If you have been in SaaS for at least a few years, odds are you know that the internet was not short of email marketing solutions at the time ConvertKit established itself as one of the most prominent email marketing software. 

In fact, prior to hitting $2.7M+ MRR, ConvertKit has gone through some tough times to achieve success, especially in the flourishing days of many heavy-hitters like MailChimp, AWeber, and Hubspot. 

Now that leads us to the billion-dollar question: How did a small fish like ConvertKit make a name for itself in that big pond? 

• $2.7M+ MRR

• $26+ Million Cash Flow

• 5.47 Million Visits Per Month

• 44K+ Active Users

• $60+ ARPU

• and more
• and more to come…

Many articles describe the bumpy road that Nathan Barry, the founder, and CEO of ConvertKit, took to bring his company from the bottom to today’s industry leader. In fact, you can see it all here.

But the one thing they fail to mention is the email marketing strategy that encouraged this growth. 

So we’ve taken it upon ourselves to break down ConvertKit’s SaaS email marketing strategies that helped achieve an MRR of over $2.7 million, with actionable takeaways to get you up and running quickly.

Now for the sake of this article, we don’t mean that email marketing is the only marketing channel that helped ConvertKit grow to $2.3 million in monthly revenue.

Let’s start with an in-depth look at the SaaS email marketing strategy ConvertKit used to achieve a $2.3+ million MRR.

How ConvertKit Built and Grew Its Email List

One of the best techniques Nathan used to grow his business was to position it in a specific niche. 

But niching down is only one piece of the puzzle. There was also a well-thought-out SaaS email marketing strategy behind the phenomenal Convertkit’s success.

To start, Nathan built an email list and found ways to expand and grow it. Then, he used that list to promote Convertkit and get subscribers to pay for his services. 

Nathan needed to develop his prospect and customer base to grow his business. And as you know, developing an email list of prospects and customers isn’t the easiest thing on earth.

So here’s how he did it. 

#1 Leveraging lead magnets and a community

Nathan is a marketing genius.

Creating a community for his target audience helped him build an audience for ConvertKit, long before the actual launch of the software. 

In addition, it gave him a channel to communicate with prospects and customers and encourage them to promote ConvertKit’s tools and email list.

How?

By gating access to the community. In fact, to join the community, every user is required to sign up with their email address.

On top of that, since most community members are people with a huge fan base, they quickly spread the word, which sparked virality around Convertkit.

Some people like to call it influencer marketing, but it’s more like leveraging the power of user-generated content.

More on that further down in the next section.

To get members to spread the news about the community, Nathan used to share his knowledge for free.

This strategy was successful mostly because the type of content Nathan was sharing for free was the kind that influencers at the time were selling for $997.

#2 Using user-generated-content to capture leads

When you have a community made up of your customers and potential future customers, you don’t have to do the talks every time to grow your business.

The content created by the people inside the community will do just as fine.   

Here is an example:

Actually, any content associated with your business created by someone who is not an actual member of your company is a kind of social proof you can use to promote your business and attract more leads. 

But, more importantly, it’s free advertising for your business.

How ConvertKit Leverages Its Email List to Make Money

#1 Building a powerful onboarding sequence

When a customer buys a product from your company, you have one and only one chance to make a great first impression.

Once that impression is formed, it can be very difficult, if not impossible, to change their perception. 

Nathan and his marketing team understand that getting someone to become a customer is only half the battle. Delighting the customer enough to stay for the long term is the biggest challenge.

Statistics show that 74 percent of consumers expect to be onboarded as soon as they buy a product.

In addition, it has been proven that new leads are most engaged within the first 48 hours of subscribing. 

One surefire way Convertkit turns every user into a long-term fan is by using a powerful onboarding email sequence. And this is what allows them to minimize churn rate. 

Nathan and his team’s secret sauce is to prove to each subscriber that they are important — and not just another email address in Convertkit’s large email list.  

When you subscribe to Convertkit, you receive a succession of emails that aim to establish a long-term relationship that is not just transactional.

For example, the first email you receive is from a person named Angel.

This email is recipient-centric and doesn’t ask much of the recipient. More importantly, it contains no intention to sell or discount.

The second email in the onboarding sequence is from Nathan Barry himself.

In the email, he talks about why he created Convertkit and offers to help grow your email list and get your first 10 email subscribers.

He also makes an introduction to Tradecraft, their online publication to help creators earn a living.

The third email is from Haley, who is the Community Manager of Convertkit.

This email is an official invitation to join the community.

Again, it’s an offer that suits the Convertkit user because it will give them a chance to connect with other users and share experiences.

Here is what makes these three emails great:

• The pronoun “YOU” was used 84 times in the three emails combined.
• The pronoun “I” was used 9 times in all three emails. 
• Each of the emails came from a person which gives them a human feel. 
• The copy contains 0 promotional words. 
• Instead of asking, Convertkit gives and hosts a free webinar to any new subscriber who is struggling to find their way around. 

Read more: How to Create Cold Email Sequences That Drive Sales

#2 Turning subscribers into fans by teaching and educating them

At Convertkit, the culture of giving is strongly accentuated. This is nothing new.

Since the beginning of the company, Nathan Barry would do the migration from an email service provider to Convertkit for his subscribers for free. 

This same culture has continued over the years and is now part of Convertkit’s DNA.

According to Nathan, “the more you teach and giveaway, the more your subscribers will trust you.“

In the early days, when Convertkit was in development, Nathan would give away his knowledge for free in exchange for subscribers’ email. 

This allowed him to gain the trust of subscribers and turn them into real fans who would be willing to buy from him. 

But Convertkit wasn’t just about ebooks. They were also giving away free courses while most companies and online entrepreneurs were selling theirs for $997.

As a result, more than 100k people visit Convertkit’s website per month expecting to learn and go away with something valuable.

But Convertkit didn’t stop there. In each of their email broadcasts, they’re more likely to help the recipient instead of selling them a product.

This has created a craze among the recipients and as a result, Convertkit is getting over 100k visitors to their website.

Oh, did we mention that those 10k+ visitors came from their email list alone?

By applying Nathan Barry’s philosophy, which is “Teach everything you know, and turn your customers into true fans,” Convertkit has managed to build a true fan base that is willing to spend on the brand’s products.

#3 Using email as a channel for direct sales

If there are 100 people in the world who know the value of an email list, Nathan Barry is one of them. No doubt about it.

As mentioned above, opt-in forms were one of the first elements Convertkit featured in the early versions of their website.

It allowed them to quickly grow their email list. More importantly, it allowed them to have a customer base ready to buy their product.

But before the list was warmed up, Nathan would look for emails from authors who use his competitor’s services — like MailChimp, AWeber, and InfusionSoft — and offer them to use Convertkit.

According to Nathan himself, it was this strategy that allowed Convertkit to grow from $1,300 to $725,000 MRR. 

How did they do it?

At first, they targeted authors — who don’t have a large community — but since that wasn’t scalable, they re-focused their direct sales outreach on professional bloggers with 30,000 to 250,000 email subscribers.

This brought them clients like Pat Flynn, Suzi Whitford, and many other internet sensations.

And that’s when they started to see momentum because the emails gave Convertkit traction and it quickly turned into referrals.

Here’s an example of the email Nathan sent to bloggers who use Convertkit’s competing services.

And each time, they classified each lead in the category in which they fell in the sales funnel.

But despite the success of this strategy, Nathan remained obsessed with the size of his email list.

Recently, Convertkit acquired FanBridge, a leading email marketing platform serving musicians since 2006. FanBridge added a list of 25 million emails to the more than 100 million active emails that Convertkit has.

Read more: 650+ Power Words to Boost Your Conversion (+ Templates)

#4 Sending promotional emails to encourage upgrades

As of this writing, Convertkit counts 44576 active users.

And of all these users, 32% are free users, that is 11959 users in total.

To convert these free users into paid customers, Convertkit uses promotional emails. A study proved that 75% of consumers report scouring their inboxes just to look for relevant discounts. 

Read more: 15 Cold Email Templates to Boost Your Sales

Being aware of this, Convertkit offers coupons that incentivize recipients to upgrade their plan.

And thanks to these promotional offers, the number of upgrades is constantly increasing.

To sell or increase upgrades through emails, Nathan Barry has a very specific framework. Here is what the framework looks like.

In a more practical way, here is how Nathan uses it.

This strategy allows you to gain subscribers’ trust and show them that you care about them. 

Read more: How to Write Cold Email Opening Lines That Get Replies

Key Takeaways

There you have it. The folks at the company used SaaS email marketing to boost the growth of ConvertKit.

Yet, Nathan didn’t put email at the forefront of growing his business, but he didn’t achieve success without it either.

And the email marketing he used was very effective. Here are a few things to keep in mind.

• Expand your prospects’ base

Expanding your prospect base entails all the effort you can put into building and growing your email list.

This is the starting point of any email marketing strategy. Find ways to attract as many people as possible to your business. You can create a community like ConvertKit or employ email tactics to grow your email list. 

• Teach and educate them

The ideas and knowledge you have make you an authority in your business niche. As you’ve seen, ConvertKit teaches its subscribers to turn them into true fans. Teaching works just like giveaways.

It makes you cool in the eyes of your subscribers. It doesn’t have to be about your product, you can teach them anything valuable that you know that’s worth sharing.

They will adore you and will keep coming back for more. Way to grow your business through word of mouth.

• Send promotional emails

This is where the magic happens. Promotional emails simply help you market your products to your subscribers.

But before you send your emails, make sure you design emails that your subscribers can relate to. Segmentation and personalization are key.

So be sure to have a great email copy, and send as many promotional emails as possible. 

In our early days, we made some mistakes and no one replied to our cold emails.

But as time went on, we learned from our mistakes and wrote emails that got replies from CEOs of 9 figure businesses and even from Y Combinator venture capitalists.

The secret? 

We use subject lines that entice our recipients to click open.

If you’re looking for tips on how to craft subject lines that work? Then you’re at the right place. 

In this article, you’ll learn the different techniques and sales email subject lines you can use to create stellar sales emails.

What Makes a Poor Subject Line (Mistakes that will kill your performance)

First, what defines your sales email subject lines as good or bad will always depend on the product or service you are marketing and how your approach to crafting pertains to or hits your target audience.

Here are the most common sales email subject line mistakes we found. 

It inspires nothing (or it’s vague)

The worst thing that can happen to you as a sales marketer is that recipients read your email subject lines and have no clue about the email/offer or feel no internal envy to want to click on your email. 

That’s what we mean by email subject lines that inspire nothing.

Mostly, subscribers feel like the email has nothing to do with them or anything they care about. The subject line fails to pique their interests, and the email is left unopened. 

The problem here can be narrowed down to targeting the wrong people or not conducting proper research to learn about your targets prior to sending your emails.  

It is too long

Long email subject lines don’t do well. If your email subject lines are too long, you’re missing the point. 

Email subject lines are meant to be short phrases with the sole purpose of introducing the email. Also, long subject lines always have a poor rendering in most recipients’ email box providers (more on that later).

It offers no real value.

You can think of this as email subject lines that promise nothing about the email’s value. For the sake of argumentation, here are potential email values most recipients will expect from you as a sales rep. 

• Solving a problem. 
• Making a product/service offer. 
• Discussing something they genuinely love or care about.  
• A learning opportunity. 

If your email subject lines don’t give away or portray a glimpse of these benefits to your audience or customers about your email, then it offers no real value. And thus gives them no reason to open it.  

It’s clickbait.

A sales email subject line click baits can have many facets. Any offer or promise that seems unrealistic can tip off your audience, and your subject line will come across as clickbait. 

It can even be subject lines recipients judge as annoying or which contain exaggerated claims or unethical or legally questionable words. 

Also, promising something in the email subject line and failing to deliver it inside the email body, product, or service will hurt your open rate — in the future. 

Because you might get away with subject lines that don’t live up to their emails once. But your subscribers or recipients will most certainly know better in the future.

