Why Agencies Should Default Client First-Touch Emails to Plain Text
Plenty of clients arrive with a branded email template: logo header, colored button, social icons, a footer that matches the website. It looks professional, and the client is proud of it. For a first message to a stranger, it is the wrong format.
Our position: the first touch in a client's cold sequence should be plain text, or HTML so light it reads as plain text. Save the design work for people who asked to hear from the client.
Filters do not hate HTML. They hate what HTML usually carries.
This argument often gets overstated, so we will start with the careful version. MailBeast's review of plain text vs HTML deliverability says HTML on its own is barely scored by spam filters. Email on Acid makes a similar point for opt-in marketing: images do not automatically hurt deliverability, and good design can help engagement.
What changes the picture for cold email is the payload. MailBeast lists the signals that do add risk: image-only layouts, tracking pixels, hidden text, and a low text-to-image ratio. Reachinbox describes the broader problem: more markup, styling, and tracked elements make a message look promotional rather than personal. Hunter's piece makes the same case, that HTML can make cold outreach look like a bulk blast and bring stricter filtering.
A branded template is almost all of those signals at once. A plain message is none of them.
Hunter's data, with its caveat
Hunter reports that in its internal data, HTML cold email campaigns bounced far more often than plain-text ones. Hunter also flags the obvious caveat itself: teams sending plain text may simply be more careful users who verify their lists. Treat that as a directional signal from one vendor, not a law. The argument for plain text does not depend on it.
The real reason: it looks like one person wrote it
A first touch has one job, which is to get a reply. The message that earns a reply from a stranger looks like something a person typed to one other person. Reachinbox puts it as "one message, one ask, one reply path." A hero image and three buttons say "campaign" before the prospect reads a word.
For an agency, there is a second reason. The client's domain carries the risk. If a template pushes first-touch mail toward promotions or junk, the client's sending reputation pays for a design choice nobody tested.
What "plain text" means in practice
- A multipart message with a real text part. MailBeast and Reachinbox both recommend sending a text part alongside any HTML, so the message reads correctly wherever it renders.
- No images. No logo header, no banner, no image signature.
- No tracking pixel. Open tracking requires an HTML pixel, and on a first touch it adds risk while producing data we already argued does not belong in client reports.
- At most one link, plain, on the client's domain. Better yet, none. See why agencies should turn off click tracking on first-touch cold email.
- A short text signature. Name, role, company, the legally required details. We covered what belongs there in client sender signatures for cold email.
Handling the client who wants the template
Most clients are not attached to the template for deliverability reasons. They want to look credible. Three things usually settle it:
- Show them what a reply looks like. Replies arrive as plain conversations. The first message should match the thread it is trying to start.
- Offer the template for later. Once a prospect replies and asks for a resource, a branded one-pager or a richer follow-up is fine.
- Offer a test on their own data. If they still want HTML, split a small segment and measure replies and booked conversations, not opens. MailTester and Reachinbox both recommend testing the exact message before scaling.
Where GTM fits
GTM writes each message from the prospect's profile and signals in the client's voice, then sends through the client's connected domains with send windows, limits, and a compliance gate that blocks any send without a verdict and an unsubscribe URL. A plain, specific first touch is the format that best fits that kind of writing.
If you run outbound for several clients and want first touches that earn replies, join the waitlist.
Sources
- Hunter, "Is HTML Harming Your Cold Email Deliverability?": https://hunter.io/blog/is-html-harming-your-cold-email-deliverability/
- MailBeast, "Plain Text vs HTML Email: Which Lands in the Inbox?": https://mailbeast.ai/blog/plain-text-vs-html-email-deliverability
- Email on Acid, "Plain Text Email or HTML?": https://www.emailonacid.com/blog/article/needs-improvement/what-is-a-plain-text-email-and-when-should-i-use-one-2/
- Reachinbox, "Email Plain Text vs HTML: Which Is Best For Outreach?": https://reachinbox.ai/blog/email-plain-text-vs-html/
- MailTester, "Plain Text vs HTML Cold Email": https://mailtester.com/blog/plain-text-vs-html-cold-email-inbox-deliverability/