How to Write Cold Email That Actually Gets Replies

Most Cold Emails Fail Before They're Even Read

Here's the uncomfortable truth: the average cold email reply rate sits between 1% and 5% across most campaigns. That's not because cold email is dead. It's because most people are writing emails that sound like everyone else's emails. Generic openers. Vague value props. A call-to-action that asks for too much too soon.

I've personally helped over 14,000 agencies and entrepreneurs book more than 500,000 sales meetings using cold email. The gap between a 2% reply rate and a 15-20% reply rate isn't luck - it's structure. Once you understand the framework, you can write a cold email in 10 minutes that outperforms something someone else spent an hour agonizing over.

And here's what the data confirms: top-performing campaigns regularly exceed 10% reply rates when targeting is tight, personalization is real, and infrastructure is clean. The average is dragged down by people ignoring the fundamentals. You don't have to be one of them.

Let's get into it.

Step 1: Start With the Right List

The best-written email in the world fails if it lands in the wrong inbox. Before you type a single word, you need a list of real, verified contacts who actually match your ICP (ideal customer profile).

Most people skip this step or do it sloppily. They scrape a LinkedIn search, export 500 names, and blast away. Then they wonder why nobody responds - and half the emails bounce.

Data quality matters more than most people realize. Campaigns sent to verified email lists achieve roughly twice the reply rate of unverified lists - and five to six times the reply rate of purchased lists. That math alone should tell you where to invest your time.

Build your list first. Filter by job title, company size, industry, and seniority. If you're going after marketing directors at SaaS companies with 50-200 employees, you want exactly that - not a loose approximation. A tight list beats a big list every time.

For building that list from scratch, I use ScraperCity's B2B lead database - it lets me filter by title, seniority, location, industry, and company size so I'm only paying attention to people who actually fit. Once you have names, run them through an email finder like Findymail to get verified addresses, and clean the list with a dedicated email validator before you send anything. Bounce rates above 2% start damaging your sender reputation - and once that reputation erodes, even your best emails stop reaching inboxes.

One more thing: think carefully about who you're targeting. C-level executives actually reply at higher rates than many people expect - research shows they respond about 23% more often than non-C-suite employees. The assumption that senior people are unreachable is wrong. They're just more selective. Write something worth reading and they'll respond.

Step 2: Nail the Subject Line

The subject line has one job: get the email opened. It's not a headline. It's not a hook. It's a doorknob - your prospect either turns it or they don't.

Here's what the data says about subject line length: aim for under 50 characters. Mobile devices - where a growing share of B2B emails are first opened - display somewhere between 33 and 43 characters before truncating. If your key message gets cut off, you've already lost. Keep it tight, put the most important words first, and don't save the hook for the end.

Here's what works in practice:

• Short and specific. "Question about [Company]" still outperforms most clever subject lines. Under 7 words when possible.
• Reference something real. If you saw their podcast, noticed they raised a round, or recognized they just launched a product - say so. "Heard your episode on SaaStr" beats "Grow Your Business Today" by a mile.
• Use questions strategically. Question-based subject lines can generate strong open rates because they create a curiosity gap. "Struggling with [specific problem]?" is more compelling than "We can help you with [specific problem]."
• Avoid spam triggers. Words like "FREE," "guaranteed," "limited time," and excessive punctuation (!!!) train filters to kill your email before it arrives.
• Don't oversell in the subject. Your subject line's only job is to get the open. Let the email body do the rest.

I've tested hundreds of subject line variations. The ones that consistently win feel like they could come from a real person who actually looked at the prospect's company - because they did.

One pattern worth noting: personalized subject lines (using the prospect's name or company) can significantly boost open rates versus non-personalized versions. It's not a magic bullet, but when everything else is equal, specificity wins.

Want a ready-made list? I put together a full breakdown of proven openers in my Cold Email Subject Lines guide - grab it free.

Step 3: Master the Preview Text

Here's something almost nobody talks about: the preview text. That snippet of copy that appears right after your subject line in the inbox preview pane. On mobile, it's often as important as the subject line itself - sometimes more so.