Read more: 15 Cold Email Templates to Boost Your Sales

What Makes A Great Subject Line (Attributes that makes them successful) 

Now that we are clear on what makes a poor email subject line, let’s discuss the main characteristics of a compelling subject line.

1- It’s descriptive

At its core, an email subject line aims to tease off the content of the actual email. In other words, it serves to tell recipients what the email is about shortly and sweetly. 

So, even when crafting a sales email and using several tactics, you should ensure that your subject line does not go far from the content of the actual email.

Read more: How AppSumo Writes Subject Lines That Drive $37+ Million In Revenue Per Year

2- It keeps the audience in mind

The language, messaging, offer, technique, words, and everything else included in the email subject are aligned with the audience. 

It’s only a few words, but you should ensure that the target audience quickly identifies with it by making it specific to them.  

Here’s an example from Ernest, pitching a guest blog idea to a marketer. Instead of playing around, he decided to use a common connection to stir the recipient’s curiosity.

Doing so made it easy for the recipient to relate, and here’s how it turned out.

3- It’s brief and concise (Optimized for devices)

Sales email subject lines should be one-liners that quickly explain what the email is about and what recipients will benefit from it. You don’t need too many words for that.

The ideal length of an email subject line will always depend on what devices the target audience uses to access the email. 

Mobile, desktop, and tablet devices produce email subject lines differently. 

What may seem like a good length on a desktop device will most likely render poorly on a tablet or mobile device. So, it all depends on the target audience. But there is a sweet spot. 

According to Campaign Monitor, a subject line should be 41 characters long to appear on desktops, mobiles, and tablets. 

But, email providers usually recommend and limit the subject line to 60 characters. So, you can go for 60 characters if you are sure it accommodates your target audience devices.

Here’s an example from a cold email Ernest sent Tim Soulo of Ahrefs.

Tim liked the email and in spite of his busy schedule made sure that the email was read by the right person. So, he forwarded the email to Joshua Hardwick, Head of Content at Ahrefs.

And here’s how it turned out.

4- It’s interesting

Successful email subject lines always come with an element that entices recipients to open the email. Your audience wants to know what’s in the email for them before opening it. 

So, will they learn something new? Will they get a unique product offer? Is it about a challenge they face that you want to solve? 

Will you help them hit their goals faster? Are there areas that could be improved in their current strategies or processes? Etc.

You need to ignite the benefit to elicit interest from your target audience and entice them to open your email. The question above will help you develop subject line angles that boost your open rates.

Here’s an example of a value-based email subject line.

This subject line is straight to the point and tells the recipient what’s in it for them. Here’s the outcome.

5- It avoids spam trigger words

Spam trigger words are annoying for most people, and they can hurt your deliverability rate. 

Even worse, they can make your email subject line seem clickbait and nullify all chances of getting your emails opened. Successful subject lines are simple and look natural. 

You should ensure not to overpromise and use spam words, drug-related keywords, or words that pressure your recipients. 

Here’s an example of a subject line that uses clear wording to spark the Rand Fishkin of Moz’s interest.

Although the outcome was not positive, it nonetheless caught the recipient’s attention and got him to reply.

How to Write Effective And Catchy Sales Email Subject Lines

There are countless ways and tips you can follow to craft compelling email subject lines. Fun fact, there can be as many tactics as they are email marketers and sales reps. 

Also, researching and constantly using the same subject line secret sauce will bore your target audience out of your email list. 

According to HubSpot, 47% of marketers continuously experiment with different subject lines to optimize their email campaigns.

So, you need to espouse and normalize A/B testing and constantly develop creative ways to craft subject lines to keep your open rates at their best. 

That said, here are eight approaches to crafting excellent sales subject lines. 

1. Personalize it

Chances are, as a sales rep, you already know that sending mass emails with random subject lines that seek to be inclusive for everyone won’t get any results. 

No two prospects are the same, and people want to feel individual. Not surprisingly, emails with personalized subject lines are 22% more likely to be opened.

Prospects want to know that you took the time to research and target them with a specific offer tailored to them. 

And that’s how specific your subject lines need to be. You should make sure your subject line is catered to the persona of the people you are targeting. 

You can personalize the subject using prospects’ first name, making it specific to a specific demographic, job title, or group of people using the same software, etc.

2. Leverage FOMO

The fear of missing out (FOMO) is deeply rooted in our personalities. It’s no secret that no one likes to miss out on something valuable. 

Leveraging FOMO boils down to creating a sense of urgency so that recipients will want to open your email and check it out in a given time frame. 

The urgency factor can pertain to a product deal recipients will miss out on if they don’t act quickly, or it can be an urgent request. 

Even if they are not particularly interested in the product or promotion you offer, the FOMO can make them want to see what the offer is about, so it’s almost a sure open. 

But while you’re at it, you may want to watch how often and where you make urgent requests and time-sensitive offers. 

It is only a thin line between creating a sense of urgency and coming across as an annoying sales rep.

Read more: 650+ Power Words You Can Use To Boost Conversion

3. Strike curiosity

Striking curiosity is a tried-and-proven tactic for creating subject lines that drive more email opens. Curious people always ask questions and search for answers. 

Curiosity-striking subject lines easily pique your prospects’ interests and make them want to learn more about the actual content of the email.

4. Mention the value.

This depends on your product and what you’re offering in your email. The value you offer recipients through your email is part of the elements that interest them and make them want to read your email. 

So, if you are offering something unique or exciting, you need to make it known upfront by mentioning it in the subject line. 

That said, are you offering:

• A discount?
• A free trial?
• A giveaway contest?
• To solve a problem?
• To help uncover churn?
• New experiences?
• Etc.

What benefits will prospects get from reading your emails? 

Whatever value you bring to their table, if you can sparkle in the subject line, it will help you win more openings and drive more interested people.

5. Create a sense of mystery. 

Creating a sense of mystery works in the same way as a striking curiosity. It intrigues recipients to want to learn more about whatever your subject line is about, and their direct action is to open the email and read it. 

But creating a sense of mystery doesn’t mean you should make your subject lines enigmatic or obscure—because these will do more harm than good. 

Not only can they trigger spam filters, but they can also annoy recipients and cause them to give you the silent treatment. 

The best way to leverage mystery in your subject lines is to tell recipients just enough to know that you are legitimate and professional and not enough to make them want to check you out or learn more by opening your email. 

6. Leverage name recognition.

Name recognition is one of the most effective approaches to crafting subject lines, and it works like a charm. 

We all have celebrities, influencers, or like-minded people that we respect, admire, or/and look up to. 

Learning about your audience and mentioning the names of figures they respect and recognize in your subject lines can pique their interest and make them want to read what you have to say.

Mind you, relevance is a fundamental factor to success with this. 

Mentioning people that are in no way associated with your brand, product, or service just throwing out a name for the sake of recognition won’t get you any results. 

Note: What works even better is when you offer people your audience respect a service, and they appreciate and give you validation. That’s literally milk you can cow when targeting prospects. 

Think of it like a super testimonial that breaks all potential objections your audience might have—we’ve landed many clients with this. 

We created a case study about AppSumo’s email marketing strategy and took it in front of Noah Kagan. Noah loved it and hired us. 

Then we created an email with the subject line “Noah Kagan thinks we should talk“. 

We got up to 98% open and click-through rates. The better part, we were also able to win and work with top marketers like Ross Simmonds, Irina Maltseva, and more. 

Read more: How To Create Cold Email Sequences That Generate Sales

7. Use emojis.

One of the best ways to get your audience to action is to elicit emotions; emojis are the best way to do this. 

A single emoji can help you convey a more profound message than words could ever portray. Using emojis can also make your subject lines fun, light-hearted, and better connect with recipients. 

But you should know that emojis won’t hold value in a context that demands an objective voice. So, using it will depend on your goal with the email and your target audience. 

Also, overusing emojis can trigger spam checker algorithms and flag you as a spammer. 

8. Allude to a story.

This is another curiosity-striking approach to crafting email subject lines that get your emails. As the saying goes, stories sell best. Plus, people love stories. 

So, alluding to an exciting story in your subject line can intrigue curious recipients to want to learn more about it and open your email. 

The key is to ensure that the story fits your offer and aligns with your brand. 

30+ Effective Sales Subject Line Templates and Why You Should Use Them

10 subject line templates for cold emails

Here are a few sales email subject line templates you can use when cold emailing your prospects. 

Template 1

When you mention someone prospects know and respect, it naturally makes them curious and wants to learn more about you. 

It works very well, especially when you have a testimonial from a mutual connection with the Prospect or a popular figure.

Template 2

Questions call for answers. When you ask an intriguing question in your cold email subject lines, it makes prospects want to check you out and see what you have to say. 

Question-driven subject lines also foster a conversation with prospects and drive more replies.

Template 3

This personalized subject line clearly states the benefit/value it wants to offer prospects. 

It is a simple approach that reassures prospects about the relevance of your email and gives prospects a reason to open your email. The key is to ensure that your offer/value/benefit is enticing enough. 

Template 4

The quickest way to your prospects’ hearts is to solve a problem or challenge they are struggling with. 

Mentioning a genuine pain point of theirs indicates that you truly know them and immediately teases off what they can expect from your email. If you do it right, it’s a sure open. 

Template 5

Everybody loves free ideas. Also, adding a number can catch the eye and make your email even sexier. 

Keep in mind that the specificity of your tips or idea towards the topic the Prospect cares about will make you successful here.  

Template 6

The idea behind this subject line template is to pair your offer with the Prospect’s goals to make it relevant. 

Every person at a company is working towards some goal; when you can tie up your offer to their goal, it makes your email relevant and interesting. 

Template 7

This is also a personalized, pain point approach which indicates that you’ve done some homework before reaching out to your target prospects. 

Template 8

This is like mentioning a pain point the Prospect is struggling with. The mere fact of mentioning a tool they’re having issues with makes you interesting.  

Template 9

Hitting preset goals and solving our pain points are important to all of us. People will be interested to find out what you want to ask, and they will open the email. 

Template 10

First, it’s personalized. Second, it’s relevant to their goal. They’ll want to know how you want to help and open the email.

10 subject line templates for follow-up emails

Here are subject line templates you can use for follow-up emails. 

Template 11

This is only logical. If you came up with an interesting idea or offer in the previous email, you can use this to tell prospects about the next moves you will take together.  

Template 12

Did you promise something in your previous email? Deliver it. This will keep you top of their minds and the conversation moving forward.  

Template 13

Offering a plan or a solution to your prospects’ pain points is also an effective way to move forward. 

Template 14

Did you give prospects a free trial? A discounted offer? A free product? Or have they purchased from you? 

You can use this subject line to collect their feedback and keep the conversation going.

Template 15

This works well when prospects are reluctant and have doubts about taking the next steps. Making a low-commitment offer can get them to beat their fears and take the step. 

Template 16

You already know prospects will have a lot of objections and what-ifs that can hinder your sales process. 

This subject line supposes that you want to tell a story of someone who had similar reservations and how it played out for them. They will be interested to know.

Template 17

Got an idea on something your prospects will love? Like a blog post they will enjoy or a free trial they can benefit from. 

Personalize the subject line by mentioning their name and letting them know they will love it. 

Template 18

I had this idea since we last spoke

Have an excellent perspective or a new approach you want to share with prospects? This is your subject, your subject line. Also, it encourages them to recall your last conversation.

Template 19

This subject line helps you move the conversation forward with the prospects. Keep in mind that it assumes the Prospect had replied to your previous email.

Template 20

Want to follow up with a meeting? Make it clear in the subject line. 

6 subject line templates for “meeting requests.”

Meeting requests are an essential part of sales prospecting. Here are a few subject line templates you can use for this. 

Template 21

Think of how much time you will need for a sales discussion with your prospects and let them know in the subject line. 

Template 22

This can also be a good strategy for handling objections. Ask them for a demo call to show them the value of your product or tool. 

Template 23

This subject line lets your recipients know why you are reaching out to them. It invites them to decide and let you know about the next steps. 

Template 24

This provides an alternative, easy way to attract new prospects or re-engage with dormant ones.

Template 25

Want to send a meeting invitation? This is your subject line. Plain and straightforward.  

