains rather than more volume per address. The number that should govern your ramp is your reply rate — if it collapses as volume rises, the targeting broke before the sending did.

Should I use a tracking pixel?

It is worth less than it used to be. Apple Mail Privacy Protection and similar proxies auto-open messages, so open data on cold sends is substantially noise. Some corporate filters also treat tracking pixels as a negative signal. Measure replies, which are unambiguous, and treat opens as background at most.

Can I buy a list?

You can, and it is the reliable way to burn a domain. Purchased lists have high bounce rates, stale contacts and spam traps — addresses that exist only to catch senders who did not collect their own data. Hitting one has an immediate and durable effect on deliverability. Build the list from research, and it will be narrow enough to write a real first line for anyway.

Keep exploring

Email verificationVerify a prospect list before the first send, not after the bounce report.Email verificationVerify before the first send, not after the bounce report.Deliverability guideWhy a separate domain, and what damages a reputation.SPF, DKIM & DMARC setupAuthenticating the sending domain before you use it.Built-in CRMWhere replies land, so a warm answer does not sit in an inbox.All templatesWelcome, cart recovery, launch sequences and more.
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