Cold mailing: The Complete Guide to getting started (2024)

Cold mailing is one of the most effective marketing methods for generating leads and converting them into customers. When you're new to cold mailing, you may be a little lost in the various steps involved in creating and managing your campaigns. In this guide, we tell you absolutely everything about creating and sending your first cold mailing campaign from A to Z.

No need to scroll for hours in search of all the information you need. By the end of this guide, you'll have everything you need to create a successful cold mailing campaign. All that's left is to launch it on Emelia. Let's get started! 🙂

Cold mailing is a widely used sales prospecting technique for contacting prospects or potential customers who have had no prior contact with your company. It's a direct marketing tool that, if mastered, can generate leads and generate growth for your company.

The main principles of cold mailing

Successful cold mailing is based on several key principles. First of all, it's crucial to target the right people. There's no point in sending e-mails to individuals or companies who have no interest in your product or service. It's therefore important to carry out thorough research to identify the most relevant prospects.

Another fundamental aspect of cold mailing is personalization. Generic e-mails that don't address the recipient directly are less likely to receive a response. Instead, personalize each e-mail by using the recipient's name, referring to specific information about their company, their industry, their background based on what you know about them, and showing how your product or service can solve a problem they're facing.

Last but not least, cold mailing must be rigorously tracked against your objectives. This means tracking your e-mails, analyzing the responses you receive and adapting your approach according to the results you achieve, in test & learn mode. You can use e-mail tracking tools to monitor open rates, click-through rates and response rates within your e-mail tool like Emelia or outside.

We'll look at all this in detail in the rest of this guide.

The context of cold email

Cold mailing is often used in the context of B2B (Business to Business) prospecting, where companies seek to establish business relationships with other companies. It's a strategy particularly appreciated by industries with long sales cycles and complex purchasing decisions, such as technology, manufacturing and professional services.

The profitability of cold email compared with advertising campaigns

Cold mailing offers a significant cost-benefit advantage over traditional advertising campaigns. The costs involved in sending e-mails are generally much lower than those associated with creating and distributing advertisements, resulting in a higher return on investment.

Cold mailing also offers greater scope for personalization, enabling a more direct and personal link to be established with prospects. In contrast, advertising campaigns are often perceived as impersonal and can be costly, especially if they are broadcast on a large scale without precise targeting.

Finally, cold mailing enables more precise performance monitoring, with metrics such as open rate and response rate, enabling constant adjustment and optimization of the strategy.

In short, both advertising and e-mail are the quickest solutions for acquiring customers quickly. E-mail remains the most affordable and cost-effective.

Cold email: a faster way to get results than SEO

One of the greatest strengths of cold email is its ability to generate results more quickly than search engine optimization (SEO). Indeed, whereas SEO is a long-term strategy requiring patience and sustained effort to start seeing results, cold mailing can offer almost instantaneous results. As soon as the e-mail is sent, the recipient has the opportunity to open it, read your message and potentially take action. This can mean faster contact, immediate business opportunities or direct responses to your proposals.

That's not to say that SEO isn't important, as it ensures a lasting and credible presence on the Internet, but if you're looking for quick results to boost your business in the short term, cold mailing is an excellent choice.

So yes, both SEO and e-mail are the least expensive strategies, and the returns can be significant. But if you want to get started, e-mail will bring you customers directly.

Cold email: a simpler, more scalable approach than LinkedIn prospecting

While prospecting on LinkedIn can be an effective technique for generating leads, it can also be laborious and difficult to scale. With LinkedIn, prospecting is often manual, and the process of sending direct messages can be time-consuming, with no guarantee of response or engagement. Moreover, LinkedIn imposes limits on the number of connections and messages you can send, thus limiting the scope of your prospecting efforts.

Cold mailing, on the other hand, has a number of advantages that make it simpler and more scalable. Firstly, with e-mail automation tools like Emelia, you can send a large number of personalized e-mails with a single click, saving a lot of time and effort. And, you're not limited by restrictions on the number of e-mails you can send (it's unlimited with us), enabling you to reach a wider audience. Finally, cold email enables you to reach prospects beyond the boundaries of LinkedIn, which can be particularly beneficial if your target is not active or present on this platform. In short, cold mailing offers a flexibility and scalability that LinkedIn prospecting can't match.