Template 26

This is an effective meeting email subject line for you to send to partner companies and link up with them.

5 subject line templates for “after no response.”

Here are a few subject line templates you can use when your prospects are not responding to your email.

Template 27

This is the simplest email subject line example you can use to break up with prospects. 

Template 28

This is a good subject line you can use at the end of your sales email sequence for prospects who still don’t reply. 

Template 29

Should I stay or should I go?

Have prospects that are having trouble making up their minds? You can’t convince them of the value of your offer all the time. Give them an ultimatum and let them make up their minds.

Template 30

The subject line of this breakup email encourages the Prospect to move forward. The question can also get them to respond so that you know their position.

Template 31

This can be a breakup subject line but still allows you to rekindle the relationship. 

Key Takeaways

• Always keep your sales subject lines short and concise. Make sure it’s stripped of any words that can trip up the audience and trigger spam filters. 
• Make sure it’s aligned with your audience and that it is action-oriented. After all, your goal is to get your prospects to open your sales emails and take your desired action. 
• Set yourself up for success by ensuring you always find an angle that hooks your prospects. Whether you leverage FOMO to create urgency or emojis to elicit emotion. Always find an angle that best aligns with your goals. 

No matter what type of cold email outreach campaign you’re involved in, cold email templates can be a good place to start and a great way to speed up your process.

You can use templates as a base to learn how to write and inspire unique cold emails for your business. 

In this article, you’ll learn cold email best practices, share a few ideas on how sales reps can improve the email copies, and we’ll share with you some of the best cold email templates that helped us get tremendous results.

How to write cold emails that sell?

Great cold email strategy works. People have built careers and launched start-ups on the back of cold emails. 

Product Hunt started with an email outreach campaign and so did Timehop and Storefront. 

But here’s the kicker: Sending cold emails and getting amazing results are not mutually inclusive. 

Your approach to cold emailing your prospects is what determines the outcome you get at the end of the campaign.  

Shane Snow, the co-founder of Contently, shared an eye-opening experiment on cold email. 

For the first campaign, he sent out 1,000 cold emails to C- and VP-level executives from the Fortune 500 (some of the busiest businessmen on the planet). 

Result? He got almost no response. 

But Shane tried again after learning and applying a few principles and got better results:

Truth is, cold email can yield mind-blowing results. But the results you get depend how you approach it and the practices you implement. 

Here are a few practices you need to implement.

Define your IDC and build your buyer persona

When drafting your prospects’ list, it’s essential to clearly define your ICP. Cold outreach campaigns without an ICP are pointless guesses. 

Until you know who you’re trying to attract, it is impossible to target and convert new customers.

That’s the very reason you need to conduct thorough research on your target companies and determine the best profiles that identify your customers. This should include information like:

• industry and the niche; 
• geographical location and time zones; 
• company size; 
• revenue; 
• business goals and missions; 
• pain points and any other attributes you deem necessary.

These will provide you with essential detailed information about your targets and you can qualify business leads based on key factors like their situation, budget, timeline, and industry.

After this, you still need to research and determine the individuals that must sign off on the deal, that’s where the buyer persona comes in. Technically, it’s a continuation of your ICP research and builds upon it to find the appropriate person. 

The buyer persona outlines the attributes of the key decision-makers on your prospect list. In addition to everything already mentioned in your ICP, it will include the following: 

• job title; 
• income level;
• goals;
• interests, attitudes, beliefs, and personality;
• preferred technologies; 
• why they buy your product – what’s their primary purpose;
• how often they buy it;
• objections – what would cause them not to buy

Now that you have all the firmographic and technographic data on your prospects, it’s time to look for their email address.

Here’s how. 

Find the right email address of your prospects 

There is no point in getting ready to send cold emails without an email list.

Email addresses are the heart of cold emailing. Mind you, not just an email list, but a list of verified and authentic email addresses.

If you don’t know how to get those, here’s a quick guide.

LinkedIn Search 

Few people know that the majority of their prospects have their email addresses on LinkedIn.

To find it, just head to the LinkedIn search bar and search for your prospect by name.

Then click on “Contact info” and you’ll see all their details including the official email address, website, birthday, Twitter profile, etc.

Here you go.

Read more: LinkedIn InMail Vs. Email: Which Closes More Deals?

Lead magnets 

Also known as opt-in offers, lead magnets are free products or services that you give away for the sole purpose of collecting the contact information of your prospects. Here is an example from Nerdy Joe.

So, these can include: 

• ebooks; 
• PDFs; 
• trial subscriptions; 
• samples; 
• white papers; 
• spreadsheets; 
• analysis reports;
• free consultations or free courses, etc.. 

Whatever you offer as a lead magnet, make sure it is valuable to your target audience. 

Read more: 650+ Power Words to Boost Your Conversion (+ Templates)

Email finder tools 

If you are racing against the clock, then the above two techniques may not be appropriate. 

And in that case, nothing beats email search tools as they can help you get a list of verified email addresses in minutes. The best tool we recommend here is Hunter Email Finder. 

It is a powerful tool that helps you find the contact information of your prospects in no time. Simply put in their name and company URL. And the trick is done.

How it works: Hunter gathers all the data found on the web – email formats, email addresses, verifications, and other signals – then shows you the right contact information in seconds.

Now you have the email addresses in your pocket. It’s time to personalize your cold email templates to grab the attention of your prospects.

Here is how.

Personalize your cold email templates

Cold email templates should never be copied and sent as they are. 

Personalization shows the prospect that you have done your homework, and that you’re not just another spammer. It increases your deliverability rate. 

If you wonder how you can add personalization to your cold email campaigns, here are some practices you may want to consider.

1 – Use icebreakers 

If you’re sending a cold email, it means your prospects don’t know about you and you are landing in their inbox as an unsolicited guest. Common sense would require you to smoothen the atmosphere before you start talking business, that’s the whole point of using icebreakers. 

In the context of cold email, icebreakers are complementary or factual sentences you lead your outreach message with. The idea is to pique your prospects’ interest and make yourself interesting enough so that they want to read what you have to say. Here is how to go about it.  

Start your copy with a simple yet punchy phrase that indicates that you know your prospects and what they do very well. . You can also use a greeting that makes them feel connected to you right from the get-go, a shout-out, or a compliment.

Examples:

• Congratulations on your new role as General Manager of Digital Media and Games at the XYZ Foundation. You’re charting an impressive career path. Keep up the good work.
• I read John Doe’s recommendation on your LinkedIn profile and I must say good job. You are the type of marketing executive that every company dreams of. Keep up the good work.
• Your work experience with XYZ is very inspiring. Congratulations on your 10th anniversary at the company. 
• I’m probably late to the party but congratulations on your new role as Vice President, at XYZ. By the way, you’re charting an impressive career path. Keep up the good work.
• Etc.

Read more: How to Write Cold Email Opening Lines That Get Replies

2 – Mention the technologies they use

If you sell a competitor product, having an idea of the technologies your prospects use is another effective way to break the ice—plus, it’s a clear sign that you’ve done some research on them prior to the email campaign launch. 

BuiltWith is a great tool to find this. It’s a tool that shows you all the technologies a company uses on its website.

Examples:

• Since you use XYZ for SEO, I wanted to know if you are also facing X and Y problems.
• We’ve recently talked with 30 professionals who use XYZ to gain more business and we’ve learned that they all struggle to achieve ABC. 

3 – Mention relevant social media activities

If your prospect has recently shared, liked, commented, engaged with a post, or participated in an event (whether related to you or not), you can mention and comment on their engagement and kick off the conversation from there.

Even better, if it’s related to what you sell and want to discuss with them, you can spark it as the reason why you’re reaching out to them. 

Examples:

• Noticed you liked the {{XYZ}} post about X—I wanted to ask about [related topic].
• Loved your LinkedIn post about X. It’s so relatable!
• I just came across Jane Doe’s post about ABC and enjoyed reading your comment on the issue. I like your unique take on how we must implement CDE to achieve ABC for the long term. 

4 – Touch on their goals and responsibilities and avoid stating the obvious

Check out your prospect’s Twitter or LinkedIn profile. Reference a specific goal or responsibility they listed and use it to explain how you can help make their job easier and more impactful.

Example:

• I recently found out that you are responsible for increasing advertising ROI at {{company name}}. Have you tried [strategy]? Happy to share my learnings if not.
• Saw that you handle localization and translation at {{company name}}. Are you the right person to contact about your internationalization strategy?

5 – Leverage a highly personalized P.S. Note

One of the best ways to add value to your content without detracting from your main message is to leverage P.S. notes. 

If you and your prospect have common passions or backgrounds, you can use them. 

Example: I discovered we have some overlap in AirForce. I was in from 2004 to 2006 as a Medic. Thanks for your service!

Read more: How to Create Cold Email Sequences That Drive Sales

Common mistakes most B2B companies make when cold emailing 

Let’s look at some common mistakes B2B companies make while sending out cold emails.

Poor, lengthy subject-line

For such a small word count (4 to 6 on average), your subject line has a lot of power. The subject line is one of the first elements recipients see about your cold email. A poor one can nullify all your efforts to get your emails open and read. 

Unfortunately, most B2B companies don’t get it right.

Some make it too long whereas the majority of emails are now read on mobile devices. So if it’s too long, it won’t fit on the smaller screen of your mobile device. 

• Gmail displays the first 70 characters of your subject line 
• the iPhone email client only accepts 41 (in portrait mode) 
• on an Android phone, the subject line can only contain 30 characters

And the fact is, if people don’t get to read the entire subject line, chances are they won’t be excited enough to open your email.

Surface-level personalization

We can’t stress enough the importance of laser-focused personalization in cold emails. Gone are the days when the {{prospect.first_name}} and {{company name}} attributes alone could account for personalization. Nowadays, you need to dig deeper. A lot deeper, indeed. 

221.19 million emails compete for attention every minute. The lack of personalization just makes your email another one in the inbox that never gets clicked. 

Obsessed with scaling rapidly

One more reason why most cold email campaigns from B2B companies fail is that they are too focused on volume.

Sure, you need to scale up at some point in time. But first, you need a formula that works.

If that means sending emails one by one in the beginning, then do it. True, it’s slow, but it’s much better than sending hundreds of emails at once with no response. There’s no point in settling for a game of numbers.

Once you find your own repeatable personalization process, then you can start scaling your campaigns.

Proven sales cold email templates

Tim Watson, the founder of Zettasphere, put it so well when he said: “the fundamental principle of email will never change. Send the right message to the right person at the right time.”

To further help you craft and send the right email for the right contexts, we’ve compiled a list of proven templates that you can use.

Remember, these are no cure-all. 

Edit, shorten, or change them as you see fit to make your message relevant to your prospects.

Let’s get started.

Cold email templates with a direct approach 

It is estimated that approximately 319.6 billion emails were sent and received every day in 2021 alone.

That’s 13.31 billion emails per hour and 221.19 million emails per minute. It’s substantially enormous, and thus it’s sometimes useful to get straight to the point. 

Using cold email for selling products? Here is a cold email template you can use.

Why it works: This type of email works very well because you don’t waste your prospect’s time using excessive wording. No fluff. You get right to the point.

If you are targeting the always busy executives, this template can be the best choice as it also offers social proof to support your straightforward claim.

The attention-interest-desire-action (AIDA) cold email template

AIDA is a popular content-writing formula widely used by marketers. It simply involves writing a cold email with an approach to:

• Grab their attention
• Create interest in your offer 
• Get them to build the desire
• And eventually, get them to take your desired action.

Here is a template you can use for this approach.

Why it works: This cold email template starts strong with a unique offer, provides social proof and ends up with a clear call to action. 

Value-based cold email templates

You can also create a cold email that highlights your value proposition in your email body and ends with a quick call request.

Why it works: Add value first, then sell. 

Problem-Agitate-Solve (PAS) cold email template

This is one of the simplest ways to create cold emails. Simply mention one problem your prospect is facing, ignite the problem, let them know how it’s holding them behind, and then introduce your solution as the hero they need.

