Copy · Intermediate · 8 min read
Cold email that gets replies, without the tricks
The structural things that move reply rate. Relevance, brevity, a single ask, and the tactics that used to work and now actively hurt.
Almost every cold email guide is about the first line. The first line matters, but it is downstream of a decision made earlier: whether this person should have been contacted this week at all.
Relevance beats craft. A mediocre message about something that just happened to the reader outperforms an excellent message about nothing in particular, reliably.
The shape that works
Under a hundred words. One specific observation about them, one sentence about why that makes you relevant, one ask that costs them under a minute to answer.
That is it. Everything longer is asking a stranger for more attention than a stranger has agreed to give.
- Subject line: lowercase, specific, no question mark, under six words.
- First line: about them, and impossible to send to anybody else.
- Middle: one sentence. Why you are relevant, not what you do.
- Ask: an actual question, not a calendar link.
Things that used to work and now cost you
Fake threading. Re: in a subject line on a first contact. Reads as deception and increasingly triggers filtering. Personalised images at scale look like exactly what they are. Break-up emails that imply a prior relationship are the same trick as fake threading with more words.
Tracking pixels are worth a specific mention. Open rate has been unmeasurable since mail privacy protection began pre-fetching images, so the pixel is now a deliverability liability that buys you a number you cannot trust.
The one ask rule
Two asks in one message halves the response to both. If you want a meeting, ask for a meeting. If you want an opinion, ask for an opinion. A message that offers a calendar link and also asks a question gets neither.
Follow-ups are a different message, not a bump
Just bumping this in case you missed it is a message about your process, sent to somebody who does not care about your process. A follow-up should carry new information: a different angle, a relevant thing that happened since, or a genuinely easier ask.
Better still, change channel. A message somewhere else is a new impression in a way a fourth email is not.
How to tell if it is working before you have enough data
At fifty sends you cannot measure reply rate meaningfully. What you can do is read the replies you get, including the negative ones. A no thanks, we already use X is useful. A who is this is a targeting failure. Silence at fifty is not information.
The takeaway
Write the message you would answer. Then cut it by a third and delete the second ask.
Read next
All guidesEverything in these guides is a default in the product rather than an exercise left to the reader.
Everything above, running on your list
Describe the company, confirm the keywords, connect a channel. The agents take it from there, and Supervised mode is available when you want to review before sending.
Start with sales. $2,000 or $5,000 onboarding, then at least $250 monthly credit funding.