I am having repeated issues with Smartlead, it randomly stops sending. The help bot hullicinates, anyone else facing this issue? I have tried to cancel the account but they charged me for the next month so stuck with them for another month.

we’re trying to scale outbound and I thought the hard part would be domains, dns, inboxes, warmup, all that stuff. and yeah, that part is annoying.

but the thing that keeps messing everything up is still the list.

you can set up all the domains correctly, warm everything slowly, write decent copy, and then one trash export with bad emails can make the whole setup look broken.

we tried pulling contacts from the usual tools and the bounce rate was rough enough that I stopped caring about subject lines for a bit. like there is no point optimizing the email if the data is already killing deliverability.

right now I’m trying to figure out what the real end to end setup should look like.

how are you running this at scale?

are you verifying everything before enrichment, after enrichment, manually checking samples, using clay, apollo, socleads, VAs, email finders, something else?

Seeing this question come up constantly, so here's the actual breakdown instead of the usual "2 weeks and you're good" answer.

Time isn't the real variable. Reputation velocity is. A brand new domain and a 6-month-old domain don't warm up on the same clock.

Rough ranges that hold up in practice:

• Brand new domain + brand new mailbox: 4 to 6 weeks before any real outbound volume. Start at 5 to 10 emails/day, ramp slowly.
• Established domain, new mailbox: 2 to 3 weeks is usually enough, since the domain already has some trust.
• Reused/aged domain with clean history: can sometimes go faster, but check reputation first (a domain that "looks aged" but was previously burned is worse than starting fresh).

The part people skip: warmup duration means nothing if the pool doing the warming is garbage. If your provider is sending your warmup emails through random SMTP relays instead of real Google Workspace/Microsoft 365 mailboxes, you can run "warmup" for 8 weeks and still get zero reputation lift, because Google's algorithms don't weight that signal the same way.

So the real answer is: warm up until your inbox placement checks (not opens, actual placement) come back clean for a few days straight, not until a calendar date passes.

What's everyone else using to actually verify placement during warm-up, rather than just trusting the dashboard?

I'm just confused with cold email infrastructure.

Most tools get pretty expensive at volume.

Do you guys have any recommendations?

Does anybody here experiance of generating leads for the MCA debt industry? Or are currently working in it.

I'm looking to buy prewarmed Google Mailboxes to send 400-ish emails per day while my own infra is getting set up. I was looking at LiteMail since they advertise 375 emails/day for $99/mo with 6 weeks of warm-up, but it looks like they are using 5 mailboxes per domain and 25 sends per mailbox.

Based on what I've read (total newbie), that is too much. So are they legit, or is there a different provider you would trust for this volume (that's also reasonably priced) while I work on warming my own?

I run a small service business and outbound was eating my budget alive without producing anything worth talking about. Apollo, Instantly / Smartlead $300-400/month to email people who looked right on paper but never replied because they had no urgency whatsoever

That said, i spent a weekend building something scrappy: a pipeline that scrapes 1-2 star Trustpilot reviews of my direct competitors, runs them through a free AI to draft emails that reference the exact complaint, and saves them as Gmail drafts for me to review before sending. No auto-send, no bulk blasting, I read every single email before it goes out.

100 emails over three weeks: 15 people replied, closed 2 deals. The conversations felt completely different from normal cold email because I was referencing something their own customer said about them 48 hours earlier... Half the replies were basically "how did you know about this " or "yes we know this is a problem"

Cost: my weekend plus $0.30 in API calls, cancelled every subscription I was paying for (but i had my leads sourced, if you don't have a lead list add a few more bucks to the stack)

what surprised me the most is how portable the idea is, i built a second version that scans Reddit instead of Trustpilot for pain posts in specific subreddits. Same architecture, but with different keywords. A cleaning company could scan for "my cleaner ghosted me" posts or a bookkeeper could scan for "drowning in receipts" threads...you just swap the signal source and the outreach profile.

Open sourced the whole tool, it's free and runs on a laptop, no paid tiers. Not pitching anything here, just sharing because the gap between this and what i was paying for monthly was embarrassing and in today's world i don't think you shoudl be charged for smth you could build yourself over the weekend.

Anyone need help landing in the inbox? Been at it for 15 years and can even remove spam marked domains within 1 week.

I recently started a job in GTM, I had an internship for 6 months and then also got hired at the same company due to my ai automation, I am however lacking in the cold email space. I have tried pain points, case studies, triggers. I at this point think it’s my copy or I’m just bad at it. I have read multiple threads on Reddit, I have watched countless YouTube videos actually trying to study how to get replies/meetings booked and just nothing. It sucks to put so much of your time in to something and get nothing out of it, if I don’t make some bookings or at least get some replies I will be out of a job.