You can, however, combine the two approaches to vary contact points and create a relationship with the hottest prospects.

On our side, we use Linkedin to automate the sending of messages to contacts whose e-mail addresses we haven't found. In the list of prospects you're going to retrieve via LinkedIn, for some contacts it won't be possible to retrieve the e-mail address. In this case, why not use LinkedIn to avoid missing out on potential customers by using tools such as LinkedHelper.

Launching a cold email campaign may seem daunting, but in reality it's a well-structured process that can be broken down into several key steps. Following these steps will not only help you organize your efforts, but also maximize the effectiveness of your campaign. Whether it's defining your target audience, creating a compelling message or measuring your results, each step plays an essential role in ensuring the success of your cold email campaign.

In the remainder of this article, we'll take a look at each of these steps to help you launch your first cold email campaign with confidence and efficiency.

Using LinkedIn Sales Navigator to build your prospect list

One of the most crucial steps in preparing your cold email campaign is building your prospect list. Today, one of the most widely used methods for gathering the data you need to create this list is to use LinkedIn Sales Navigator. This premium LinkedIn tool offers a wealth of valuable information on millions of companies and professionals worldwide. Thanks to its advanced search filters, you can target precisely the individuals or companies that match your ideal clientele. Whether you want to target by industry, company size, job title or seniority, LinkedIn Sales Navigator lets you create a tailor-made list of prospects. It's a powerful and essential tool for retrieving your prospects' data and getting your cold email campaign off to a good start.

How do I do this?

• Use advanced search filters: you have access to dozens of criteria (company, sector, seniority, fundraising, years of experience...). These filters will enable you to personalize your e-mails and create effective ice-breakers.

• Create a list of prospects by recording your search and naming your list. Tip: find a nomenclature with a defined structure to help you find your way around your lists. To access your lists later, simply click on the "Lead lists" tab.

• Export your list to a CSV file: using Emelia you can extract all the contacts from your Sales Navigator lead list, along with all the information from LinkedIn for each contact.

Thanks to Phantombuster's scrapping software, you can also retrieve people who have liked or commented on a LinkedIn publication. This can be interesting if you're targeting publications related to your theme or your competitor's publications.

A little hack: You can also create a profile and declare that you work for your competitor's company, thus adding the company's page to your profile in the experience section. Once you've done this (no verification is done), you'll have access via LinkedIn Sales Navigator to all the subscribers on the company page, and can extract them via Emelia

Use Google Maps to build your prospect list

Google Maps is another valuable source of information for building your prospect list. In fact, Google's mapping tool lists millions of businesses worldwide, often accompanied by contact details and relevant information.

To extract this data, you can use specific "scraping" tools like Scrap.io. These automated software programs scan Google Maps, extracting useful information: company name, address, telephone number, and sometimes even e-mail address. All you have to do is define your search criteria (type of business, location...) and the tool does the rest. Scraping Google Maps is therefore a very effective way of building up a list of prospects quickly, especially if you're targeting local businesses. However, make sure you respect data protection rules and use this information within the framework of current regulations.

You can use Places API, for example, which is aimed primarily at developers. If you're not comfortable with code, you can use the Webscraper extension, for example. However, this extension has trouble handling complex web pages. Finally, there's also Octoparse, which is accessible and free.

Building a prospecting file from directory websites

Another method for building your prospecting file is to directory websites. These directories are goldmines of information on companies in specific fields of activity. For example, you can use wedding photographer director to capture all the wedding photographers and their profile pages.

To collect this data, you can use web browser extensions dedicated to data scraping, such as Data Miner or Web Scraper, or the Scrapbox tool, which is an all-in-one software solution for web scraping. Simply enter the URL of the directory in question into the tool, and define the data you wish to extract (company name, contact, e-mail address, etc.). These tools will then browse the directory pages and collect the information for you. This enables you to build up a relevant, targeted list of prospects in no time.

Now that you've built up a list of prospects using various scraping methods, it's time to enrich this data to optimize your cold mailing campaign. Scrap data enrichment involves adding relevant additional information (e-mail, telephone, company website...) to improve the personalization and relevance of your e-mails.

