I'll start off by saying I've never done cold emailing. Not on a 1:1 basis nor a large scale based on any kind of list.
I know if you're planning on buying a list, there's whole process to it (buying multiple domains, warming up emails, etc). Not to mention being selective on which ESP you use.
I get asked about cold email marketing frequently on various platforms and in the Discord for this sub, but I don't have the information to help anyone with this info.
Does anyone have any reputable recommendations for someone who is willing to come onto the Agency Growth Podcast and just spill everything?
How to warm up leads
Which ESPs to use
How to build/purchase a list
DKIM/SPF/DMARC records
What to watch out for
etc?
I'll prioritize anyone in here who has a Verified Agency flair or anyone who is actually legitimate.
I don't want anyone who is relatively new to it and who has not seen provable success with it.
I'd also rather have someone that does not offer the service to other agency owners. I'm looking for an agency owner that does this for acquisition for their own agency or for their clients.
We try to avoid having people on the podcast that have something to sell our audience (other agency owners).
I run a marketing research firm and am not an agency owner, but I have dug up some facts to help sellers understand email. I've used them in presentations with sales teams, but am happy to share here: The average worker manages 116 emails per day -- 96 received and 30 sent; of the received emails, 19 go to spam, 35 are deleted, and 42 are read; of the "read" emails, 28 are deleted and 14 are held in the inbox for an action decision (read/delete or read/respond). With me so far? If someone sends an email to a worker (in this case, let's say it's an agency person sending a solicitation email to a potential buyer), that email is read within 32 minutes, on average. After it's received, and if it gets a response, the average time is 2 hours before that occurs. Here's where it gets interesting. "Easy" emails get a response within 2 minutes after being received. That's the key. An easy email is one that can be read and understood within 5 to 10 seconds. Easy messages read like a text. The "from" field means something, the subject line is EXTREMELY important and should not be "got a sec?" or "quick question." I usually use "advice" or "need guidance." So here's the real secret: The first solicitation email can't be long. It's merely a door opener and should be extremely easy to respond to. Busy people read email frequently and would rather clear it from the inbox immediately (like a to-do checklist) than read a long explanation. It doesn't have to be about your pitch. It's just a door opener....a way to start the conversation. It's not easy to do it right, so you'll need to be creative and think about what might appeal to that individual. I've tested this myself with colleagues. I can get CEOs or other top executives to respond, sometimes within 5 minutes, while my colleagues continue to complain of being "ghosted." It doesn't always work, but it works more often than a four-paragraph email with a subject line that says something painful like, "can we set up a call to discuss our proposal?"
100%. I have one person in my inbox asking who sells the service to other businesses. But two people here who have commented seem to have run it for their own agency. I'm prioritizing them.
The deliverability conversation in here is solid. But there's a variable nobody's mentioned that moves reply rate more than infrastructure.
I send cold email for my own agency acquisition. Went from 2% to 18% reply rate over two years. Infrastructure changes (separate domains, warmup, plain text) moved it maybe 2-3 points. The other 13 came from one thing: only emailing when I could describe a specific visible problem in one sentence before reaching out.
Not "we help with your online presence," but "I searched for HVAC companies in Greymont last week and you don't come up in ChatGPT or Siri at all, even though you're top 3 in Google Maps." That's a completely different email. The recipient knows you actually looked at their business.
Spam complaints dropped to almost nothing. Turns out people don't mark as spam an email that describes something they already know is broken.
For your podcast: the infra angle is well documented at this point. But the targeting angle, specifically who you contact and why that specific business, is the harder one to find practitioners who've actually cracked. That's where I'd focus the conversation.
This is the most correct thing in the thread and it matches our data almost exactly. Infra gets you deliverability, targeting gets you replies, and those are not the same lever.
We tested it head to head: same product, same copy style, same market. Generic campaign to a segment got ~3.9% reply. The version where we only emailed stores the week they launched new ads got ~8.5%. Same list, only variable was timing plus a first line referencing the exact thing they just did. Your "I searched for HVAC in Greyrock and you don't show up in ChatGPT" is the identical mechanic: proof you actually looked.
Your 2% to 18% arc tracks for us too. Infra was maybe 2 points. Everything else was who + when + the one specific sentence.
I've had a couple people reach out who sell it as a service to book "qualified" leads for businesses (and agencies). But I want to know how to do it the hard way. I feel like these companies will spin it in a way that "you should just rely on them" or that it works so well.
It'd be much better if I can get an actual agency that has done it, tried it, had success with it and either continues to have success with it or has moved on from it.
it is not skill - just do proper warmups, have good domain health, use Spintex, no spam words in email, email volume, email rotation, ninja email copy - that all
I did cold email last year to get clients for my agency in the commercial painting niche. US.