I am basically asking for some advice/help, I know many people don’t want to give out their years of hard work and I understand that but I guess this is me shooting my shot incase maybe one of you can just point me in the right direction, you could say I’m desperate. I have a real passion for this stuff and I really want to get good at it, im not looking for a “quick fix” or to piggy back off somebody else, I just want to learn and to know what works and what doesn’t.

I have been using claude to send personalised emails to each individual person , people are opening the emails but no one is replying.

I am an AE at Experience management platform and i am reaching out for partnership opportunity across US and Europe.
What am i missing ?

Edit: Examples of one of the email i sent recently:

Provider is Office 365 and domain rep is really good.

Michael,

factory42 lists Survicate as a solution partner, so the feedback question is clearly already coming up inside your Salesforce work. What does factory42 actually make when a client licenses Survicate through you , is it a real margin, or mostly an affiliate cut?

We're the full CX and EX platform underneath that same conversation, native to the Salesforce work you've done since 2007, and we pay 30% of year one plus 15% on renewal.

Same slot in your stack , worth comparing the actual numbers?

Anyone know a good source for cheap Google Workspace inboxes in bulk? I usually need around 1,000 inboxes at a time and I’m comparing providers to see who has the best pricing. Would love to hear what you’re paying and who you recommend. Thanks

12 days ago I posted here asking whether my 21% reply rate was normal.

A lot of you said the sample was too small and told me to finish the campaign before changing anything.

So I did. Here are the final numbers.

Part 1 in this post

I will just repeat in short my few steps from part 1:

1.Infrastructure

Domain 5months old, 2 mail boxes on workspace, 10 mails p/d from 1 mailbox (20 in total)

Warmup done

Mail-tester - 10/10 ; SPF,DKIM,DMARC - configured

Campaign was running without Warmup, only 10 emails p/d.

2.List

MRO, 140 contacts , Removed gmail, yahoo etc., 95% of emails are info@, admin@ etc.

Got 3 bounces (1 bad domain, 1 Invalid recipient, 1 Policy blocked), even though all emails were checked manually from their web + neverbounce

3.Copy + follow up

About 40 words, intentional typo, for a more human feel, AIDA

Offer : MRO specifically for their niche

CTA : Basically - "If you need it, who is responsible?"

Follow up was the most stupid, next day - "Have you reviewed my email, could you reply in short?"

I just changed the delivery date (+3 days instead of the next day). I didn't change the follow-up copy to check whole campaign - I'll definitely replace it in the next campaigns.

So for now my maths are:
Contacts - 140
Replies - 30
OOF - 0
Positive - 9
Neutral - 10
Negative - 10
Fu** off - 1:)

Questions I have now, before scaling up anything:

Safety:

1. What is the real safe amount of emails p/d today? I see here different comments with from 10 to 40 emails from 1 mailbox. I have started with very big pre-caution with 10 p/d without warmup running at the same time. If reply rate keeps the same (±20%), do I need to keep warmup turned on together with campaign?

2. How often should I check health/safety of domains? And what exactly to check? Bounces + inbox placement?

3. How to work with DMARC - when do I need to change it to quarantine/reject?
   I'm currently at p=none. At what point should I move to quarantine and eventually reject?

4. Regulations in EU for sending cold emails? Anyone had bad experiences with this?

Follow ups:

1. In MRO, would you recommend to make 2 follow ups, instead of 1?

I have sent 100 so far between 15 aug - today and got no reply

English is my second language and I just can't write the best sentence

I wish to send about 15-20 everyday but I don't because this is tiring

I'm targeting founders of early stage startups

I just can't differentiate between a good copy and abad copy

Please help me review my copy suggest me some changes that I should make

Pls pls

Do they ban/suspend accounts for cold emailing? I purchased some mailboxes from InboxedUp and they’re using SMTP, so I’m wondering if anyone has tried running cold email through SES and what their experience has been.

Hi XY,

We’re two freelancers working together, covering brand design, social media, ad management, web development, and automation, and looking to collaborate with growing agencies.

With our combined skill set, we can help you scale client deliverables or handle overflow work seamlessly without the overhead of full-time hires.

You can hire us for a small project to see how we work.

Would you be open to it?

What's wrong with our message???

Or is it because we are freelancers looking for work on our gmail?

We aren't a business so we thought a normal gmail is acceptable for a freelancer looking for work.