When a prospect scans their inbox, they see three things: the sender name, the subject line, and the first line of the email body (the preview text). All three have to work together. If your subject line earns curiosity and your preview text immediately looks like a template, you lose the open before you ever get it.

This is why your opening line matters so much beyond just the email itself. Write your first sentence as if it's going to be judged before the email is even opened - because it is.

Bad preview text: "I hope this email finds you well. My name is Alex and I wanted to reach out because..."

Good preview text: "Noticed [Company] is running Google Ads to a homepage with no clear CTA - that usually kills conversion rates on..."

The second version earns the open because it's immediately specific and signals that this email was written for them, not blasted at a list.

Step 4: The One-Two-Three Email Structure

Here's the framework I use for nearly every cold email. Simple. Repeatable. Effective.

Line 1: A Relevant Observation

Open with something that shows you actually looked at this person's business. Not a compliment. Not "I hope this email finds you well." An observation - something specific to them.

Examples:

• "I noticed you're running Google Ads to a homepage with no clear CTA."
• "Saw you just launched a new service page - congrats."
• "Your agency is showing up on page 2 for [keyword] - you're close."

One sentence. Specific. No fluff.

Why does this work? Because 71% of decision-makers cite irrelevance as the top reason they don't respond to cold emails. If your first sentence proves you actually know something about their situation, you've already cleared the biggest hurdle.

Line 2: What You Do and Why It's Relevant

Now you earn the right to introduce yourself - but only in the context of what you noticed. This isn't a pitch. It's a connection.

"I help agencies like yours turn that ad spend into booked calls through better landing page sequencing."

That's it. One sentence. Don't list your services. Don't explain your process. Just connect what you do to the problem you just named.

Research consistently shows that emails between 50 and 125 words perform best - they're concise enough to be scanned quickly but substantive enough to communicate a clear value proposition. Your two-line intro should live comfortably in that range alongside a brief observation and CTA.

Line 3: A Low-Friction CTA

This is where most people blow it. They ask for a 45-minute call, a demo, a proposal review, or they attach a case study PDF. That's too much too soon.

Ask for permission, not a commitment:

• "Would it make sense to connect?"
• "Open to a 10-minute call this week?"
• "Worth a quick chat?"

Short. Easy to say yes to. No pressure.

One thing worth noting: data from Reply.io shows that emails with no questions at all actually scored the highest reply rate in some datasets. The reason? Too many questions feel like a quiz. One strong, simple CTA beats a list of options every time. Pick one ask and make it easy.

That's the full structure: Observation - Relevance - Low-friction ask. Three lines. One goal: get a reply.

Step 5: Email Length and Formatting That Gets Read

People are busy. They scan. They skim. If your email looks like a wall of text, it gets deleted before the first sentence lands.

Here are the formatting rules I follow without exception:

• Keep it under 150 words for a first touch. Research from multiple sources points to emails under 200 words outperforming longer versions. The sweet spot for top reply rates is often 50 to 125 words.
• One paragraph per idea. If you have three things to say, that's three short paragraphs - not one block of text.
• No attachments on cold emails. Attachments tank deliverability and reply rates. Emails without attachments or graphics get nearly twice the reply rate. If you have a case study, link to it - don't attach it.
• No images or HTML formatting. Plain text looks like a human wrote it. HTML templates look like marketing. For cold outreach, you want to look like a human.
• Mobile-first thinking. A large share of initial email opens now happen on mobile devices. Write every email as if it's going to be read on a phone screen. Short sentences. Line breaks. Easy to scan.

The 6-to-8 sentence sweet spot consistently shows up in the data as well - emails in that range have been shown to generate the strongest combination of open rate and reply rate. That maps almost exactly to the three-line structure described above, plus a brief sign-off.

Step 6: Personalization That Doesn't Take Forever

Real personalization is not mail merge. Swapping in {{first_name}} and {{company}} isn't personalization - every spam email in the world does that. What actually moves the needle is demonstrating genuine context.

You don't need to hand-write every email. You need a system. Here's how I think about it:

• Tier 1 (top 10% of prospects): Fully custom first line. Reference their content, their company news, their LinkedIn post. Takes 2-3 minutes per email. Worth it for dream clients.
• Tier 2 (next 40%): Semi-personalized. Customize by industry vertical or company type. "I work with a lot of [industry] agencies who are dealing with [common problem]." Faster, still relevant.
• Tier 3 (volume plays): Highly targeted segment with a shared pain point. The opener is personalized to the segment, not the individual. Less reply rate, but scales.