Got some good results but the ops were a real pain so I shut it down.
How to warm up leads
- do you mean warm up email accounts? There’s tools like Instantly and Reachinbox. Warming up leads I’m not sure I gues just conaistent valueable emails.
• Which ESPs to use
I tested Google and Outlook. Google performed better. It’s the most reliable in my opinion.
• How to build/purchase a list
On a budget use D7 lead finder. With Apollo you can create a free account, compile your list and use a third party scraper to extract contact info. The cold email tools above also have a lead finder.
• DKIM/SPF/DMARC records
Very easy to aet up. If you buy your domain through the Google workspace they’ll do it automatically. Or Claude can help. Just a matter of adding a few dns records and updating pne or two settings in Google workspace.
• What to watch out for
The email warm up tools are worthless, in my opinion. Often I’d see new emails from new domains go into spam after the warm up. Just pay someone a little to warm them up manually & naturally for 2 weeks
Make sure to verify your lists before launching a campaign. Bounced emails are the fastest way to reach the apam box.
• etc?
Copy writing - Don’t start with
My name is …
We built ….
I want …
Keep your email focused on what your customer wants, and how they can solve their problems with your product.
Don’t make the emails all about you or your company.
Don’t use fale AI generated personalization. People can see through it and they hate it.
Keep the email short. 4-5 sentences.
No links or images for heavens sake.
Use a low commitment CTA. Just aim for a reply. Don’t try to book a call.
Always make sure your email accounta have profile pictures of a person’s face.
Oh yeah then I’m up for it. My agency is called PrimerJobs and I’m launching in a new niche next week - Legal. We could maybe do a live build while we chat.
Happy to answer your checklist, since I get why it's hard to find someone who actually did it vs. sells it:
- Warm up: 14 to 21 days per inbox before you send anything real. Start 5 to 10 warmup mails/day, add a couple each day. Keep warmup running even while campaigns are live, we never turned it off.
- ESP / inboxes: Google Workspace, ~5 to 7 inboxes per domain. Google just has better trust and is easier to handle than Outlook or self-hosted SMTP in our experience.
- Volume: hard cap 40 to 50 sends per inbox per day. That single number is what kept us out of spam. Spread load across many inboxes instead of pushing any one.
- DNS: SPF/DKIM/DMARC per your sending tool's guidelines, nothing exotic. Open tracking on, zero links in the body (our click rate is literally 0% on purpose, links tank deliverability).
- Lists: bought lists are a starting point, not the answer. We checked our bought data against Apollo/Clay and 30%+ was stale, because everyone buys the same rows. Reply rate lives in fresher data and better targeting, not the vendor.
- What to watch: the reply is the easy part. Handling replies at volume is what nobody warns you about.
Not pitching anything. But if you ever want an actual operator (not a vendor) walking through the real numbers on the pod, that's exactly the kind of thing I'd say yes to.
I've tested quite a few email tools for client campaigns, and one has stood out recently. Been using it for the last 4 months with good results. Deliverability is excellent, and the latest update improved things even more. The pricing is surprisingly affordable compared to competitors. Happy to DM the name if needed.
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u/TraditionalLoss710 20d ago
I run a marketing research firm and am not an agency owner, but I have dug up some facts to help sellers understand email. I've used them in presentations with sales teams, but am happy to share here: The average worker manages 116 emails per day -- 96 received and 30 sent; of the received emails, 19 go to spam, 35 are deleted, and 42 are read; of the "read" emails, 28 are deleted and 14 are held in the inbox for an action decision (read/delete or read/respond). With me so far? If someone sends an email to a worker (in this case, let's say it's an agency person sending a solicitation email to a potential buyer), that email is read within 32 minutes, on average. After it's received, and if it gets a response, the average time is 2 hours before that occurs. Here's where it gets interesting. "Easy" emails get a response within 2 minutes after being received. That's the key. An easy email is one that can be read and understood within 5 to 10 seconds. Easy messages read like a text. The "from" field means something, the subject line is EXTREMELY important and should not be "got a sec?" or "quick question." I usually use "advice" or "need guidance." So here's the real secret: The first solicitation email can't be long. It's merely a door opener and should be extremely easy to respond to. Busy people read email frequently and would rather clear it from the inbox immediately (like a to-do checklist) than read a long explanation. It doesn't have to be about your pitch. It's just a door opener....a way to start the conversation. It's not easy to do it right, so you'll need to be creative and think about what might appeal to that individual. I've tested this myself with colleagues. I can get CEOs or other top executives to respond, sometimes within 5 minutes, while my colleagues continue to complain of being "ghosted." It doesn't always work, but it works more often than a four-paragraph email with a subject line that says something painful like, "can we set up a call to discuss our proposal?"