Enrichment following extraction via LinkedIn

If you've extracted data via LinkedIn, tools such as Emelia can be a great help in enriching your data. These tools analyze LinkedIn profiles or your CSV files for additional information, such as professional e-mail addresses, telephone numbers or links to other social profiles. This enables you to gain a better understanding of your prospects and tailor your messages accordingly. For example, you can (must 👀) use this information to personalize the subject of your e-mails, or to mention common connection points in the body of your messages.

Enrichment following extraction via Google Maps or other directories

When you use Google Maps or other directories to build up your prospect list, data enrichment can be achieved through website crawling. By using crawling tools, you can automatically scan the websites of the companies you're targeting and extract additional information. This can include information such as the names of company executives, contact e-mail addresses, or details of the products or services they offer. Again, this information can be used to personalize and optimize your prospecting e-mails.

Understanding and reducing the bounce rate in cold mailing

The bounce rate is a key indicator for cold mailing campaigns. It refers to the percentage of e-mails that could not be delivered to their recipient, either because the e-mail address is invalid, or because the recipient's inbox is full, among other reasons.

A high bounce rate can negatively affect the reputation of your domain, which in turn can affect the deliverability of your e-mails. To reduce this rate, there are several strategies you can adopt. Firstly, make sure your contact list is up to date and does not contain obsolete or incorrect e-mail addresses. This can be achieved through a regular process of cleaning up your list (taking unsubscribes into account, checking e-mails if the person changes company...).

Secondly, using e-mail verification tools can help you identify and eliminate invalid addresses before sending your e-mails. This is the case with Dropcontact, for example, but it's not 100% reliable. Finally, it's advisable to send e-mails in small batches, especially if you're using a new e-mail address or domain, to avoid being marked as spam. More on this later in the article.

By following these tips, you should be able to effectively reduce your bounce rate. You can also read this article.

At Emelia, our team has developed an exclusive feature called "Bounce Reducer" designed to minimize the bounce rate by automatically cleaning up your prospect list when it is imported into the tool. This tool is able to detect e-mail addresses that have previously generated a bounce across the entire Emelia platform. This method is far more reliable than any other verification tool, offering 100% reliability. This is because an e-mail has actually been sent, not simply pinged on the e-mail address.

When discussing cold email campaigns, a crucial and sometimes overlooked step is creating the email addresses that will be used to send your messages. This phase should not be taken lightly: a well-designed email address, suited to your campaign, can greatly influence the recipient's perception, and consequently the open rate of your emails. In this section, we will explore how to effectively create email addresses to optimize the impact of your cold email campaigns.

Should you use your own domain name or create a new one for cold mailing campaigns

One of the decisions to make when creating email addresses for a cold mailing campaign involves the choice of domain. Generally, two options are available to you. The first one is to use your existing domain, especially if it is already "warm", that is, it has a good reputation and deliverability. Using an established domain can boost the deliverability of your emails and increase the trust of recipients. However, you must be vigilant not to jeopardize the reputation of your main domain with poorly managed cold mailing campaigns.

If you are doing ultra-personalization and sending a few emails (20-40 per day), then yes, you can use your main domain.

The second option is to create a new domain specifically for your campaign. This can be an excellent option if you want to protect your main domain. For example, if your main domain is emelia.io, you might choose to use emelia.net, emelia.com, emelia.fr, or even variations like getemelia.io or tryemelia.io. These alternative extensions can help differentiate your cold mailing campaigns from your regular communications.

It may not be worth mentioning, but just in case 😬. Please do not prospect with @gmail. Firstly, it doesn't look professional. You risk being classified as spam or Google blocking your email. In addition, you won't be able to use personalized tracking (which we will explain a bit later) if you don't own a domain.

Why use multiple email addresses to scale your cold mailing campaigns?

The question of how many email boxes to use for prospecting is a key element of your cold mailing strategy. In most cases, starting with a single email box may suffice. This allows you to test your campaign, refine your message, and better understand your audience.

However, as your campaign grows and you seek to reach a larger number of prospects, increasing the number of email boxes can be a good idea. Indeed, each email provider has a daily limit for sending emails. For example, with Gmail, this limit is 500 emails per day for a standard account and 2000 for a business account. So, if you want to send several thousand emails per day, it would be wise to add more email boxes to your arsenal. Note that these are technical limits that should not be reached. Consider that you can send a maximum of 100 to 200 emails per day per mailbox.