Why it works: The cold sales email template highlights the customer’s pain points and provides a solution. 

Humor-based cold email templates

People get tons of emails every day, and one of the best ways to stand out is to integrate humor. If used appropriately, humor can get even the most defensive prospect to lower their guard and engage with you. 

Why it works: Starts a fun, relatable subject line that invites the reader in. It is also a casual email you can use even when you have no prior connection with the prospect. 

Follow-up cold email template 

Why it works: This cold sales email template reminds the prospects of the solution and ends with a strong call. It’s also kept short and to-the-point. 

Direct offer cold email template

If you want to make an offer to your target prospects without wasting a single second on their time, this is your template. 

Why it works: Highlighting your prospects’ pain points always works. If you can write a short cold email that highlights their pain points and how your products solve their pain, you’ll always win. 

Handling objections after 1st touch email

Running a cold email outreach and getting results is not anything like a screwdriver on a screw.

Especially since they didn’t know about you. People are bound to have objections. That’s why you’ll need to prepare a second cold email to handle their objections. 

Why it works: The main reason this cold email is effective is because it allows you to tell your prospects stories of other people they can easily identify with.

Doing so in your cold email outreach suppress doubt and they can easily take your desired action. 

Before-After-Bridge (BAB) cold email template

The marketing industry owes this cold emailing approach to Buffer. The idea behind the approach is to help you customers imagine what their lives would be like after integrating your solution.

Here is a template for this. 

Why it works: It reminds your prospects of the pains they’re facing right and paints a bright future for them. 

Product introduction cold email template

Are you launching a new product and want to sell it to your target customers by way of cold emails?

Here is the perfect cold email template for this situation.

Why it works: This cold email template rapidly provides context and introduces the new product. It also mentions companies the new service is currently serving and the audience can easily identify with it.

Cold email template for giving more advantages 

If you’ve already sent one cold email and your prospects don’t reply, you might want to consider sending another email that provides even more advantages.

Here is a template you can use.

Why it works: This cold email template is the perfect follow-up to your previous cold email. 

Cold email template for when you don’t know if you have the right prospect

You have this amazing offer but you are unsure as to whether the person you are contacting is the right person. We’ve got you covered.

Here is your cold email template.

Why it works: This email is a friendly and polite request. Your prospect will most likely redirect you to the right person if it’s not them. 

Cold email that flatters your prospect’s ego

Flattering your prospect’s ego is one of the fattest ways to win them over in your sales process. It’ll get them to care and hear out what you have to offer. 

There are lots of ways you can flatter their ego, from mentioning their blog post you love to.

Why it works: This cold email flatters their ego and easily gets their attention.

Key Takeaways

• Cold emails that truly bring results are the ones that are personalized and super-focused on making target prospects feel individual and understood. Also ensure your cold email subject lines are well-written and are position to drive action.
• Copy-pasting and blasting email lists with templated emails across your cold email outreach campaign is not a good idea — it will not work. You’ll only see your churn rate spike and your reputation slump after a single cold email campaign. 
• The one way to be successful in your cold email outreach campaign using templates is to strike a healthy balance between the cold email templates and personalization. You need to research your target prospects and edit the templates to come up with 100% super-targeted cold emails that align with your prospects.

Quick question.

How do you get replies like this from CMOs, CEOs, executives, or any busy decision-makers?

Well, you send them an email that catches their attention. 

How?

By using well-researched and hyper-personalized cold email opening lines.

In this article, we’ll share successful cold email opening line templates with you that you can emulate or use to craft excellent opening lines that hook your readers. 

Why is your cold email opening line so important?

Your opening line is one of the critical elements in your cold email that guarantees excellent engagement metrics for your campaign. How?

Just like your subject line and sender information, prospects will have access to (and can read) a snippet of the first sentence of your cold email—and that’s literally the starter of the opening line. 

So, before even opening your email, prospects can read a snippet of the opening line. It might not seem like much, but it can be enough to chew on to decide whether or not to open a cold email.

If it seems generic or fails to interest prospects, they mightn’t open the email — nor read it — even with an excellent subject line. 

Also, there is an immediate correlation between all the key components that make up an email copy, and your cold emailing success is dependent on this. 

Here is how. 

After prospects open your cold email from an enticing subject line, if you fail to interest and hook them from the get-go, they might bounce, and all downward efforts to get them to take your desired action will be in vain. 

That’s why you need to ensure an excellent opening line to your cold emails.

Nailing the opening line is an effective way to win the hearts of your audience, gain their trust, and establish yourself as a worthy marketer. 

From there, you’ll be able to ensure a thorough and end-to-end read of your cold email, and you can be sure your marketing objectives are being met. 

How we approach the email opening line at Nerdy Joe and why we do icebreakers instead

Typical cold email or general email opening lines can be summed up as simple greetings. We are sure you can tell. They generally fall along the lines of phrases like the following.

• Allow me to introduce myself.
• Good afternoon.
• Good morning.
• How are you?
• Hope this email finds you well.
• I hope you enjoyed your weekend.
• I hope you’re doing well.
• I hope you’re having a great week.

Simple greetings, yeah? That’s how most marketers and sales rep approach their email opening lines. 

Now we are not saying that these don’t work or that there’s something wrong with these sentences.

What we mean is that they are poor. Let’s discuss why we do icebreakers instead to really show why we do that instead. 

Why do we do icebreakers instead?

Most prospects or leads you will be targeting with your cold emails don’t know about you or your product.

You already have that working against you. So, capturing their full attention and having a good first impression are vital to your success.

To do this:

1. First, you need an opening line that rapidly differentiates you from other marketers and hooks your prospects or partner to read your cold email. 
2. You need a phrase that makes your leads feel valued and makes the statement that you did your homework before reaching out to them. 
3. You need an opening line that helps remove the cold from your cold message and conditions the recipient to be more receptive to your message. 

In light of all this, simple greetings can’t cut it. That’s why we do icebreakers. 

Icebreakers are opening-line sentences integrated at the beginning of your cold message to facilitate interaction with your recipients.

As the name implies, icebreakers are designed to help you break the ice between you and your prospects. 

Instead of simple greeting phrases, we take it to the next level and bring interesting facts and personalized elements about the prospects to personalize the opening line and make it more impactful.

Here is how we do it at Nerdy Joe before launching our cold email campaigns. 

How we proceed to write icebreaker opening lines that our prospects love

We start by checking prospects’ activities on social platforms and popular online communities. 

In most cases, LinkedIn and Twitter work for most B2B professionals. 

Next, we look at their latest activities, their company’s activity, or anything else. The idea is to find a recent interesting aspect or element from their life and spark it at the beginning of the message to smoothen the conversation. 

So, we look at things like posts, likes, comments, a recent promotion, a job recommendation, an impressive career path, a share, a mention, a selfie, and whatever data we can talk about to create a unique first touch.

Sure, it does not seem much like it, but it truly boosts your credibility as a marketer (or a cold emailer), and prospects can easily take an interest in what you have to tell them and read through.

Here is an example of how we keep it all in a spreadsheet before the campaign.

Now, here’s what it looks like in real life. I pitched CoSchedule’s then Head of Content Ben Sailer and asked him if I could write for them.

Here’s what he replied 1 hour later.

How long should the icebreaker opening line be?

The volume of the opening sentence should be around 10% to 30% of the entire volume of your cold email. 

It should clearly and precisely address why you are reaching out to the prospects. 

Keep in mind that the shorter and more relevant your opening sentence is, the more likely it is to be read and appreciated by your leads. 

It’s always best to be brief and to the point for your first touch with your prospects and leads. 

You should write your opening sentences strategically so that even the busiest prospects will take their time to read and execute your call to action. 

Email opening line templates (+ 15 examples)

There are various types of cold email opening sentences. We have created icebreaker opening line templates with examples that have been successful for companies so you can easily use them.

Sales email opening lines.

Sales email opening lines are a particular group dedicated to sales reps. These are also applicable to business emails. Here are several ways to write these introductory email sentences to generate high interest in your business.

Opening line 1: Mention a company 

One of the most effective ways to write a sales email opening line is to mention a company you have collaborated with in the past. Ideally, a famous company that is in the same field as them.

Try this: 

Template: We have recently collaborated with [put the name of the company,] and we have helped them to carry out [such and such tasks]

Example: We recently collaborated with ActiveCampaign and helped them build their content marketing strategy. 

Opening line 2: Name the company you’re working for

You can also start your introduction by giving the name of the company you are working for. 

Template: At [the name of your company], we improve [enumerate a current need that the company has and that you can provide solutions to] 

Example: At Nerdy Joe, we write compelling cold emails for newsletters of your type. 

This kind of opening line makes you more trustworthy and boosts your chances of getting positive replies.

Opening line 3: Lead with an intriguing question

Start with a question that engages your prospect’s interest. That one should be simple and catchy. Here is a template you can follow:

Template: How beneficial could it be for your brand to [write something achievable?]

Example: How successful would your cold email marketing campaign be if you invested in writing excellent icebreakers? 

Remember that all these models should be adapted to your needs and expectations.

Opening line 4: Mention a recommendation from their LinkedIn page with a genuine compliment

This lets your leads know that you did check them out before sending your email. And even if they have a busy schedule, they will take the time to check your outreach emails.

Template: I just came across your LinkedIn profile and I must say the recommendation [name of person] left for you is amazing. You are the type of [job title] that every company dreams of. Keep up the good work.

Example: I just came across your LinkedIn profile and I must say that the recommendation Eric Anderson left for you is amazing. You are the type of General Manager & Marketing Executive that every company dreams of. Keep up the good work.

Opening line 5: Appreciate their work experience with their company

Appreciating their work experience is also showing them that you did your research on them. It can even feel like you’ve been monitoring their work for quite some time.

Template: Your work experience with [Company name] is very inspiring. I look forward to congratulating you on your fifth anniversary as [Position]. Keep up the good work.

Example: Your work experience with Nexthink is very inspiring. I look forward to congratulating you on your fifth anniversary as VP of Marketing. Keep up the good work.

Opening line 6: Congratulate and appreciate them on a recent achievement

This can be anything like recent funding, a job promotion, an industry event they hosted, a personal approach they developed for something, etc.

No matter what you find, mentioning it can catch your prospect’s attention and get them to read your email. Here is a template for a job promotion.

Template: Congratulations on [XYZ] your new role as [New position] at [Company]. You’re charting an impressive career path. Keep up the good work.

Example: Congratulations on your new role as General Manager of Digital Media and Games at the Linux Foundation. You’re charting an impressive career path. Keep up the good work.

Follow-up email opening lines

Follow-up email opening lines are a particular category of introducing sentences that allow you to keep an eye on the status of your previous email and give them the chance to be answered or to catch your lead’s attention once again.

Follow-ups are, for that reason, critical. So here are three templates of cold email follow-up opening sentences that can benefit you. 

Opening line 1: A gentle reminder

This opening line template is one of the best and most effective for a quick follow-up.  

Template: I’m [The name of the prospect]. I hope this email finds you well. This is to get more information about the email I sent you last time.

We all receive a bunch of emails that we often get lost, and the simple fact of receiving this type of email makes us curious and willing to check out what the previous email was about.

Opening line 2: Polite greeting, straight question

The other effective way to write a cold email opening line is to ask a question to the lead directly. Then, just after a polite greeting, you may pop your request.

Example: Hello. I hope you are doing well. Did you take the time to read my previous mail?

Opening line 3: Value their time

This opening line helps readers realize how much you care about them and how you recognize that they are overwhelmed with messages at any given time. 

Template: I know you’re very busy and get many messages daily. So I’m writing to you to follow up on my email in case you missed it in your inbox. 

This opening line allows the reader to remember your previous mail quickly and maybe reply to you. 

Link-building email opening lines

Link-building and email opening lines aim to create a partnership between companies. Here are some templates you may use to write your link-building introductory sentences.

Opening line 1: Tell how you found their masterpiece

Template: I am [Your name] from [Company]. I was looking for [The topic] when I came across your article about [The article title]. 