Why does this matter so much? Personalized emails see roughly 32% higher response rates than generic ones. And subject lines tailored to the recipient can boost open rates by 50% or more. Those are not marginal gains - that's the difference between a dead campaign and a live pipeline.

Tools like Clay make Tier 1 and Tier 2 personalization scalable - you can pull in data points from LinkedIn, company websites, and enrichment sources and build custom first lines at volume without hiring a full-time researcher. I use it regularly for campaigns where the average deal size justifies the extra effort.

The underlying principle: the more your email shows you understand their specific situation, the more likely they are to respond. You're not just proving you did research - you're proving that you're worth talking to.

Step 7: When to Send Your Cold Emails

Most people never think about send timing. That's a mistake. Timing alone can shift open rates by 20-30% - without changing a single word of your email.

Here's what the data consistently shows across multiple large-scale studies:

Best days: Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. Mid-week is where cold email performs best. Monday comes with inbox backlog from the weekend. Friday is checkout mode. Stick to Tuesday through Thursday for the vast majority of your sends.

Of those, Thursday tends to generate the highest reply rates, while Tuesday often leads in open rates. Wednesday sits strong in the middle. The practical answer: spread your sends across all three and let your own data tell you what works for your specific audience.

Best times: 8-11 AM in the recipient's local timezone. B2B professionals check email early. Morning sends catch people before their day fills up with meetings. Some data also points to late evening (8-11 PM) as an underrated window - inboxes are quieter and people finally get to non-urgent messages. Worth testing if you're willing to experiment.

Avoid Mondays and Fridays for first-touch emails. Monday sends get buried. Friday sends get ignored. Unless you have data showing otherwise for your specific audience, treat these as low-priority send days.

One underrated tip: vary your send times across follow-up steps. Sending every email in a sequence at the same day and hour creates a pattern that reduces engagement over time. Mix it up: Tuesday morning, Thursday afternoon, Monday mid-morning. This variation keeps your emails from becoming predictable.

Also: always send in the prospect's local timezone, not yours. A tool like Smartlead handles this automatically when you have timezone data attached to your contacts.

Step 8: Follow-Up Is Where the Money Is

Sending one email and waiting is not a cold email strategy. Most replies come from follow-up sequences - typically emails two through five. The first email plants the seed. The follow-ups harvest it.

Here's what a solid follow-up sequence looks like:

• Email 2 (Day 3): A short bump. "Just wanted to make sure this didn't get buried." Add one new piece of value - a case study, a relevant article, a quick stat.
• Email 3 (Day 7): Try a different angle. If you led with ROI in email 1, try a pain-based frame in email 3.
• Email 4 (Day 14): The "last touch." Make it easy to respond with a simple yes/no. "Is this something worth exploring at all? A no is totally fine."

The last touch email often has the highest reply rate of the sequence - because people finally respond to close the loop.

A few things to keep in mind about follow-ups:

Each follow-up should add something new - a new angle, a new data point, a new piece of proof. Sending the same email twice with a "just following up" subject line is lazy and gets you ignored. Treat each follow-up as its own email with its own reason to exist.

Also, don't confuse activity with strategy. The goal isn't to send as many emails as possible. It's to stay in front of the right people with the right message until they're ready to respond - or until it's clear they're never going to.

Grab my full follow-up templates at this free resource page - I've included the exact sequences I use for different verticals.

Step 9: Types of Cold Emails and When to Use Each

Not every cold email has the same goal. Understanding which type of email to send - and when - is part of what separates professionals from people who blast the same template at everyone.

The Observation-Based Email

This is the framework covered in Step 4. Best for B2B sales where you've done at least minimal research on the prospect's business. Works well for agencies, consultants, and anyone selling to identified accounts.

The Referral-Based Email

Uses a mutual connection as a warm introduction point, even if the connection was passive. "[Mutual contact] mentioned you might be dealing with X" or "I saw you were both at [event] last month." These have higher open rates because the name in the subject line or first line triggers recognition.