Let's take a concrete example: if your goal is to send 10,000 emails per day, you will need at least 50 professional Gmail accounts, or even more to stay within reasonable sending limits and ensure the deliverability of your emails. Nevertheless, remember that it is also essential to maintain the quality of your emails and respect the best practices of cold emailing to avoid spam and protect the reputation of your email addresses.

Which hosting provider to choose?

The choice of hosting provider for your email boxes is another crucial factor in the success of your cold mailing campaign. Two popular options are Google Workspace (formerly G Suite) and Namecheap.

Google Workspace offers a simple interface, seamless integration with other Google services, and excellent email deliverability. In addition, Google takes care of the configuration of many features for you, which makes the whole process easier, even for beginners. However, this comfort comes at a cost. Google Workspace is generally more expensive than many other options.

On the other hand, Namecheap is a much more affordable option. It offers a variety of services and features, but the setup may require a bit more technical knowledge. The interface is not as intuitive as Google's, and you may need to spend a little more time setting up and optimizing your email service. However, if you are comfortable with technology and looking to reduce costs, Namecheap can be a wise choice.

In the end, the choice between Google Workspace and Namecheap depends on your budget, your level of comfort with technology, and your specific email requirements.

From our experience, absolutely avoid O2SWITCH, known for its numerous technical bugs. 🤯

What you should not forget

The configuration of SPF and DKIM records is an essential step to optimize the deliverability of your emails. These security settings serve to authenticate your messages and reassure email servers that you are indeed the legitimate sender.

The SPF (Sender Policy Framework) record allows email servers to verify that you are authorized to send emails from your domain. As for DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail), it is a digital signature added to your emails that proves that the message has not been altered along the way.

Next, don't forget to set up redirects. For example, if you have multiple similar domains (such as emelia.digital and emelia.io), make sure they redirect to your primary domain, where your website is located. This prevents any confusion. Indeed, some people may use the end of your email address to access your website and learn about your business.

Finally, it is important to create a CNAME record for tracking. This record allows DNS queries to be redirected to another domain or subdomain. This is not a mandatory step because at Emelia, we have our own tracking domain. But if you manage numerous campaigns, creating your own custom domain will allow you to optimize your deliverability. This will allow you to track the effectiveness of your cold mailing campaigns, especially clicks on the links in your emails. We will talk about tracking with more detail later on.

Preparing your mailbox for your first cold mailing campaign is a crucial step that should not be overlooked. Indeed, when you create a new IP address or a new domain name for your cold email campaigns, it is essential to build a positive reputation as a sender. This step, called "warming up," aims to optimize your deliverability rate.

Internet Service Providers do not recognize recently created sending servers, considering them potentially as a source of spam. Therefore, your emails may end up in spam folders, while you are aiming for your recipients' primary inbox.

Therefore, it is necessary to "warm up" your email. You can do this manually: it involves creating a multitude of emails on various providers and exchanging emails between them, always making sure to mark them as important and remove them from the Spam folder. (Good luck to those who want to do it manually 🤣 and respect to those who did it manually in the past.)

Today there are mail warmers to automate this process, Emelia has integrated a warmup directly inside his platform, which automates the "warm-up" of your email. This type of tool allows you to create and maintain good deliverability and ensure a good reputation for your email address, in anticipation of your first cold email campaign and subsequent ones.

Choosing between a large campaign and several smaller campaigns

When planning your cold mailing strategy, a common question arises: is it better to launch a large cold mailing campaign or to conduct several smaller, more targeted campaigns?

The relevance of small campaigns

Generally, it's more effective to opt for several smaller campaigns. Indeed, more targeted campaigns allow you to tailor your message according to each segment of your prospect list. In this way, your approach will be more personalized, which increases the chances of your prospects engaging.

But what if you want to scale up?

However, if your target audience is large and you have a substantial list of prospects, you may be tempted to send a large number of emails simultaneously to save time. In this case, it's crucial to adopt an approach that allows you to manage your large-scale campaign while maintaining a certain degree of personalization.

The multi-sender approach

One method to manage this is to use our multi-sender feature. This feature allows you to use multiple sender email boxes in a single campaign, thereby increasing your reach and making it easy to conduct a BIG campaign while maintaining good deliverability.