Example: I am Peter from Active Campaign. I was reading up on how to increase my online sales rates when I came across your article “Tips to increase online sales.” 

This opening sentence is relatively straightforward. It tells your leads why you are sending the email. This makes it easier for the reader to read your entire message and follow up on it.

Opening line 2: Appreciate their work

You could also begin by appreciating the business you want to collaborate with in your opening sentence.

But, anyone would love to hear others say they are good at their work. That’s why this type of opening line is so successful. 

Template: I’m [Your name] from [Your company name]. We like and appreciate the great work you’ve been doing when it comes to [Name the field].

Example: I’m John from X. We appreciate the work you’ve been doing when it comes to writing relevant content. 

Content promotion email opening lines

Here are two opening line templates with examples that will help you better promote your articles. 

Opening line 1: Butter up, then but

Template: I just read your blog post on [The title of the article]. I liked how you approached it [List some points that impressed you].

However, I did realize that you did not address [List relevant points that were not addressed in the blog post].

Example: I just read one of your posts on how to write high-quality content, and I liked how you approached the theme. However, you did not mention the need for writers always to keep their target audience’s pain point in mind. 

Although it may seem lengthy, this kind of opening sentence offers you a clear concept of how the essay should be structured and it easily catches your recipient’s attention. 

Opening line 2: Be straight, direct

Template: We published a blog post on [The topic] and thought you might find this type of content useful. Since we target the same audience I think it can help your customers in solving [pain point]

Example: We have published the ultimate guide on writing the best subject line templates, and we thought you’d undoubtedly find it helpful. 

Like the previous email openers, this email introductory sentence helps the reader save time and avoid wondering why you’re writing to them.

Collaboration and partnership request

Collaboration opening lines are meant to establish partnerships between the companies involved.

Here are some templates that can be personalized and samples to support them. 

Opening line 1: Mention a mutual connection or a mutual acquaintance

Template: [Mutual or familiar connection] and I were talking when they told me you were looking for [the service that you can provide]

Example: Emy and I were discussing when she told me you were looking for a copywriter expert. 

Using this type of sentence offers you several advantages at the same time. The first one refers to the name that you both have in common.

The second is that this first sentence contains the reason for your email.

Opening line 2: Clarify your intent from the get-go

Collaboration opening lines may also be written as a direct question. 

Template: I am [Your name] from [Your company name]. What do you think about collaborating between [Your company] and [Their company]? 

Example: I am Peter from Company. What do you think about a collaboration between Company and Active Campaign?

This opening sentence instantly gives your intent while stimulating the lead to follow up on your request. 

Digital PR email opening lines

PR email opening sentences are the most used and best-adapted category for sending professional emails.

For this reason, we have created templates that you can adapt to your needs. 

Opening line 1: Shoot for their heart

Template: I just came across your [The title of the article]. It was very enlightening. I shared it with my colleagues here at [Your company name]

Example: I just came across your article about the importance of email marketing for businesses. I just shared it with my colleagues at Active Campaign. 

This opening line helps you save time and quickly build relationships with your target. It’s also a way to tell them that you’re in the same industry as them and that you’re open to discussions. 

Opening line 2: Care and flatter

Template: My name is [Your name]. I work for [Your company name]. I enjoyed your report. Relevant pieces of information were included in it. I really enjoyed it. 

Example: I’m John from Active Campaign. I liked your report. It was full of relevant information. 

This introduction line is quite polite and flattering, but more importantly, it shows that you care about the readers and respect their business. 

All these templates serve as suggestions and directives. To be more effective, you have to personalize them.

That’s why we give you in the following part our expert advice to be more effective when you write your opening lines.  

Our experts’ tips for writing the best opening line

Here is a list of tips you can use to personalize your opening lines.

Focus on trigger events

Considering the tons of emails people receive daily, it would be much more strategic to write opening lines that address their current situation or make them realize that you know them better than they can imagine. 

Trigger events are usually related to the company’s news or the prospects’ professional life. Various factors can be used to guide you. 

A new position

If the prospect you are writing to has recently relocated to a new place, you may use this news to build a relationship with the company and, at the same time, generate their interest in your email.

Reaction to competitors

Another way to draw the prospect’s attention is to start telling them about their competitors and then propose a solution or give them your opinion on how they could have proceeded. 

Example: Have you noticed that your competitors are now using digital marketing experts for their strategy? Do you want to follow their example? 

A market shift

This is also an effective way to start your opening line. For example, start by sending them news about the market shift and perhaps be more curious by asking them if they want to take the opportunity.

Compliment them

Everybody likes compliments, so why not use this strategy?

A kudos opening line

Telling your leads that you like what they do will show more interest in your message. 

Example: Hey, I’m Peter. I’ve just finished reading your latest article and appreciate how you approached the topic. Your content is precious. 

Comment on their professional expertise

Your opinion about your prospect’s professional expertise will make them more open to you.

Example: Hey Emy. It seems like you will perform next month during (the event). I just wanted you to know that you’re the reason for my presence at this conference. It is always an opportunity and a pleasure to listen to you sharing your knowledge.

Ask a question 

Asking excellent, relevant questions at the head of your emails encourages your leads to get in touch with you.

Let your curiosity find expression. 

People like it when others show interest in their life and achievements. By asking simple questions about your prospects’ professional life, you have a solid chance to get a reply from them. 

Ask if they need help.

You may also use opening lines that ask questions about the lead’s needs. This helps you know how to propose your services.

Example: Do you have trouble increasing your sales rate? 

Give first, then ask.

Analyzing your prospects and giving them relevant information or freebies can spark interest. It shows that you are concerned about them and know what they do. 

Offer a solution to their pain points.

Offering your something valuable to solve your prospect’s problem can facilitate a partnership between you or even elevate your sales pitch.

It is not supposed to be something huge-just; a little research to find what kind of problem they are facing now and give helpful and appropriate advice.

Share some statistics

Make a complete study about the company you’re writing to and find an interesting statistic about them or their company.

You may also do some research to justify your findings. By doing so, your leads will be impressed and be more open to you. 

Find a connection

Finding something common to start your outreach campaign can help your leads get involved and interested in your sales emails.

It doesn’t have to be something huge—just a beginning sentence mentioning a shared connection.

Use your common background.

People are more likely to work with others if they have something in common. So try to find a link between you.

It might be something from high school, a morning coffee, an internship, or whatever. 

Use a mutual connection or a mutual friend.

One of the best ways to get replies to your cold emails is using a personal relationship. It might be a friend you both have in common, a relative, a favorite author, etc.

Just find someone closer to your lead who can help you make it. 

Read more: How To Write A Follow-up Email After No Reply (+ 10 Templates)

Key Takeaways

• Your cold email campaign success is not only based on the quality of your subject lines. Opening sentences also play a considerable role in it.
• Excellent opening lines act as icebreakers and help you connect with your recipients and make them more open to receiving your emails. 
• Ensure to properly research your prospects before creating icebreakers directed to them. Because poor opening lines will only hurt your results. 

Choosing the words used in your emails is always a delicate task.

You want to present your products in the right way, entice the reader to engage with your message and take your desired action, and yet stay on the good side to avoid words that trigger spam filters. 

But sometimes, while pushing for compellingness and ensuring that the email is conveying the purpose of your message, the use of certain words pushes email service providers’ spam filters to place your emails in the spam folder. 

In this article, we share the latest list of spam trigger words to avoid you need to be aware of to keep your emails safe from landing in the spam folder and ensure you always get delivered. 

What are spam trigger words?

Email spam trigger words are words and phrases included in your email that email providers’s email filtering algorithms see as red flags and consider malicious for the recipient of the email and therefore block the email being delivered.

These are mostly words that are used in email subject lines as well as email bodies in an attempt to get an action or reaction from the reader.

They trigger spam filters that consider them spam words because they find them suspicious, misleading, or too good to be true and send the email to the spam folder.

Spam trigger words can tip your beautifully-written email to the wrong side of the inbox of your recipients, who will, therefore, not receive your communication — even if you don’t mean to use those words and phrases.

The main reason email marketing specialists need to learn about email spam words to avoid is that constantly having your email marketing campaigns sent to spam folders hurts email deliverability.

Down the road, constantly having your emails flagged by spam filters damages your sender reputation, and spam filters will always send your email campaigns to the spam folders anytime they receive emails from your domain.

Before we reveal the list of email spam trigger words to you, it is important to put things in context to show you the types of words that get flagged as spam emails. 

What types of words do spam filters flag?

There are a gazillion words and phrases that get flagged by email spam filters. It can seem hard to always know which ones, but there is a pattern.

Spam filters only catch suspicious words and phrases associated with the following:

• Scams: setting up dishonest schemes or frauds and using words and phrases like ‘free money’, ‘instant weight loss’, ’billions’.
• Manipulation: creating unnecessary urgency with words like ‘Urgent’, and ’Don’t delete’. This also includes using words that are too specific to marketing and the idea of sales.
• Gimmicks: adding tricky words to elicit emotions or drive action.  
• Promises: constantly making promises across the email.
• Free gifts: include too many gifts and promising free stuff in your email subject line or content. 
• Neediness: sounding desperate and needy with words like ‘Help’, and ’Distress’
• Sleaziness: using inappropriate, out-of-context, or sex language with words like hot babes, or adult. 
• Shadiness: ethically or legally questionable behavior.
• Being too cheap: making unrealistic discounts with words and phrases including ‘Free’, 100% off, Full Discount.

450+ spam trigger words per category and business industry

There is a list of words and phrases that are considered suspicious or potentially spammy by email providers.

These will be detected, trigger some sort of red flag, and the spam filters in your recipient’s inbox will likely place your email in junk status to protect the recipient.

Here is the ultimate list of email spam trigger words. 

Marketing and Sales Email Spam Trigger Words To Avoid

• Ad
• Affordable
• All natural
• All new
• Amazed
• Amazing
• Amazing stuff
• As seen on
• Auto email removal
• Bargain
• Be amazed
• Beneficiary
• Best price
• Big bucks
• Bill 1618
• Billing
• Billing address
• Billion
• Billion dollars
• Bonus
• Bulk email
• Cancel at any time
• Cannot be combined with any other offer
• Chance
• Cheap
• Check
• Check or money order
• Click
• Click below
• Click here
• Click to remove
• Compare rates
• Compete for your business
• Dear friend
• Direct email
• Direct marketing
• Discount
• Email harvest
• Email marketing
• Free call
• Free consultation
• Free DVD
• Free hosting
• Free priority mail
• Free sample
• Free trial
• Free website
• Increase sales
• Increase traffic
• Increase your sales
• Incredible deal
• Info you requested
• Information you requested
• Internet marketing
• Marketing
• Marketing solutions
• Mass email
• Month trial offer
• More internet traffic
• Multi-level marketing
• No purchase necessary
• No questions asked
• No selling
• Offer
• Offer expired
• Once in lifetime
• One hundred percent free
• One hundred percent guaranteed
• One time
• One time mailing
• Online biz opportunity
• Online marketing
• Opt in
• Sale
• Satisfaction
• Satisfaction guaranteed
• Save $
• Save big money
• Save up to
• Search engine listings
• Search engines
• Sign up free today
• Special promotion
• Special promotion
• Tells you it’s an ad
• This isn’t a scam
• This isn’t spam
• This won’t last
• Traffic
• Trial
• Vacation
• Vacation offers
• Visit our website
• Web traffic

