A cold email is an outbound email sent to a prospect who has not opted in to hear from you, asking for a meeting, a brief reply, or some other low-friction next step. Cold email is the highest-leverage outbound channel in B2B because it is asynchronous, archivable, and cheap to scale. Typical B2B reply rates range 1-3% on templated cold email and 8-15% on well-personalized, well-targeted cold email. Strong programs convert 20-30% of replies into booked meetings.
What separates a working cold email from a bad one?
Four factors. First, list quality: the prospect has to actually be in the ICP. A perfect email to a wrong-fit prospect still reads as spam. Second, the opener: the first sentence must reference something specific to the prospect, not the sender. "Saw you just hired three SDRs in two weeks" beats "We help companies like yours" every time. Third, the ask: a clean cold email asks for one small thing (a 15-minute call, a quick reply, an opinion), not a 60-minute demo. Fourth, the length: 75-125 words is the sweet spot for desktop and mobile rendering. Long emails get scanned, not read.
Personalization is doing the work, not signaling it. Merge fields like {first_name} count for nothing if the rest of the email is generic. A single sentence of real research (their recent funding, a podcast they were on, a hiring posting) lifts reply rate dramatically.
Is cold email legal?
In the US, yes, under CAN-SPAM, as long as you (a) don't deceive in headers or subject lines, (b) honor opt-outs within 10 business days, (c) include a physical mailing address, and (d) clearly identify the email as commercial. In Canada, CASL is stricter and generally requires consent for commercial email. In the EU and UK, GDPR and PECR apply; B2B cold email is permitted under legitimate interest in most cases but requires a clean unsubscribe path and a real basis for contact. ReachIQ's AI personalization is trained on 25M B2B sends and writes emails that read as one-to-one rather than mass-mailed, which is both more effective and more compliant in spirit.
Related questions
What is the average reply rate on cold email?
B2B reply rates typically range 1-3% on generic templates and 8-15% on personalized, well-targeted cold email. Below 1% suggests targeting or content problems. Above 15% suggests an unusually warm list (existing audience, past interactions) and is hard to sustain at scale.
How many follow-ups should a cold email sequence have?
Most B2B teams converge on 4-7 follow-ups over 18-25 days. Going beyond 7 touches yields diminishing returns and risks unsubscribes and spam reports. The strongest sequences vary the angle and the channel rather than just bumping the same email.
What's the ideal length for a cold email?
75-125 words. Longer emails get skimmed and tossed. Shorter than 50 words reads as low-effort. The structure that works: one personalized line, one problem statement, one social proof or insight, one specific ask. Sign off, no fluff.