3 Rules When Running a Maxi Campaign:

• Use a tracking domain per mailbox Finally, when you are using multiple mailboxes for your campaigns, it is imperative to associate a tracking domain with each mailbox. This practice allows you to precisely track the effectiveness of your campaigns and optimize your future strategies.

• Use Spintext (we will talk about this later in the article 😉)

• In Emelia, in the general settings, the number of emails you choose to send per day per mailbox, so don't try to put 1000 in the settings, if you have 10 mailboxes and you set 100 emails per day, it will indeed make a total of 1000.

Writing Cold Mailing Sequences

It's important to pay particular attention to the length of messages, the timing of follow-ups, and the techniques used.

Message size

As a general rule, it's better to prioritize short and concise emails. However, if you have a lot of information to communicate, be sure to focus on personalization to maintain the recipient's interest. Also, it is generally advisable to plan a follow-up email as the second or third step in your sequence. These emails will allow you to provide more details and avoid overloading the first email.

The importance of follow-ups

Don't underestimate the impact of follow-ups. The main goal of creating sequences is to maintain regular communication with your prospect. The frequency of your follow-ups will depend on the goal of your campaign. For example, a more aggressive campaign will require more frequent follow-ups.

Ideas and Techniques

There are many techniques that can be employed to optimize your sequences. For example, the Emelia tool gives you the option to have one of the steps sent by a different person, which can bring an interesting dynamic to your sequence.

The spacing between the steps is also an element to consider. An interesting technique is to add a new step 30 to 40 days after the end of a 10 to 15-day sequence. This new step could, for example, announce a new feature or a special offer.

Or, in your Emelia campaign, you can choose for several steps to be sent by a different email address one or two months later (making sure to disable the history of previous emails in the step options), presenting the matter in a totally different way. This "2 in 1 sequence" technique allows you to add a new dimension to your campaign to try again on those who have never responded to you before; after all, it might not have been the right time before.

Using Copywriting Techniques to Improve Your Message

The art of email writing is a key aspect of your cold mailing campaign. It's not just about the content, but also how you present it. The right choice of hook sentences, the application of the AIDA technique, and strong copywriting skills are essential for the success of your campaign.

Hook Sentences

The first sentence of your email should be impactful to immediately capture the recipient's attention. It should make the reader want to continue reading. To do this, it can be effective to mention a potential benefit for the recipient, ask a relevant question, or establish a personal connection.

One of the main pillars of persuasive email writing lies in the use of proven copywriting frameworks. These structures guide the message through a logical sequence, keeping the reader engaged and leading to a strong call to action. Among these frameworks, the AIDA technique is one of the most popular and effective.

The AIDA framework

AIDA is an acronym that stands for Attention, Interest, Desire, and Action. This model guides the writer in crafting a message that first grabs the reader's attention, piques their interest with an appealing value proposition, creates desire by showing how the product or service can solve a problem or satisfy a need, and finally prompts action with a strong and clear call to action.

For example, if you're launching a cold mailing campaign for a new project management software, your email could start with a surprising statistic to attract attention ("Did you know that 75% of teams report a lack of visibility on their projects?"), then briefly introduce your software to arouse interest, before explaining how it solves the visibility issue to create desire, and finish with a compelling call to action ("Try our free trial today to give your team the clarity it needs").

Other Copywriting Frameworks

While AIDA remains an essential framework, it's not the only copywriting framework at your disposal. There are others that can be just as effective, depending on the context and audience.

The PAS (Problem - Agitation - Solution) Model: This framework begins by identifying a problem that the recipient can relate to, then agitates that problem by making it more relevant and urgent, and finally proposes a solution - ideally your product or service.

The FAB (Features - Advantages - Benefits) Method: This frameworks focuses on the product or service you're offering. It highlights its features, explains why these features are beneficial (Advantages), and finally, how these advantages translate into tangible benefits for the recipient.

The BAB (Before - After - Bridge) Formula: This frameworks tells a three-part story: how things were before, how they could be after, and how your product or service can bridge the gap between these two states.

Each framework has its strengths and the choice of the right one will depend on your product, your audience, and the objective of your email. The important thing is to stay adaptable and experiment with different frameworks to find the one that resonates best with your target audience.

Testing Different Messages

Indeed, it's crucial to test different types of messages to discover what works best for your target audience. You may not necessarily find the right message in the first sequence. Try different approaches: a more direct angle, a less direct one, asking for feedback instead of selling directly. The important thing is to keep learning and adjusting your strategy based on the feedback you receive.

