What are the risks and alternatives to cold email prospecting?

Key findings

• Spam classification: Unsolicited emails are inherently classified as spam by inbox providers. The very purpose of spam folders is to house such communications, making cold emails highly susceptible to being filtered away from the primary inbox. As noted by Word to the Wise, the spam folder is precisely for unsolicited email.
• Reputation damage: Engaging in cold email outreach, especially with shared infrastructure or the same domain as primary communications, can severely damage a sender's reputation. This damage can be difficult to recover from, particularly in the B2B context where filtering is strict. Find out more about the challenges and risks of cold email.
• Negative user experience: Cold emails can annoy potential customers, leading to negative perceptions of your brand. They often feel intrusive and unwelcome, contributing to low engagement and high complaint rates. This can also lead to emails going to spam.
• Legal and compliance risks: Depending on the jurisdiction, cold emailing without explicit consent can lead to legal issues and non-compliance with regulations like GDPR or CAN-SPAM. Scraping emails and ignoring these regulations can have severe consequences.

Key considerations

• Domain isolation: If cold outreach is attempted, it should be conducted using entirely separate domains and infrastructure from your main transactional and marketing email programs. This minimizes the risk of tainting your primary sender reputation.
• Focus on permission: Prioritize building an opted-in email list through inbound marketing strategies, content marketing, and legitimate lead generation. Permission-based marketing leads to higher engagement and better deliverability.
• Value proposition: For any outreach, ensure there is significant value for the prospect. Research and personalization can improve the chances of getting attention, but genuine permission remains paramount for long-term success.
• Alternative strategies: Explore alternatives such as content marketing, SEO, social selling, and networking to generate leads. These methods build trust and interest over time, leading to more qualified and receptive prospects.

Key opinions

• ESPs should know better: Some marketers, particularly those working for Email Service Providers (ESPs), express dismay when their own marketing teams consider cold prospecting. They feel that as industry insiders, they should inherently understand the detrimental impact of such practices, especially since these practices could lead to client account cancellations.
• Scraping emails is common but harmful: Marketers frequently encounter 'cold email specialists' who promise unique methods but ultimately resort to scraping emails from the internet for lead generation. This practice is widely condemned for its negative impact on deliverability and compliance. Learn about the dangers of scraping emails.
• Content marketing as a superior alternative: Many marketers advocate for content marketing, including creating ebooks and improving SEO, as a more effective and sustainable lead generation strategy. This approach builds interest and trust, leading to inbound leads rather than intrusive outreach.
• Reputational cost is too high: The potential damage to a company's sending reputation and brand perception from aggressive cold emailing is often viewed as too great to justify the minimal returns. It's a risk that can undermine all other email marketing efforts. Find out how to improve domain reputation.

Key considerations

• Educate sales and marketing teams: It's crucial to proactively educate internal teams on the long-term consequences of non-permission based email practices. This includes explaining deliverability, reputation, and compliance issues.
• Implement inbound strategies: Shift focus and resources towards inbound lead generation activities. These not only generate higher quality leads but also ensure compliance and strong sender reputation.
• Monitor deliverability proactively: Even with permission-based sending, continuous monitoring of email deliverability metrics is essential. This helps in early detection of potential issues before they escalate.
• Acknowledge industry shifts: The landscape of email marketing and lead generation is constantly evolving. Marketers need to stay informed about changing ISP policies and best practices that favor legitimate, consented communication. You can refer to Twilio's guide on cold email marketing for further insights.

Key opinions

• Filters work as intended: Experts highlight that emails going to spam or being blocked when engaged in cold outreach is not a system failure but filters working exactly as intended. The primary reason for this is typically a lack of permission from the recipient. This fundamental understanding is critical for anyone in deliverability.
• Risk to main mail programs: A major concern articulated by experts is that even minimal cold outreach using shared content or infrastructure with primary mail programs can severely tank transactional or marketing mail deliverability. This damage can be very difficult to recover from, particularly given the strict nature of B2B filtering.
• Deceptive practices are ineffective: Experts express strong opinions against deceptive and unsolicited B2B emails, stating clearly that such attempts to 'fool' filters or recipients are largely ineffective and contribute to the problem of unwanted mail. They've seen too many deceptive messages to be swayed.
• Industry 'horror stories': Seasoned professionals often have firsthand accounts of severe deliverability issues and business consequences arising from persistent cold emailing. These stories serve as stark warnings about the real-world impact of ignoring best practices.

Key considerations

• Adhere to permission-based sending: The foundational principle for good deliverability, as reiterated by experts, is sending only to recipients who have explicitly opted in. This prevents emails from being classified as spam from the outset.
• Isolate cold outreach infrastructure: If any form of cold outreach is deemed necessary, it must be conducted on entirely separate domains, IP addresses, and email platforms to prevent cross-contamination of sender reputation with legitimate email programs. This protects your core business communications. Understand the risks of using the same sending domain on multiple platforms.
• Understand filter logic: Instead of trying to 'beat' filters, understand their purpose and design. Filters are in place to protect users from unwanted mail, and any strategy that goes against this will likely fail. Consider how email blacklists work.
• Address internal knowledge gaps: Recognize that lack of knowledge about email deliverability within an organization can lead to poor decisions. Proactive education and clear communication of best practices are essential to prevent deliverability crises. An article from Word to the Wise discusses filters working as intended.

Key findings

• Consent is paramount: Most email marketing and privacy regulations, such as CAN-SPAM in the US and GDPR in Europe, require explicit consent for commercial email communication. Cold emailing fundamentally bypasses this requirement, making it non-compliant and risky. This is a core part of getting messages to the inbox.
• Reputation is algorithmically enforced: Email Service Providers (ESPs) and Inbox Service Providers (ISPs) use complex algorithms to assess sender reputation based on engagement, complaints, spam trap hits, and authentication. Cold emailing negatively impacts these metrics, leading to automated filtering and blocklisting. Understanding what happens when your domain is blocklisted is key.
• Technical standards discourage unsolicited mail: Protocols like DMARC, SPF, and DKIM are designed to verify sender identity and prevent spoofing, but they don't solve the core issue of unsolicited mail. Even with perfect authentication, low engagement and high complaints from cold outreach will trigger spam filters.
• Spam traps are designed to catch non-permission senders: ISPs deploy spam traps, which are email addresses specifically designed to catch senders who use harvested or old lists. Hitting these traps immediately flags a sender as a spammer, leading to severe penalties like blacklisting. More on how spam traps work.

Key considerations

• Adhere to legal frameworks: Ensure all email practices comply with relevant anti-spam laws and privacy regulations in target regions. This protects against legal penalties and enhances overall deliverability by fostering trust.
• Prioritize list hygiene: Regularly clean email lists to remove inactive, invalid, or unengaged subscribers. This reduces bounces and spam trap hits, which are common issues with cold lists.
• Monitor feedback loops: Utilize ISP feedback loops to promptly identify and remove users who mark your emails as spam. High complaint rates are a strong indicator of low sender reputation and can lead to rapid blocking.
• Embrace engagement metrics: Focus on strategies that naturally generate high open and click-through rates. ISPs use these positive engagement signals to determine inbox placement, favoring senders whose emails are actively desired by recipients. UTM.io provides insights into cold email link tracking.