Financial Email Spam Trigger Words To Avoid

• Accept credit cards
• Additional income
• Avoid bankruptcy
• Calling creditors
• Cards accepted
• Cash
• Cash bonus
• Cash Cash Cash
• Cents on the dollar
• Consolidate debt and credit
• Consolidate your debt
• Costs
• Credit
• Credit bureaus
• Credit card offers
• Debt
• Don’t hesitate
• Double your
• Double your cash
• Double your income
• Drastically reduced
• Earn
• Earn $
• Earn extra cash
• Earn per week
• Eliminate bad credit
• Eliminate debt
• Exclusive deal
• Expect to earn
• Expire
• Explode your business
• Extra
• Extra cash
• Extra income
• Fantastic deal
• Financial freedom
• Financially independent
• For just $ (some amount)
• For just $xxx
• Free
• Free gift
• Free grant money
• Free investment
• Free leads
• Free membership
• Free money
• Free offer
• Free preview
• Full refund
• Get out of debt
• Get paid
• Great offer
• Hidden assets
• Hidden charges
• Income
• Income from home
• Investment
• Investment decision
• It’s effective
• Loan
• Lower interest rates
• Lower monthly payment
• Lower your mortgage rate
• Lowest insurance rates
• Lowest Price
• Luxury
• Luxury car
• Luxury car
• Make $
• Make money
• Mortgage
• Mortgage rates
• No cost
• No credit check
• No fees
• No hidden
• No hidden costs
• No interests
• No inventory
• No investment
• No middleman
• Only $
• Opportunity
• Pennies a day
• Quote
• Refinance
• Refinance home
• Refund
• Requires initial investment
• Risk free
• Serious cash
• Serious only
• Subject to cash
• Subject to credit
• Talks about hidden charges
• The best rates
• They keep your money — no refund!
• Thousands
• Unsecured credit
• Unsecured debt
• US dollars
• Wants credit card
• Warranty
• Your income

Medical Email Spam Words To Avoid

• Cell phone cancer scam
• Collect child support
• Cures
• Cures baldness
• Diagnostics
• Fast viagra delivery
• Human growth hormone
• Life
• Life Insurance
• Lifetim
• Lose weight
• Lose weight spam
• Medicine
• No medical exams
• Online pharmacy
• Removes wrinkles
• Reverses
• Reverses aging
• Stop
• Stop snoring
• Valium
• Viagra
• Vicodin
• Weight
• Weight loss
• While you sleep
• Will not believe your eyes
• Xanax

eCommerce Email Spam Trigger Words To Avoid

• Be your own boss
• Boss
• Buy
• Buy direct
• Buying judgments
• Congratulations
• Gift certificate
• Give it away
• Giving away
• Here
• Hidden
• Join millions
• Join millions of americans
• Laser printer
• Limited supplies
• Million
• Million dollars
• Money
• Money back
• Money making
• Never
• New customers only
• Order
• Order now
• Order shipped by
• Order status
• Order today
• Pennies a day
• Potential earnings
• Price
• Produced and sent out
• Profits
• Purchase
• Pure Profits
• Rates
• Rolex
• Round the world
• Shopper
• Shopping spree
• Stock alert
• Stock disclaimer statement
• Stock pick
• Strong buy
• Stuff on sale
• Supplies
• Supplies are limited
• While supplies last
• Why pay more?

Legal Spam Trigger Words To Avoid

• Certified
• Claims
• Claims not to be selling anything
• Claims to be in accordance with some spam law
• Claims to be legal
• Clearance
• Confidentially on all orders
• Copy accurately
• Easy terms
• Guarantee
• Guaranteed
• In accordance with laws
• Insurance
• Legal
• Message contains
• Message contains disclaimer
• Name brand
• No catch
• No claim forms
• Obligation
• Reserves the right
• Terms
• Terms and conditions
• The following form

Employment Email Spam Trigger Words To Avoid

• Apply online
• Free access
• Have you been turned down?
• Home
• Home based
• Home based business
• Home employment
• Hybrid work
• Meet singles
• Member
• Member stuff
• No age restrictions
• No experience
• Online degree
• University diplomas
• Work from home
• Work remotely

Email Spam Trigger Words With Numbers

• 100%
• #1
• $$$
• 0% risk
• 100% free
• 100% more
• 100% satisfaction
• 100% Satisfied
• 4U
• 50% off
• One hundred percent guaranteed
• Thousands

Urgency Words and Phrases To Avoid Spam

• Act now
• Action
• Call now
• Can’t live without
• Do it today
• Fast cash
• Get it now
• Get started now
• Limited
• Limited time
• Limited time offer
• Limited time only
• Take action
• Take action now
• Time limited
• Urgent
• What are you waiting for?
• What’s keeping you?

Other Words and Phrases to Avoid to Ensure Email Deliverability

• Acceptance
• Access
• Accordingly
• Avoid
• Call
• Call free
• Cancel
• Casino
• Celebrity
• Collect
• Dig up dirt on friends
• Don’t delete
• Dormant
• F r e e
• Fantastic
• For free
• For instant access
• For Only
• For you
• Form
• Instant
• Junk
• Laser printer
• Leave
• Legal
• Long distance phone offer
• Lose
• Mail in order form
• Maintained
• Medium
• Miracle
• New domain extensions
• Nigerian
• No gimmick
• No obligation
• No strings attached
• No-obligation
• Not intended
• Not junk
• Not spam
• Offshore
• Open
• Outstanding values
• Passwords
• Per day
• Per week
• Performance
• Phone
• Please read
• Pre-approved
• Presently
• Print form signature
• Print out and fax
• Priority mail
• Prize
• Problem
• Promise
• Promise you
• Real thing
• Removal
• Removal instructions
• Remove
• Request sample
• Safeguard notice
• Score
• Score with babes
• Section 301
• See for yourself
• Sent in compliance
• Serious
• Social security number
• Spam
• Stainless steel
• Talks about prizes
• Teen
• They’re just giving it away
• Undisclosed recipient
• Unlimited
• Unsolicited
• Unsubscribe
• We hate spam
• We honor all
• Weekend getaway
• You are a winner!
• You have been selected

What if you cannot do without these words? 

You will be bound to use some spam trigger words. Sometimes, it only makes sense to use them to formulate your message or make your offer compelling to your audience.

In some contexts even, they can operate as power words to inspire your recipients to take action. 

So, you’re probably asking yourself whether you will get your email flagged as spam anytime you include any of these words in your emails or subject lines.

From our experience, the real problem is the frequency with which you use them and how many of them you include in your email that triggers the spam filter. 

The reason we believe this is that spam filter algorithms work based on a scoring system rather than simply seeing the word and instantly flagging the entire email as spam.

They consider your sentences and the number of potentially spammy words or phrases it contains — both your email subject lines and copy. 

Based on the data gathered, they score your email an overall spam score, which determines whether your email lands in the spam folder or the inbox.

Of course, the higher your spam score the lower your chances of getting your email delivered in the inbox. 

So back to your question. Yes, you can use the words and phrases that make sense to you. It’s only a matter of density.

Spam filters are becoming more and more sophisticated and allow for nuance. It is a matter of context and sensible use. So, you make sure you include these words or any kind of power words in your email copy sparingly. 

Key Takeaways

• The risks linked to these words are constantly evolving, so stay tuned, we update this list regularly. Finally, note that although using these words is risky, you can continue to use them, but sparingly.
• If you want to maximize your chances, refrain as much as possible from placing them in the subject line of your message. This requires a little effort, a good dose and a lot of creativity, but the results of your campaign will be all the better.
• Also, always ensure that you follow the CAN-SPAM Act laws and include an unsubscribe link in your email campaign. CAN-SPAM Act laws govern commercial emails — emails sent by a company attempting to sell or promote its products. Always aligning with them will help with your email deliverability and avoid fines owing to poor email marketing. 

When is the best time to send an email?

We’ve all faced this question at some point in our email marketing campaigns. Sometimes, the success of your email campaign can depend on aspects as haphazard and less considered as the sending time of your emails.

At Nerdy Joe, we’ve created and sent our fair share of email campaigns and marketing emails.

Today, we will combine our experience with the available data to pinpoint the best times and days for email marketers to send emails to target audience. 

What are the best days to send emails?

Why you shouldn’t send your emails on Mondays and Fridays

Your marketing emails should be sent on days and at times when your recipients can take the time to read them and adequately engage with you.

Mondays and Fridays are simply not the best days of the week for this.

Here is why.

The first thing professionals do early during first day after their weekend is to deal with the countless emails waiting for them in their inboxes.

Emails from colleagues and information about the business or workplace are the highest priority.

Cold emails or emails from people reaching out to the prospect with an offer are considered less important, so they ignore them. 

They are put on the back burner and most likely forgotten or lost in the chaos of emails in the prospect’s inbox. Your email marketing strategy simply won’t work at that time.

For Fridays, it’s pretty much the same thing. Depending on when you reach your email subscribers, they are either in the process of planning their weekend or they have actually left.

You are probably familiar with the Fri-Yay joke. It stems from the fact that most people are excited and looking forward to the weekend on Fridays.

They are super focused on checking off their to-dos so that they can open up and enjoy their weekends.

You don’t want your emails competing for attention in their inbox at these times. They are likely to ignore them or put them on hold — and forget you. 

Why Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays are the best days to send emails

Tuesdays and Thursdays are the best days for sending emails.

Both data and logic back this.

There are a lot of stats from Email Service Provider (ESPs) companies, including GetResponse, CampaignMonitor, Klaviyo, Sendinblue, and more.

Here is a quick recap. 

Klaviyo

Klaviyo analyzed 22,000 email marketing campaigns and tracked the open rates, click-through rates and revenue generated from those campaigns.

The highest open rates occurred on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Mondays.

Also, they’ve found that the highest revenues were generated on Thursdays and noted that opens were considerably low on that day.

People are more likely to check and read incoming emails earlier than at the end of the week. Also, they are more likely to make up their minds and make buying decisions on the last business days than they would earlier in the week.

Send educational emails earlier in the week and promotional and offer emails late during the week.

GetResponse

GetResponse sent out 4 billion emails to an audience of entrepreneurs, online marketers, and SMBs over five months. They sent 18% of all email campaigns on weekends and 17% on Tuesdays alone.

They recorded the highest click-through rates and open rates on Mondays and Tuesdays. They also found that the click-to-open ratios were the best on Weekends.

The high openings recorded on the weekends stem from the low competition on those days. Though, to send emails to professionals on weekends may not always be ideal.

Still, GetResponse results align with Klaviyo in that people best check out and read emails early in the week.

Sending emails on weekends may be tempting. But no, we would advise you to avoid sending emails on those times. On a better note, you can send your emails early on in the week and expect great results.

Campaign Monitor

CampaignMonitor examined more than 30 billion emails and email marketing campaign sent by subscribers from 171 countries, primarily small to medium-sized firms.

Overall, they recorded the best and highest open rates on Tuesdays. They drilled down on the results and separated them per industry.

The new findings indicated that businesses in the advertising, marketing, travel, and leisure industries had the best open rates on Tuesdays.

These were followed by businesses in the healthcare, food, and beverage industries which recorded the best open rates on Wednesdays.

Lastly, they observed that businesses in the education industry have an excellent open rate on Sundays.

Tuesdays and Wednesdays are great days to get maximum openings in most industries. We can also understand that the overall email engagement rates differ from one industry to another.

Sending emails in the middle of the week, ideally on Tuesdays and Wednesdays is an effective way to ensure high opens to your email campaigns.

Moosend

Moosend analyzed 10 billion emails sent by their customers through their platform.

They found the best day to send emails to be Thursday because they recorded their highest opens on Thursdays.

People are also more likely to read their emails on Thursdays. This can be explained by the fact that they’ve already taken the early days to focus on essential parts of their business.

By Thursday, they’ve freed up sometime or already have their entire week figured out. This makes them more receptive to emails from other people and cold messages from marketers and sales reps.

It is also a great idea to wait for the earlier days of the week before sending your emails.

Or even better, if you are sending a cold email sequence or an email campaign, you can send different touches across Tuesdays and Thursdays.

Sendinblue

Sendinblue conducted several email timing studies across different industries. They mainly tracked the opens and clicks rates along with the engagement volumes across several days.

In a nutshell, they found that Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays are the best days to send emails, with the edge going to Tuesdays and Thursdays.

The research shows the three days have the highest open and click-through rates.

Wednesdays have an excellent engagement volume, but it is lower compared to Tuesdays and Thursdays.

Weekdays tend to have more engagement compared to weekends.

Regarding click volume and engagement, Tuesdays and Thursdays are the best.

Send your emails across Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays. These are the best days to reach out to your recipients and see significant campaign engagement results.