Personalization: Key to a Successful Cold Mailing Campaign

Personalization is paramount for a successful cold mailing campaign. Indeed, a personalized email is more likely to be read and engage its recipient. It's not just about inserting your prospect's first name in the email. It's about customizing your message based on their situation and specific needs.

Using Variables

Variables allow you to insert specific information about your recipient directly into the text of your email. This way, you can personalize the greeting, reference to the company, the recipient's role, and more. This gives each email a personal touch that can help establish a stronger connection with the recipient.

Personalization Based on the Target

The importance of personalization goes beyond using variables. You should also tailor your message based on your target and conduct your campaigns by prospect typology. For example, if you are extracting information from LinkedIn, you can personalize your message based on the size of your recipient's company. For instance, you wouldn't address a HR manager from a 10-50 person company the same way as a HR manager from a company with more than 500 employees.

If you know that your recipient has recently joined a new company where they work, you could reference this change in your email. This would show your recipient that you've done your homework and are genuinely interested in them and their company. Or, on the contrary, in LinkedIn Sales Navigator you can also filter to extract only the individuals who have been in their positions for a long time.

Using Personalized Icebreakers

Personalized icebreakers are another way to make your email unique. This is a sentence or comment that references something specific to the recipient. For example, you could mention a recent blog post that the recipient has written, or a recent event that has occurred in their industry. However, using personalized icebreakers depends on the ROI and the product or service you are selling.

Using Spintext to Avoid Spam

Finally, an effective technique to avoid spam filters is the use of Spintext. This is a method that allows you to create multiple versions of the same message, slightly altering certain parts of the text for each send. This can help prevent your email from being marked as spam due to sending a large number of identical messages. For optimal use of Spintext, you can refer to specialized articles or use tools like Chat GPT to generate variations of your message.

The Call to Action (CTA): Pivot of a Cold Mailing Campaign

The call to action, or Call To Action (CTA), is an essential component of every cold email. This is the part of your message that encourages the recipient to take action. It's important to keep in mind that for a cold mailing campaign, you should focus on a single CTA per email to avoid diluting the recipient's attention.

Your CTA can take different forms, depending on the objective of your email. For example, your CTA could be to ask the recipient to reply to your email to start a conversation, to schedule a meeting for a demonstration or a more in-depth discussion, or even to invite the recipient to visit your website to learn more about your product or service.

If your CTA is to direct the recipient to your website, it's imperative that your site is optimized for a high-quality user experience. Factors to consider include a responsive design that is adapted to all types of devices (desktop, mobile, tablet), a fast loading speed to avoid user frustration, and a clear and intuitive design to facilitate navigation.

Moreover, to increase the chances of conversion, it may be wise to direct the recipient to a specific landing page rather than the homepage of your site. A landing page is a page specifically designed to convert visitors into leads or customers. It should be clear, concise, and focused on the action you want the visitor to accomplish, whether that's filling out a form, downloading an ebook, signing up for a webinar, etc.

Cold mailing campaigns, like any other marketing efforts, require in-depth analysis and constant monitoring to ensure their effectiveness. Tracking and analyzing your campaigns not only allows you to measure the success of your efforts, but also to identify opportunities for improvement. This section will give you an overview of the importance of monitoring your cold mailing campaigns and how it can help you refine your strategy, optimize your actions, and ultimately, increase your conversion rate.

Tracking or Not Tracking: A Question of Deliverability

In Emelia, you naturally have a "statistics" section, which lets you know who has opened your email, who clicked on one of your links, etc. Using a tracker in your cold mailing campaigns may seem like an excellent idea to measure your prospects' engagement. However, there's a trade-off to consider regarding deliverability. And although few people want to apply this, we believe that in the near future it will be necessary to remove tracking from all campaigns.

When we are sure of our emails' deliverability, not using a tracker can, counterintuitively, improve this deliverability even further, even if we can't measure it 🙃. Indeed, some email providers, some firewalls or email software can consider tracking as a reason to mark you as spam, thus reducing your deliverability rate. It is therefore sometimes preferable not to track to ensure better deliverability, even if this means giving up some data.

