Summary
Targeted cold emails aim to initiate contact with recipients who haven't previously engaged with the sender, often for sales, partnerships, or content promotion. While the intent is to be relevant, many cold outreach attempts miss the mark, resulting in bizarre or irrelevant requests that can harm sender reputation and increase the likelihood of landing on a blocklist or in the spam folder. Understanding the difference between genuinely targeted outreach and poorly executed spam-like tactics is crucial for effective email deliverability.
Key findings
- Irrelevance: A common type of ineffective cold email is the backlink request that tries to piggyback on an existing article with unrelated content, such as linking an article on autism to a deliverability blog.
- Boilerplate language: Many cold outreach emails use generic, templated language, like offers for SEO help that highlight obvious or exaggerated website flaws, failing to provide genuine value or personalization.
- Misleading claims: Some outreach emails claim to have read the recipient's content but then propose linking to completely irrelevant topics, indicating a lack of genuine research.
- Aggressive tactics: Unsolicited meeting invitations that lack basic details or are based on faulty assumptions are also prevalent, causing frustration rather than engagement. This ties into larger discussions about whether cold outreach is spam.
Key considerations
- Personalization: Truly targeted cold emails require deep personalization that demonstrates an understanding of the recipient's work and needs. Generic templates often fall flat.
- Relevance: The proposed value or content must be directly relevant to the recipient's interests or website content. Irrelevant suggestions are quickly dismissed as spam.
- Clarity and detail: When proposing a meeting or collaboration, provide all necessary details, such as specific times and contact methods, to avoid confusion and demonstrate professionalism.
- Value proposition: Effective cold emails should clearly articulate the benefit to the recipient. As noted by Criminally Prolific, a good cold email should provide value.
What email marketers say
Email marketers often face a barrage of poorly conceived cold outreach requests. These experiences highlight common pitfalls, such as a lack of genuine personalization and irrelevant pitches, which detract from the credibility of cold email as a legitimate marketing channel. The sheer volume of these emails also points to the broader challenges of cold email deliverability, where many legitimate messages also struggle to reach the inbox.
Key opinions
- Repetitive requests: Many marketers receive similar backlink requests, especially for common topics like 'cell phone plans,' suggesting a lack of unique targeting.
- Extreme irrelevance: Some requests are so far removed from the recipient's content (e.g., asking for a link to an autism article on a deliverability blog) that they indicate the sender has not even read the site.
- Generic SEO pitches: Weekly offers for SEO help with vague, alarming bullet points (like 'Social Media efforts are lame ducks') are common and usually ignored.
- Unsolicited meetings: Receiving meeting notices without prior contact or an clear agenda is a growing irritation, often leading to immediate declines or even playful suggestions to accept and no-show.
Key considerations
- Audience research: Marketers should invest time in understanding the recipient's actual work and needs before sending a cold email to avoid coming across as disingenuous.
- Value addition: Pitches should offer clear, compelling value relevant to the recipient, rather than vague promises or self-serving link requests. This is a core aspect of effective cold emailing.
- Professional conduct: Avoid deceptive subject lines or automatically generated meeting invites without prior consent or clear context.
- Reputation impact: Consistently sending irrelevant or poorly targeted emails can damage a sender's reputation, potentially leading to emails being flagged as spam or even triggering a blocklist.
Marketer view
Marketer from Email Geeks notes that they frequently receive emails from the same type of senders who attempt to get backlinks. These typically involve referencing a random link on their website and then asking for a backlink to an article, often on a generic topic like cell phones.
Marketer view
Email marketer from Nutshell highlights that effective cold emails are well-researched, hyper-personalized, and focus on providing value to the recipient before asking for anything.
What the experts say
Email deliverability experts frequently encounter cold outreach attempts that serve as prime examples of what not to do. Their experiences underscore the importance of genuine personalization, relevance, and adherence to best practices to avoid triggering spam filters and safeguard sender reputation. As seasoned professionals in the field, they understand the nuances of what makes an email land in the inbox versus the junk folder, often dealing with the fallout of poorly executed cold campaigns, which can lead to domains ending up on a blacklist or blocklist.
Key opinions
- Discerning genuine outreach: Experts can quickly identify templated or inauthentic outreach, especially when the suggested link or topic is entirely irrelevant to their content.