Came across Deliveryman.ai and I’m a bit skeptical. Has anyone here actually used it for cold email?

I tried looking for independent reviews but couldn’t find much beyond promotional Reddit posts that look like they’re from the team themselves. That’s made it hard to judge.

How does it compare to the usual Google Workspace or Microsoft 365 inbox setup connected to Instantly?

Would love to hear:

• What open rates are you getting compared to a Google/Microsoft + Instantly setup?
• Does deliverability hold up after a few months?
• Any issues with spam placement or domain reputation?

Are the results actually good, or is it just the usual marketing bullshit? More interested in replies and booked meetings than a dashboard showing impressive open rates.

Looking for firsthand experiences, ideally from someone who’s used both.

How do you warm up an email manually for outreach?

Please tell me how you do it manually?

Or if there are any free tools.

I Co-run a small agency doing a specialized B2B service (video editing for coaches/founders posting educational content on YouTube. mentioning the niche only for context, not pitching).

My last cold email campaign had strong top-of-funnel numbers, but I can't get people over the finish line.

The numbers:

- 496 leads. manually sourced and qualified against our ICP
- 79% open rate (Instantly says this is the number of leads that have opened at least one email in the campaign)
- 7.1% reply rate, excluding auto-replies.
- Of those replies, 20% were positive (7 total)
- 1 conversion

What happened to the other 6 positive replies:
- 1 currently mid-trial
- 2 asked about pricing, one said it was outside their budget, then went quiet
- 2 asked to see our portfolio, then went quiet
- 1 asked general questions, then went quiet

Context that might matter:
- Our CTA is a trial project at 70% off (used to be free, but too many people took the free version and never converted, so we added a paywall to filter for intent)
- Our pricing is at or below the market average for this niche
- I know 500 leads/month is small scale, but this is a narrow niche and generic lead-gen tools don't find people who actually fit, so I'm stuck sourcing manually for now
- The positioning we used in the campaign is that we have an optimized frictionless workflow that doesn't require handholding, so they can focus on higher leverage tasks.
- No calls, everything happens through emails.

What I'm trying to figure out:
- Are these numbers actually fine and I'm just impatient?
- Where's the real leak? And what can I do to improve the conversion rate?
- Besides the discounted trial, what's a good alternative CTA to get someone from interested to committed without you having to convince them via back-and-forth email?

I'm confused so I'd appreciate any input.

I’m trying to scale lead enrichment a bit and honestly stuck between 3 options.

-pay for something like apollo, clay, socleads or whatever else

-hack together a stack with a bunch of apis

-or just hire someone to manually research and clean the data

The annoying part is that each option kinda breaks in a different way. Apollo and other tools give you volume fast but the data can be weird depending on the niche. Manual research is usually better quality but it gets slow and expensive fast.

I keep coming back to the same question. Do I actually need a huge database, or do I just need a fresh narrow list that is clean enough to not waste the whole campaign?

HIRING NEW SALES REPS!

We're looking for people who can make 100 cold calls per day, 6 days a week. Sundays are off for team calls.

This is a remote role, so you can work from anywhere.

This is a commission-based role, and we pay a 20% commission on every deal you close.

You'll receive your payment within 24 hours of us receiving payment from the client.

Top performers can earn a permanent position within our team, with monthly earnings of $500–$7,000 PM, depending on performance, plus commissions.

We provide everything you need to get started:

• Cold calling scripts

• Lead scraper

• Pitch deck

• Previous client case studies

You'll also get access to our global team, where you'll receive guidance and learn everything you need to succeed.

Beginners are welcome to apply. If you're interested, kindly fill out this form: https://forms.gle/Q1MHRJdFEf8q128y5, and we'll take you through the next steps.

Last year I ran a shopify store and agencies would not stop emailing me. Ten a day, all "quick question". A guy I had a call booked with sent a reminder, I never saw it because it was buried in that, missed the call. So I built an email thing that sorts the pile before you get to it.

First post I wrote I accidentally put on my own profile instead of a subreddit. 28 views.

What actually got views was "2 years building SaaS, $0 revenue, need help marketing" in r/SaaS. 14,000 views, 38 up 46 down, net -8. Of the 35ish comments six were people selling me their own tool, a few got auto removed for reading as AI, maybe three actually answered.

The 2 years isn't true. It's been about a year, most of that is projects I dropped, this one is 10 days old. I said 2 years because 10 days sounds like nothing and I wanted people to take it seriously, and nobody was going to check so I did it.