The Case Study Email

Lead with a result, not an offer. "We helped a 12-person agency add $40K/month in 90 days - they were dealing with the same lead gen problem most agencies face." Best for later in a sequence when you need to add credibility, or as a second touch after the initial observation-based email.

The Breakup Email

The final touch in a sequence. Short, low-pressure, easy to respond to. "I've sent a few notes and haven't heard back - totally understand if the timing's off. Should I close your file?" This often generates the highest reply rate of any email in the sequence because it gives people a clear reason to respond - even if the answer is no.

The Trigger-Based Email

This is the highest-performing cold email type when you can pull it off. Something happens with the prospect's company - a funding round, a job posting, a new product launch, a news mention - and you use that as your hook. "Saw [Company] just raised a Series A - congrats. Most companies at your stage start dealing with [problem] around this point." High relevance, high reply rates, but requires real-time signals.

Timeline-based hooks like these - ones that reference specific events or milestones in the prospect's world - have been shown to outperform generic problem-statement approaches by a significant margin in controlled studies. When you can tie your outreach to something that's actually happening in their world right now, everything gets easier.

Step 10: Sending Infrastructure Matters More Than You Think

You can write the perfect email and still land in spam if your sending infrastructure is broken. Here's the non-negotiable setup checklist:

• Warm up new domains before sending. Never send cold email from a brand-new domain. Warm it up for 2-4 weeks first.
• Use secondary domains. Protect your primary domain. Send from variations like getcompany.com, trycompany.com, or hicompany.com.
• SPF, DKIM, and DMARC - all three. Non-negotiable. If any of these aren't set up, your emails will get flagged or blocked.
• Cap daily send volume per mailbox. Stay under 30-50 emails per mailbox per day when you're starting out. Ramp slowly.
• Keep bounce rates under 2%. Bounces above 2% start damaging your sender reputation fast. A sustained bounce rate above 5% is actively destroying your deliverability on every future send - even to good addresses.
• Send consistently, not in spikes. Sending 500 emails Monday, nothing Tuesday through Thursday, then 1,000 Friday looks suspicious to email providers. Set daily send limits and keep volume predictable.

For sending at scale, I recommend Smartlead or Instantly - both handle multi-inbox rotation, warmup, and sequence management well. For managing replies and pipeline, Close CRM is what I use to track everything in one place.

One more thing that most guides gloss over: spam complaint rates. Keep your complaint rate well below 0.3%. This is increasingly enforced by major inbox providers. If your list is generating complaints, the problem isn't your copy - it's your targeting. You're reaching people who have no reason to care about what you're selling.

Step 11: Measure and Iterate

If you're not measuring, you're guessing. Track these four numbers:

• Open rate - tells you if your subject line and sender name are working. Note: Apple Mail Privacy Protection has made open rate tracking less reliable for some senders. Treat it as directional, not precise.
• Reply rate - the only metric that actually matters. A good reply rate is anything above 5%; hitting 10% or more on a well-targeted list is excellent.
• Positive reply rate - of all replies, how many are interested vs. unsubscribes or "not interested"? This tells you if your targeting and offer are aligned.
• Meeting booked rate - your ultimate conversion metric from cold email to calendar.

When something isn't working, change one variable at a time. Subject line, first line, CTA - test them in isolation so you actually know what moved the needle.

A useful exercise: run a quick math check on your own funnel. If you want two new clients per month and your close rate is 25%, you need 8 meetings. If 50% of positive replies book, you need 16 positive replies. If 30% of replies are positive, you need roughly 53 replies. If your reply rate is 5%, you need to send about 1,060 emails per month. That math tells you exactly how much activity you need - and where in the funnel you should be optimizing.

Step 12: How to Write Cold Emails for Different Niches

The framework above applies across niches, but the angle you take has to fit the audience. Here's how I think about adapting cold email copy for common scenarios.

Cold Email for Agencies Pitching Other Businesses

Lead with outcomes, not services. Nobody cares that you offer "full-service digital marketing." They care about lead generation, revenue, or specific problems you've solved for similar companies. Use a social proof opener: "We helped a [similar company type] book 30 new demos in 60 days using [specific tactic]." Then connect it to a problem they're likely dealing with right now.