That said, if you decide to use a tracker, it is imperative to have a tracking domain. A tracking domain is a specific domain used for tracking URLs in your emails. Because hosts prefer that the same domain that tracks is the one that sends.

Click Tracking to Measure Engagement with Your Cold Emails

Click tracking is another key measure that can help determine the effectiveness of your cold mailing campaigns. It's essential to pay attention to the number of links you embed in your emails. Too many links can make your message confusing and reduce the chances that your prospects will click on your main CTA. Additionally, an excessive amount of links can lead your email to the spam folder.

In terms of tracking, Emelia provides an option to track clicks, which can help you gain valuable insights into your recipients' engagement. When you share links, make sure to use secure URLs, i.e., those that start with "https://". It's also recommended to include the full URL in your email, even if you use a hyperlink.

It is advised to avoid using URL shorteners like bit.ly, as they can often be associated with spam or phishing activities. Finally, the use of UTMs (Urchin Tracking Module) can be a great alternative for tracking clicks, while obtaining detailed information about the source of the traffic and user behavior. Example: https://emelia.io?utm_source=mail. This way, you can track this data with your Google Analytics account. This will help you optimize your future cold mailing campaigns.

To summarize and conclude, for us, the most important statistic to measure is the open rate to know your deliverability rate. If you are below 50%, it's not great, above 70% it is! However, keep in mind that statistics provide a global vision but no cold email statistic is 100% accurate, some software will block your tracking so you won't see the opening, other firewalls will generate a false opening and will click on the links.

How to calculate the success of a campaign? It's not the statistics that count, it's how much business you were able to generate!

In conclusion to this guide, it is crucial to highlight certain practices to avoid in order to ensure the success of your cold mailing campaigns. While it may be tempting to take shortcuts to increase your reach, some of these strategies can severely harm your domain's reputation and the effectiveness of your efforts.

Don't Send Emails to Too Many People Within the Same Company

We've seen this so many times 🤦‍♂️… Contacting 50-100 people from the same company, it doesn't work, after 5-10 emails, they will no longer be delivered. We've seen clients tempted to do it on companies like Thales 😅, you can well imagine that they have security systems in place.

You really want to sign a very large company? Do it the old-fashioned way! Find the right person and personalize your approach x1000!

Avoid Adding Images or Attachments to Your Emails

This can make your email heavy and increase the chances of it being marked as spam. If you need to include images or documents, it's better to provide a link to a secure online location where these items can be viewed (like Drive).

Don't Send Emails at Too Short Intervals

Moreover, the sending rhythm of your emails needs to be well-planned. Sending at too close intervals can be perceived as aggressive by your recipients, increasing the chances of them marking your emails as spam.

Be Careful About the Number of Links You Include in Your Emails An excessive number of links can harm the deliverability of your emails. Carefully choose a clear CTA and direct your recipients to it. Also ensure that all the links you share are secure (i.e., they start with "https://") and avoid using URL shorteners, which can be considered suspicious.

By avoiding these common mistakes, you can increase the deliverability of your emails, preserve the reputation of your domain, and maximize the effectiveness of your cold mailing campaigns. Remember: quality always trumps quantity when you want to establish long-lasting relationships with your prospects.

Cold mailing is a powerful communication tool that, when used wisely, can pave the way for countless business opportunities. However, as we've highlighted throughout this guide, the success of your cold mailing campaign relies on a combination of thoughtful strategies, suitable technological choices, and an approach centered on respecting your recipient.

From preparing your mailing list to writing your email sequences, choosing the right hosting provider, setting up the sending parameters, and tracking your performances, every step counts and contributes to the overall effectiveness of your campaign.

Take advantage of the affordable rates of our cold mailing tool, Emelia, to launch your first campaign!

But beyond these technical aspects, never forget that cold mailing is above all a matter of human relationships. Each email you send is an opportunity to establish a connection, spark interest, create value, and build a lasting relationship with your recipient.

Finally, as with any marketing initiative, practice, testing, and iteration will be your best allies. Don't be afraid to experiment, adjust your approaches, and learn from each campaign to continually improve your results.

By applying the advice and best practices shared in this guide, you will be well equipped to launch your first cold mailing campaign and open the doors to new business opportunities. So, get ready, be bold, and take the leap! Good luck with your cold mailing campaigns with Emelia!

Now, just have a look to how to setup your campaign in Emelia