Research data from different email SaaS companies serving different audience segments in different industries have shown that the best days to send your emails are Tuesdays and Thursdays — and occasionally Wednesdays. 

The main idea is that you should always send educational emails early in the week. Not too early when your prospects are sorting out business issues or catching up on the previous week’s activities.

It needs to be on Tuesday. The meetings, email swaps, and, most important, discussions are already over by then. This makes people more receptive to third-party emails like yours. 

Promotional emails are best sent on Thursday. This is a good day to send them because prospects have already processed business emails and done much of their work for the week.

In other words, they’ve already checked off most of their weekly tasks and are more likely to consider, make up their minds and respond to offers. 

If you plan to send a sequence of cold emails, we recommend sending the first contact email on Tuesday and the second the following Thursday. You can then spread the other emails over Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays.

What happens during the other days of the week (Saturday and Sunday)

It is a known fact that online activity decreases dramatically on weekends. Most professionals and people generally prefer to spend time with their families and not check their emails on weekends. 

However, a large number of people do check their email on the weekend.

According to Statista data, 43% of white-collar workers reported checking their work email every few hours outside their regular work hours, and 10% reported checking it all the time.

For us, whether you should send your emails on weekends, Saturdays and Sundays will depend on who you are targeting, the purpose of the email, and the relationship between the two of you.

Let’s expand on that.

Targeting B2B professionals (e.g., directors, execs, vice presidents, sales managers, etc.)

We recognize that some professionals who haven’t had time to check all their emails during the week may be tempted to do so over the weekend. 

Also, it may make sense after all. Since most marketers look for the best days to send their emails, sending your emails on days when no one is sending emails may seem like a great way to get a good number of opens and clicks on your emails.

But those aren’t good enough reasons to email professionals on the weekend.

Here’s why. 

First, professionals typically don’t work on weekends and are unlikely to check their emails. Also, sending sales emails, marketing emails, and any other kind of cold emails to your prospects on the weekend is not professional.

It’s the quickest way to damage your reputation and be labeled an “annoying marketer.” People will hate you and your emails. 

Targeting a B2C audience (e.g., online shoppers, end consumers, the general public, etc.).

In this context, sending emails to your recipients can be a good idea. For example, Sunday or even Saturday are prime times for online shopping. The weekend can be an interesting day if you are in the direct-to-consumer business.

Yet, it is difficult to determine whether the weekend is ideal. Many people ignore their emails to relax. Therefore, we recommend that you create and send one-off offer emails. This could be effective without annoying your potential customers. 

We also recommend that you don’t make a habit of sending emails or launching email campaigns on the weekend. It is simply not appropriate.

You need to think about who your targets are. Ask yourself how they would react if they constantly receive emails on the weekend.

What is the best time to send an email during the day? 

We’ve already cleared that the best days to send your emails are Tuesdays and Thursdays — and occasionally Wednesdays. That’s what both data and logic indicate.

So, now what is the best time to send an email during the day? At what day hours should you send your emails for the best openings and engagement results?

The short answer is anywhere between 10 am and 11 am. Research data from Intercom corroborates this. 

Source: Intercom

But as you can tell, there is more to it. So, to be thorough, we’d like to pull data from different email SaaS companies analyzing several email marketing campaigns in a table and draw the conclusions together. 

Sendinblue

The Sendinblue team conducted several email timing studies across multiple industries. Specifically, they looked at the opens and clicks throughout the day and recorded the highest engagement hours.

They found interesting results across different sectors. But first, they pointed out two times of the day that are good to send emails and expect excellent results. The times are 10 am and between 3 and 4 pm.

First, Sendinblue pointed out two times of the day that are good for sending emails and getting amazing results. The times are 10 am and between 3 and 4 pm. Sendiblue’s study went a step further and broke their results per industry.

• SaaS: 2 pm-3 pm.
• Hospitality and Online Retail: 8 am-10 am.
• Nonprofits: 3 pm-4 pm.
• Professional services (B2B): 8 am-10 am.
• Marketing services: 4 pm.
• e-commerce: 10 am.

For morning outreach, send your emails around 10 am. Anywhere between 8 am and 11 am may work just as well. For the afternoon, send your emails between 3 and 4 pm.

Omnisend

Omnisend analyzed more than 2 billion email marketing campaigns sent using its platform to understand and determine the optimal campaign timing.

Ominsend recorded the highest open rates between 8 am and 10 am. The click-through rate was high during that time as well. But the order rate was notably low during that time.

1 pm didn’t come highest on any metrics but has proven to be an excellent time to send emails.

At the same time, 4 pm brought the most increased orders, and 5 pm displayed the highest click-through rates.

While people might be open to opening and reading emails in the morning, they might not be inclined to make up their minds and decide then. They’re more likely to make decisions later on during the day.

Send educational emails in the morning and promotional emails later during the day or in the early evening.

Intercom

Intercom focused on analyzing its data on business to business audiences to see at what time of the day B2B officials mostly react to emails and in-app messages.

First, they observed that responses to in-app message platforms were almost spontaneous. But on the other hand, they found that emails recorded the highest opens between 10 am and 11 am.

This comes as no surprise as it is common for people to check their inbox first, then read and respond to specific emails by order of importance over the course of the day.

Sending your emails in the morning guarantees that your prospects will take the time to check you out as they do their email inbox checking routine.

The key takeaway from all the studies is that you should seek to send your email moments before people mostly check out their inboxes. 

People routinely check their inboxes before they start working in the morning, when they get back from lunch break, and in the evening before they leave. 

So, if we were to pinpoint specific times to send emails, your best bet should be between 9 and 11 am for the morning and between 3 and 4 pm for the afternoon. 

Also, studies have shown that people mostly read emails in the morning but are the least likely to make decisions during that time. Alternatively, they are more likely to make decisions later during the day. 

Therefore, we recommend you send education emails in the morning and send order, sales emails later in the day. This will give you a better chance of having your messages opened, read, and acted upon. 

The best days and times we send our emails at Nerdy Joe

Here is what our CEO thinks when asked about the best day and time to send emails. Understand that this is based on his personal experience and the performance of our diverse campaigns for our clients. 

“I’ve noticed that Tuesdays have a very high open rate (60-85%) and Fridays have a very high click-through rate (15%).

On Mondays, the open rate is not bad, but it is not very good either. It’s just normal (40-50%). On Mondays, the click-through rate is very low.

I’ll explain this as follows:

Most of the people on my list are directors or vice presidents. Because of their job, they use Mondays to read their emails, catch up on the previous week and prepare for the new week.

As a result, they spend very little time on unimportant tasks such as answering non-work-related emails.

On Tuesdays, they have a little more time and are more relaxed. This explains the high opening rate. I’m successful when I send my emails between 9 am and 2 pm and between 5 pm and 7 pm East Coast time.

On Fridays, they usually end the week and have greatly reduced their workload. This gives them more time to interact with the content of the emails. This explains the incredible click-through rate.“

Ernest Bogore, Email Marketing Wizard at Nerdy Joe.

4 tips to improve your email open rates and click through rates

The best time to send an email is not all you need to get right to improve your email marketing campaigns engagement.

A lot of other email components (e.g. subject lines, mobile friendly, time zones, geographical locations, etc.) can also impact your campaign’s performance.

So, here are a few tips to achieve the highest engagement rates.

1 – Write irresistible subject lines

These are the first elements your email subscribers see after receiving your email campaigns. Even if you send your emails at the right time, people will skip it if the subject does not look click-worthy.

The average people rely on the subject line alone to decide whether or not to open your marketing emails.

Here a few ways to improve it.

• Make it interesting: Will you ask an intriguing question? Create a sense of urgency? Talk about benefits? Make an allusion to a story? Make it interesting and they will be interested.
• Leverage curiosity: Curiosity calls fo action. It intrigues your target audience to want to check out want you want to say.
• Avoid being obvious: You should give them something that makes them want to check out the email by making it interesting.
• Personalize it: Emails with personalized subject lines are 22% more likely to be opened. Make the subject line specific to your prospect and capture their attention.
• Keep it short: Long subject lines never do well. Keep the device your target audience uses in mind and ensure your subject line does not get cut off for being too long on a mobile device.

2 – Consider the time zones

It’s one thing to get the best time to send an email marketing campaign right, it’s another thing to get right timing in your recipients’ area to achieve the desired impact.

The peak time in one location may be lunch breaks else where, the best day of the week in your area may not not have arrived elswere.

Sending your emails without considering your recipients’ time zone is the same as sending it at the wrong time.

So, always consider you subscriber list, segment the audience based on geographical locations and send your emails accordingly.

3 – Segment and personalize your email

If you send too few emails, you’re probably fine. But if you send email blasts to a huge audience, you will suffer with email engagement metrics such as the click to open rate, conversion rates, etc.

Even if you search and find the right time to send your marketing, you can still struggle to keep your email engagement above board.

So, reseach your customers and find commonalities between them. Segment them into groups based on user habits, and any other relevant factor and send marketing emails accordingly.

You can also set custom variables and attributes per recipients to personalize and send email campaigns right inside your ESP.

4 – Shape your emails for mobile devices

As a general advice, always shape your emails for mobile devices.

Data shows that 60% of email campaigns are read on mobile, 29% on webmail, and only 10% on desktops, optimizing emails is definitely worthwhile.

Simply put, most people check and read with emails using their mobile device, so you stand a better chance for the highest open rate.

Best time to send email: FAQs for email marketers

Here are a few frequently asked questions about the best time to send an email campaign. 

What is the best day and time to send an email?

If you are sending educational emails, the best day and time to send them is Tuesday between 9 and 11 am. If you are sending a promotional email, the best day and time to send the email is Thursday between 3 and 4 pm. 

How frequently should emails be sent out?

The best days to send emails are Tuesdays and Thursdays.

So, ideally, you should seek to plan your campaigns to go off on those days. That gives you an excellent frequency to send your email without being too intrusive. 

What is the ideal weekly email frequency?

You should send no more than three emails per week. 2 are perfect. 3 is the maximum you should send.

Sending more than three emails per week will make you across as annoying, and people will hate receiving emails from you. 

Is it better to send an email at night or in the morning?

You shouldn’t send emails at night. It’s not professional; no worker checks their inboxes at night, and it might get lost in the flood of emails your recipient will get in the morning.

Sending your emails in the morning, around 10 am, is ideal. 

What is the best day to send emails?

The best day to send emails is between Tuesday and Thursday. Research indicates that you should send promotional emails on Thursdays and educational emails Tuesdays. 

You can program you cold emails and email marketing campaigns to go on those times.

What is the best time to send emails?

The best time to send emails in the morning is between 9 am and 11 am, and the best time for sending emails in the afternoon is between 3 pm and 4 pm. 

Finding the best cold email marketing agency to handle your cold outreach strategy might be stressful.

More challenging if your previous agency ran campaigns that were unsuccessful or flagged by spam filters.

The truth is, it is not fair to have you worrying about all of these, as the pressure could still push you into making a poor decision. That is why we made this guide to teach you how to hire an agency to do cold email marketing for you.

Let’s dive in.

Why do you need to hire a cold email agency?

Before outsourcing cold email marketing, it is important that you fully understand why you need it in the first place.

Identifying your reasons for a cold email campaign is important to ensuring that you get on the same page with your target lead gen company and obtaining optimal results.

It guarantees a certain number of qualified leads per month

Unlike hiring SDRs and marketers, cold email agencies do a better job at helping you track data.

You will be able to identify which campaigns were effective and which failed if you take the appropriate steps to ensure you can track your outcomes after each campaign.

This way, the agency can come up with a definite result of how many qualified leads they can get per day and afterward create a lead estimation for a given time.

For instance, at Nerdy Joe, we guarantee 4 meetings per month if you choose the $799 plan.

You spend less on SDRs and marketers

If you have hired SDRs and marketers, you would agree that it is not scalable.

SDRs and marketers are constrained to sending a certain number of emails or making calls daily. This means to get your desired reach or volume, you might need to hire a sizable team of SDRs and marketers, pay a sizable amount of money and possibly end up with mediocre results.