- Frustration with irrelevance: There's significant frustration with requests to link to wildly off-topic content, like a deliverability expert being asked to link to an article on autism, which demonstrates the sender hasn't read their site.
- Calling out dishonesty: Some experts may directly confront senders of such irrelevant emails, highlighting their perceived dishonesty or lack of research.
- Meeting scheduling issues: Another point of frustration is cold outreach that attempts to schedule meetings without providing necessary details (like a phone number) or respecting time zones, rendering the invitation useless.
Key considerations
- Authentic engagement: For cold emails to be effective, they must demonstrate genuine engagement with the recipient's work. Without it, emails are seen as spam, damaging sender reputation and leading to deliverability issues.
- Recipient respect: Respecting the recipient's time and intelligence by sending only relevant and well-researched messages is paramount for positive engagement. This is critical to avoid being placed on an email blacklist.
- Clear communication: Any call to action, especially for a meeting, must be complete and unambiguous, providing all necessary logistical details.
- Ethical considerations: The long-term impact on sender reputation outweighs any short-term gains from high-volume, low-quality outreach. Experts from Word to the Wise frequently discuss ethical sending practices for optimal deliverability.
Expert view
Expert from Email Geeks demonstrates a common, poorly executed cold email: a backlink request that claims to have enjoyed a post but then proposes adding a completely unrelated article, like a review of cell phone plans, implying a lack of genuine interest or research.
Expert view
Expert from Spam Resource highlights that effective cold emails are highly personalized, demonstrating a deep understanding of the recipient's business and challenges, moving beyond generic templates.
What the documentation says
Formal documentation and industry guidelines for email outreach consistently emphasize relevance, consent, and clear communication to avoid being classified as spam. These resources highlight that genuine targeting goes beyond simply finding an email address; it involves understanding the recipient's needs and offering a truly valuable proposition. Deviations from these principles, such as sending irrelevant content or unsolicited meeting invites, can lead to negative sender reputation and blocklisting, necessitating a deeper understanding of email authentication standards like DMARC and SPF.
Key findings
- Consent importance: Most documentation stresses the need for some form of consent or a legitimate interest basis for sending emails, differentiating targeted outreach from unsolicited bulk email.
- Relevance over volume: Guidelines consistently prioritize sending highly relevant content to a smaller, truly interested audience over blasting generic messages to a large, untargeted list.
- Clear identification: Documentation often requires clear sender identification and a legitimate reason for contact within the email itself, making it transparent for the recipient.
- Opt-out mechanisms: Legal and ethical frameworks mandate easy and clear ways for recipients to opt-out or unsubscribe from future communications, even in cold outreach scenarios.
Key considerations
- Compliance with regulations: Senders must be aware of and comply with anti-spam laws like CAN-SPAM, GDPR, and CASL, which govern unsolicited commercial email.
- Sender reputation management: Poorly targeted or high-volume cold emails can severely damage a sender's reputation, leading to lower inbox placement rates and potential blocklisting, emphasizing the need for tools like blocklist monitoring.
- Technical correctness: Ensuring proper email authentication (SPF, DKIM, DMARC) is foundational for all email sending, including cold outreach, to build trust with receiving mail servers.
- Content quality: The content itself should be high-quality, free of misleading claims, and genuinely valuable to the recipient, rather than being perceived as thinly veiled spam. Criminally Prolific provides guidance.
Technical article
Documentation from CXL outlines that cold emails, when properly executed, can be a legitimate outreach strategy. However, they must avoid the hallmarks of spam, such as mass, untargeted sending and deceptive practices, to ensure deliverability.
Technical article
Documentation from Email Analytics defines cold emailing as sending messages to prospects or individuals never met before. The success hinges on making these unsolicited messages relevant and valuable to overcome the initial 'cold' barrier.
Related resources
15 resources
Related pages
Why are my cold emails going to spam and how can I fix it?
What are the deliverability challenges and risks associated with sending cold emails?
Are cold outreach 'best practices' actually illegal spam tactics?
What are best practices for cold email outreach and its impact on deliverability?
What is an email blacklist and how does it work?
Why Your Emails Are Going to Spam in 2024 and How to Fix It
What are the risks and alternatives to cold email prospecting?
What are effective alternatives to cold email for reaching new customers and building a mailing list for small businesses?