Cold Email for SaaS Companies

SaaS-to-SaaS is one of the most competitive cold email verticals. Your prospects are being bombarded. The answer isn't to send more emails - it's to get more specific. Use trigger signals: hiring patterns, tech stack changes, funding, or product launches. If someone just posted five engineering roles, they're scaling. If they just raised a Series B, they're about to build a sales team. Those are your entry points.

For technographic targeting - finding companies by the software they use - a BuiltWith scraper can help you identify prospects using specific tools, so you can craft email copy that references their exact tech stack.

Cold Email for Local Business Services

Local service businesses (restaurants, contractors, real estate agents, medical practices) respond well to hyper-local specificity. Mention their city, their neighborhood, a review you actually read, or something visible on their website. If you're prospecting local businesses at scale, a Google Maps scraper gives you business name, category, location, and often contact info to start building your list.

Cold Email for Recruiting and Talent

Recruiting emails see among the highest cold email reply rates of any category - because the recipient has direct personal upside. Your hook isn't about your company, it's about their career. Be specific about the role, the company, and why you thought of them. Vague recruiter outreach is the most common cold email in existence - specificity is what makes you stand out.

Cold Email for Ecommerce Prospecting

If you're selling to ecommerce store owners - whether you're offering an agency service, a SaaS tool, or a partnership - context about their specific store goes a long way. Reference their product categories, their Shopify vs. WooCommerce setup, or their apparent ad strategy. For building ecommerce prospect lists, a store leads scraper can pull store data filtered by platform, category, and revenue indicators.

Common Cold Email Mistakes to Stop Making Now

• Starting with "I." "I am the CEO of XYZ..." Nobody cares yet. Lead with them, not you.
• Paragraphs instead of sentences. Wall-of-text emails get skimmed and deleted. Keep it punchy.
• Vague value props. "We help companies grow" means nothing. "We helped a 12-person agency add $40K/month in new revenue in 90 days" means something.
• Asking for too much too soon. A 30-minute demo request from a stranger has a near-zero conversion rate. Ask for a yes/no reply first.
• Sending from a cold domain. See infrastructure section above. Don't skip it.
• Using HTML templates. Fancy email templates with logos, banners, and formatted columns look like marketing. Plain text looks like a human. For cold outreach, be a human.
• Sending to unverified lists. Every bounce hurts your future deliverability. Verify before you send. Every time.
• The "just checking in" follow-up. This is not a follow-up strategy. It adds no value, signals laziness, and gets deleted. Every follow-up needs a reason to exist.
• Giving up after one email. Most replies come from follow-ups two through five. One email is a coin flip. A sequence is a strategy.

What Great Cold Email Actually Looks Like

Here's a real example of the structure in action:

Subject: Question about [Company]'s lead gen

Hey [First Name],

Noticed [Company] is running paid ads but sending traffic to a general homepage - that usually kills conversion rates on colder audiences.

I help B2B service companies build outbound sequences that convert cold traffic into booked calls without depending on ad spend.

Would it make sense to connect?

- Alex

Short. Specific. Relevant. Easy to respond to. That's the whole game.

Now here's what a follow-up sequence looks like in practice:

Day 3 - Email 2:

Hey [First Name] - just bumping this up. We ran a similar campaign for a [industry] agency last quarter and they went from 3 meetings per month to 22. Happy to share how if it's relevant.

Day 7 - Email 3:

Different angle: most agencies I talk to aren't struggling with traffic - they're struggling with converting it. Is that part of the picture here?

Day 14 - Email 4 (breakup):

I've sent a few notes and haven't heard back - totally understand if the timing's off. Worth keeping your file open, or should I check back in a few months?

That's a complete four-touch sequence. Each email adds something new. Each one is easy to respond to. And the breakup email often generates more replies than the first touch - because it removes the pressure and gives people a simple binary choice.

If you want more examples like this, I've compiled my best-performing scripts in the Top 5 Cold Email Scripts resource - free download, no opt-in required. And for more templates across different niches, check out the full Killer Cold Emails template pack. For brand new scripts I'm testing right now, grab the New Email Scripts Pack as well.

