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What is cold email and how to work with it

May 9, 2026 7 min read 77

Cold email is an email to someone with whom you have no prior contact and who has not subscribed to your mailings. Unlike newsletter and transactional emails, cold email is outreach: you initiate the dialogue yourself.

Why use cold email

The main scenarios are B2B sales (sales outreach), lead generation, partner search, recruiting, and reaching out to bloggers and media. A cold email is the cheapest way to start thousands of conversations on a mass scale. With an open rate of 30% and a reply rate of 3%, you will get 300 opens and 30 replies from 1000 emails - these are potential leads.

The main rule is a short first email

The first email in a cold series should be short (3-5 sentences) and have one goal: to get a reply, not to sell. Long sales emails with a bunch of links go to spam, and in the inbox, they are not read to the end.

Structure of a good cold email:

  1. Personal greeting - address by name
  2. Hook - why are you writing to him/her specifically (saw his/her post, noticed that the company does X)
  3. Value - what you offer in one phrase
  4. Question - a simple one that is easy to answer "yes" or "no"

What to avoid

  • Links in the first email - spam filters react. Leave the links for follow-up
  • Images and HTML layout - simple text works better
  • Trigger words "Free", "$$$", "Act now", "Discount" - even in the subject line, this greatly impairs deliverability
  • CAPS LOCK in the subject line - instant spam
  • Templates - Postigo automatically randomizes through spintax and AI, but you must initially write human text

Legal aspects

In the USA, cold email is legal if CAN-SPAM is observed (the presence of unsubscribe, correct sender). In the EU, GDPR applies - you need a justification of legitimate interest and an unsubscribe link. In the Russian Federation, the law on advertising requires the consent of the addressee for commercial mailings.

Postigo automatically adds an unsubscribe link to each email (can be disabled manually) and does not send to addresses from the global suppression list.

Next

Read about spintax to make each email unique, and configure SPF/DKIM/DMARC for maximum deliverability.

Pay only for the emails you send. Credits do not expire — use them when it's convenient. All packages include full functionality.

$1.00 per 1,000 emails

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