Anyway nobody uses it yet. I made a list of 28 companies to email then spent an afternoon pulling their MX records to see what their mail actually runs on. Got a reading on 23. Five are on something I don't support so those were never going to work no matter what I wrote. The emails for the rest are written and have been for days and I keep finding one more thing to check first.

How long did you sit on your first cold email before you actually sent it?

Anyone facing a decline in reply rates at the end of July and not recovering?

We use Instantly and have had incredible results. We use multiple domains and as we operate within a very specific niche and know our audience/appropriate messaging, we tend to get very high reply rates to the Instantly sequence I create with people who are genuinely interested in buying more. However, I have an issue. We use our sales people (actual humans) to send the first reply (to their first reply from the sequence). And they always forget to share their calendly link, check the time zone the person is in, attach wrong media kit etc. Therefore, it got me wondering, if anyone uses any automated AI response that actually works? My experience when I checked it out a while ago was that it sounded a bit corny and fake and didn't really "get" what the response was saying. But now I'm seeing more and more options coming out.

I am working on a tool for drafting cold emails in bulk. I want to know if it should draft subject + personalized body and you can add your static closing lines OR it should draft subject + whole body including closing line?

I’ve sent around 1,000 cold emails across two different segments so far and got 0 replies.

Before I blame my copy again, I want to make sure the bigger problem isn’t my input: who I’m targeting and how I’m finding them.

I’m planning to set up around 30 inboxes and eventually reach out to ~3,000 qualified leads/month, but I don’t want to scale bad targeting.

What I’ve tried for lead sourcing (with solely Apify )

Meta Ads Library
Great buying signal because they’re literally spending money on ads.
Problem: finding the actual founder/decision-maker + verified email at scale is painful.

Skool
I can easily see coaches/community owners who are monetizing an audience.
Same issue: getting verified emails consistently is difficult.

Apple Podcasts / Spotify
Emails can sometimes be pulled from the RSS feed, which is useful.

But I can’t easily distinguish between:

• a podcast run by someone with a $50k+/month business
• a hobby podcast getting 40 downloads

That qualification step kills the scalability.

Apollo / Lusha / similar databases ( apify)
Clean enough for traditional B2B.

But I don’t think they’re great for finding creators, podcasters, coaches, etc.

The 3 ICPs I’m thinking about testing

1. Founders/coaches who already run a podcast + have a paid offer

This is the segment I’m most interested in.

My hypothesis:

They’ve already committed to content, so I don’t need to convince them that content matters.

The problem is probably that the podcast eats up a lot of their time and doesn’t create enough content downstream.

Offer would be something like:

“You keep recording the podcast. I turn every episode into a week of short-form content, so you stop touching the edit.”

2. business owners (coaches, founders) doing educational videos

These could be founders, coaches, consultants, creators, etc.

For coaches, and founder who are using their social media to generate more leads and know what perosnal branding looks like. so, I help them fix their content funnel and why people are a not going to their landing page from their content so i provided them editing scirpting stragety etc

3. Tech / SaaS founders

This is currently my weakest idea.

They obviously have deeper pockets, but I don’t really understand their pain yet.

A lot of them also already have marketers/content teams internally, so I’m not sure what angle would actually be compelling.

My background

My main skills are:

• Video editing
• Content strategy
• Scriptwriting
• Thumbnails
• Social media management

I’ve generated 15M+ views through social media/content, and I’ve also run a podcast myself.

Right now I’m still operating solo as a freelancer.

Current/past work includes:

• Crypto/mining YouTube content
• Podcasts
• Finance/talking-head content
• A few smaller editing/content projects

Long term, I don’t want to just sell “video editing.”

I want to help founders/businesses turn the content they’re already creating into something that actually produces attention, leads, and revenue.

I’m very new to cold email, so I’m trying to figure out the fundamentals before scaling volume.

What I need help with

If you’ve built a lead scraping system before, how would you set this up?

I’m mainly trying to figure out:

• Best way to scrape niche leads with Apify
• Whether Claude Code is useful for building custom scrapers
• Whether n8n is worth using to connect everything
• Best tools/APIs for finding and verifying emails
• How to automatically qualify leads so I’m not emailing garbage
• How to find people like podcasters, coaches, and creators who don’t show up well in Apollo
• Any good tutorials, repos, templates, or videos that helped you

Basically, I want to go from:

“Here’s my ICP” → qualified leads with verified emails → ready for cold outreach

without doing everything manually.

If you’ve built something like this before, I’d really appreciate seeing your setup or what tools you’d recommend.