Cold Email Deliverability: The Foundation Everything Else Sits On

Everything in this guide falls apart if your emails aren't reaching inboxes. Deliverability isn't glamorous, but it's non-negotiable. Here's the quick-reference checklist:

Domain Setup

• Buy secondary domains for cold outreach (never use your primary domain)
• Set up SPF, DKIM, and DMARC on every sending domain
• Warm up new domains for at least 2-4 weeks before sending cold email at volume
• Use subdomains if you want to keep outreach separated from transactional mail

List Hygiene

• Verify every email address before it enters your sequence
• Monitor bounce rates - above 2% is a warning sign
• Remove unsubscribes and hard bounces immediately
• Never use purchased lists - the bounce rates and spam complaint rates will wreck your sender reputation

Sending Behavior

• Cap daily sends per inbox (30-50 per mailbox while you're ramping)
• Send at consistent, predictable volume - no spikes
• Use inbox rotation across multiple sending accounts when scaling
• Vary send times across your sequence steps

Content Signals

• Plain text outperforms HTML for cold email
• No attachments on first-touch emails
• Minimize links (one max, and not on the first email if possible)
• Avoid spam trigger words in subject lines and body copy

The tools I rely on for infrastructure: Smartlead for multi-inbox sequencing and warmup, Instantly as an alternative with solid warmup features, and an email validator to clean every list before it touches a sequence.

Scaling Cold Email: What Changes When You Go From 50 to 5,000 Emails Per Month

Writing one great cold email is a skill. Running a cold email system that generates consistent meetings month after month is a different challenge. Here's what changes at scale.

You Need More Sending Infrastructure

At 50 emails per day, one inbox is fine. At 500 per day, you need 10-15 inboxes across multiple secondary domains. This is table stakes for anyone running outbound seriously. Tools like Smartlead handle inbox rotation automatically - you build one campaign, and it distributes sends across all your mailboxes.

Personalization Has to Be Systematized

You can't hand-write 5,000 first lines. You need a system. The tier-based personalization framework from Step 6 scales well: use Clay or similar enrichment tools to pull data points automatically, write templated first lines by segment, and reserve full custom lines for your top target accounts only.

List Building Has to Be Continuous

At volume, you burn through lists fast. You need a repeatable process for building fresh, verified prospect lists on a regular cadence. Depending on your niche, that might mean pulling regularly from a B2B email database filtered to your ICP, scraping new leads from directories or platforms, or enriching inbound signals with contact data via a tool like an email finder.

Tracking Has to Be Systematic

At scale, you're running multiple campaigns, testing multiple angles, and working multiple segments simultaneously. You need a CRM to track replies, categorize outcomes, and move interested prospects into the right pipeline stage. Close CRM is purpose-built for exactly this - it's what I use to manage the full outbound pipeline, from first touch to closed deal.

Testing Has to Be Disciplined

At small volume, you can test informally. At scale, you need a structured testing process: one variable changed at a time, a fixed sample size per variant, and a clear threshold for what constitutes a winner. Most people test too many things at once and can't attribute results to any single change. Keep it simple: pick one thing to test per campaign cycle, run it long enough to be statistically meaningful, and document what you learn.

The Bottom Line

Writing cold email that gets replies isn't about being clever. It's about being relevant, being concise, and making it easy for a busy person to say yes. Get your list right, lead with an observation, make a clear connection to what you do, and ask for something small. Then follow up. Then measure. Then improve.

The framework in this guide isn't theory. It's built from writing thousands of cold emails, running hundreds of campaigns, and helping over 14,000 agencies and entrepreneurs book meetings with cold outreach. The people who execute on this consistently are the ones booking 20, 30, 50 meetings a month from cold email alone - not because they got lucky, but because they treated it like a skill worth refining.

Start with the fundamentals above. Get your infrastructure right. Build a tight list. Write a real observation. Keep the email short. Follow up. Measure what matters.

If you want to go deeper and work through this with live feedback, I cover advanced sequencing, offer positioning, and scaling cold outbound inside Galadon Gold. Otherwise, the framework above is everything you need to start getting replies. Go send some emails.