However, cold email agencies are relatively affordable, more effective, and do not require you to be much involved in every activity. All you need to do is sit back and let the agency work towards your objectives.

Here at Nerdy Joe, we take pride in charging per outcome versus per number of contacts we reached out to.

You scale and grow fast

Your brand will expand faster if you hire cold email marketing services to help with your lead generation.

Why is this?

Most cold email agencies are made up of professionals who can create persuasive email content that does not breach the regulatory frameworks governing email marketing. They structure their emails in formats that keep them from ending up in the spam folder.

Most importantly, they are experts at converting leads rather than frustrating the audience with boring cold emails or disturbing cold call.

They are experts in lead generation campaigns and take their time to create a stellar cold email strategy before sending cold emails.

When do you need to hire a cold email agency? 

Knowing the right time to contract cold email services is as important as learning how to hire a cold email agency, as it can help you avoid making the wrong choices.

If you resonate with the following instances, you sure need to hire an agency:

When you don’t have enough resources to hire and train new staff and build an internal team of cold email specialists.

Hiring cold email marketing services is a brilliant alternative for a company low on resources. Cold emailing isn’t just a better alternative due to its affordability but because it provides so much value in terms of scalability.

As a matter of fact, doing cold email training for new staff and building an internal cold email team is quite an expensive idea for a one-time cold email campaign.

Let’s break it down.

First, setting up an internal team means you must make provisions for different marketing roles like campaign manager, email marketing expert, social media manager, assistant campaign manager, and copywriter specialist.

After making provisions for these roles, you should also remember that there will be additional costs.

Let’s break it down to analyze each individual’s role and the costs.

1 – Campaign Manager

Setting up an internal cold email team means there is a need for a person overseeing all activities and campaigns.

Now, you may think this role is unnecessary, and it is something you should be able to handle. Well, no!

Here’s why:

• The campaign manager is a specialist who brings 3 to 5 years of experience to the team
• They have the whole campaign team under their supervision
• They create the campaign budget
• They evaluate the budget and expenditures regularly
• They are responsible for creating product branding strategies and forecasting sales
• Generating concepts for campaigns
• Evaluating and improving campaign strategies
• Monitoring and assessing the effectiveness of campaigns
• Staying up to date with the latest trends and analyzing them

While these may seem like jobs anyone can handle, experience is indispensable and determinant to any marketing campaign’s success. 

Aside from that, taking on this function takes away from your ability to complete your regular tasks for your organization and from your time to receive and convert qualified leads.

According to Glassdoor, Campaign/Marketing Managers earn an average of $104,295 annually.

2 – Email Marketing Expert

While everyone on the team should be cold email savvy, you still need someone to head this position, being in charge of every emailing task. Their roles include:

• Produce excellent content and email templates 
• Keep and expand the email list 
• Campaign optimization (through CTAs and what content to include in the email) 
• Integrating critical messaging into email campaigns 
• Reviewing the copies and modifying email content as necessary 
• dividing up email lists to improve marketing
• Assisting with the campaign strategy 
• Actively observant of essential information about the target audience
• Analyzing data to report to the rest of the team

Glassdoor reports that the average yearly salary for email marketing experts is $59,026.

3 – Social Media Manager

While setting up your team, you should also fancy the idea of establishing visibility on social media. The social media manager will help with:

• Learning more about the target audience’s interests and providing reports to the rest of the team
• Follow the latest trends and learn the best strategies
• Actively engage prospects and build a community
• Learn what people are saying about other brands through the aid of listening tools

Glassdoor reports that the average yearly salary for social media managers is $50,996.

4 – Assistant Campaign Manager

The importance of this position is to ease the campaign manager’s workload as they already supervise the team and perform other tasks.

They do not typically execute administrative roles, but they also help in:

• Generating campaign concepts
• Identifying trends with the rest of the team
• Ensuring the campaign database is updated
• Providing reports on every aspect of the campaign
• Providing resourceful materials like case studies and guides

They play exactly the same roles as marketing assistants and earn a yearly average of $62,179.

5 – Copywriter Specialist

Anyone can write cold emails, but it takes an expert copywriter to write concise and value-driven cold emails.

Copywriters master the art of crafting effective sentences that offer so much value and compel prospects to take action towards your business.

Copywriters:

• Personalize emails and the entire cold email outreach.
• Know how to develop compelling a subject line.
• Know how many cold emails and follow-ups to send for getting more leads.
• Know to craft great cold emails and avoid the cold email tone.
• Avoid the time-consuming process for cold email outreach.
• Structure the cold email to avoid spam filters and being thrown into the spam folders.
• Know how to do research, exactly who to send messages to and when to ask your sales to do cold calling.

$58,352 per annum is the average salary of a copywriter specialist, according to Glassdoor.

Note that this is merely the minimum criteria for the positions. Depending on how large the campaign is, non-administrative positions like copywriting specialists, social media marketers, etc., may require you to hire additional people.

As a result, the annual expense of establishing an internal cold email team may be between $334,848 and $502,272 per year.

On the other hand, an agency operates independently with a provisional team of experts. As a result, a mid-sized company will need to spend about $10,000 to hire an agency.

When you have a product or service that is selling

There is no better time to acquire cold email services than when you have a product that answers the exact needs of your target audience.

A product that garners attention despite the competition. Cold emailing will definitely help you maximize your sales.

Here’s how.

Because your product already stands out from the competition and is getting all the attention, cold emailing prospects can facilitate lead generation and help the business get more leads and generate clients.

When you want or need to focus on closing deals

In essence, the purpose of cold emails is to close deals. It is structured to focus on one idea (the proposal) and includes persuasion triggers that encourage your potential clients to take action.

Additionally, the agency takes care of the hassle of producing qualified leads, giving you and the rest of your team more time to focus on setting up appointments and closing sales.

10 questions to ask before hiring a cold email agency

Now that you know the advantages of hiring an agency and when to hire one, let’s go straight to learning how to choose to the best agency for successful cold emails.

Of course, you cannot go through the hiring process without asking questions, but you must ensure that you ask the right questions in the right order because the questioning starts with you.

Questions to ask yourself

Here are a series of questions to ask yourself before reaching out to a cold email agency. These questions will help you define your campaign objectives and clearly communicate them with the cold email agency.

1 – What does your company want to achieve with this cold email campaign?

Of course, every investor’s goal is to generate leads, expand PR reach, make sales and build connections, but you need to define your goals a little more than that.

You need to streamline them down to the number of sales you hope to have made, the deals you hope to have struck, and even your desired ROI at the end of the campaign.

Here’s an example:

• By the end of Q2, we want to have added 10% more MQLs to our funnel thanks to a focused cold email campaign. 
• We need to convert two qualifying leads into X service buyers each month in order to make $ in monthly income. 
• Implement a solid lead nurturing plan that involves publishing targeted content directed at our ideal customers to increase our lead-to-customer conversion rate by 5% for the quarter.

With these kinds of objectives, you can be sure to have a fulfilling campaign if you work with a good cold email agency.

2 – Do you know what your target audience is?

You cannot just start a cold email campaign with a random audience; it is a total waste of resources. The agency needs to understand your target customers to produce the best results.

If you aren’t sure of your target customers, it is important that you begin to foster team collaboration and market research.

Suppose you have trouble defining your audience, here are some tips to follow:

• Refer to your current customers, ask them about their pain points that your business solves and try to identify other people with the same needs.
• Research your successful competitors and take stock of who they are targeting and why. You can easily steal customers from them.

3 – Do you have a well-defined UVP?

A unique value proposition (UVP) automatically puts an appealing offer on your prospects’ table. Even better, a well-defined unique value proposition can successfully convert a potential consumer into a paying one.

Regardless of your services, generating a concise and appealing UVP is a terrific way to discover the user experience.

In addition, it serves as the standard by which your new customer will judge your product if you fulfilled expectations, did better or did less than expected.

A strong UVP will make your company stand out from competing ones, integrate your product with the needs of your target audience, and target your ideal customer demographic specifically.

As a result, your sales promotions will be maximized, and you will draw in qualified leads who mostly become customers.

4 – Can you afford to hire a cold email agency?

As mentioned earlier, agencies are affordable and give value for money compared to other marketing options.

However, it is a no-brainer that you consider how much it would cost you to secure the right cold email agency and get ROI.

Questions to ask the agency before committing

If your answers to the previous questions are positive, then you are close. It is time to question the cold email agency to ensure they are right for the job. Ask the following questions:

5 – Will you own your cold email domain?

It is a no-brainer that you should own the domain name because it keeps you fully in control of your brand’s online presence.

Having the agency send each campaign from your domain is a great way to build trust with your recipients, as they can see that the emails are coming from a credible source.

6 – How long before you get your first lead?

While you may expect to make leads swiftly, you must be patient during the first weeks because first leads usually come slow.

From our experience, most agencies spend the first few weeks of the engagement setting up your domain and warming it up for deliverability purposes.

But because of their business model, the majority of agencies will ask you to engage in a minimum 3-month contract. Of course, this comes with a huge budget and commitment.

Here at Nerdy Joe, we don’t require our customers to engage in any sort of contract. You’re free to renew your subscription anytime you want. You also know upfront how many leads we’ll generate for you per month.

7 – What kind of leads will you be getting?

Imagine working with an agency that considers anyone who downloads an ebook as a lead — when you are trying to sell a product. Of course, that’s something you would not want to experience.

Hence the importance of defining the type of leads you want from your cold email service provider.

To ensure agencies are on the same page as you, you should also ask if your leads’ demands can be met.

8 – What’s the cost of a cold email agency?

You can afford the services of a cold email agency based on the average cost. But cost varies according to agencies, the quality of their service, and their pricing.

Most agencies charge between $2,000 and $5,000 per month. But the outcome is questionable as they charge per number of email blast sent.

At Nerdy Joe, our lead generation services cost on average $799 and that gives you right to 5 meetings per month. That could also be 5 guest outreach opportunities, 5 influencer partnership opportunities, etc. We do tailor everything depending on your needs.

9 – What is the agency’s experience with cold email?

The agency might impress you with good answers to your previous questions. Still, the most practical way to prove your expertise is by giving an example of your experience handling cold email campaigns.

Remember to ask about their successes in cold email campaigns, the specificities, and the challenges. It is the same way potential clients and business partners would question your services before engaging.

For instance, at Nerdy Joe, we used cold emails to:

• Grow one freelance writer’s business from $1,200/month to $8,000/month.
• Get replies from people like Tim Soulo, Rand Fishkin, Noah Kagan, Guillaume Moubeche, Ross Simmonds, Irina Maltseva, etc.
• Land guest blogging opportunities on websites like Mailshake, Hunter, Convince And Convert, Coschedule, etc.
• Help a content agency go from 1 to 6 clients. 

We can go on and on about our results, but you can find them on our case study page.

10 – What are the financial terms?

At this point, you are most likely close to hiring the agency. And this makes it one of the most vital things that you and your potential business need to get straight.

Listen to what the agency is proposing, tell them what you can offer, and try to come to a common ground. If the agency insists on a particular term that isn’t suitable for your company, you should not compromise. 

Here are some tips for having a good financial agreement:

• decide on shared objectives,
• talk about anticipated scalability,
• evaluate potential revenue,
• defend your business interests,
• be explicit about your aims,
• and talk about potential disputes and how they should be addressed.

How We Generated a $1,400 Per Month Worth of Client With Just One Cold Email

At Nerdy Joe, we are data-driven, and that’s why we are different from the average cold email agency. 

Instead of playing the numbers game, sending thousands of irrelevant and spammy emails, we study your business and develop a strategy that aligns with your sales funnel and is result-focused.

Back when Ernest and I were freelancing, he decided to pitch our content services to a Head of Growth at a big marketing agency. 

• Their ideal customer size is anywhere between medium scaleup businesses and public companies.
• Their approach to advertising is based on pain points, which means they avoid being vague like most of their competitors. 

Here’s how we approached sending their Head of Growth.

We started by researching his social media profiles. LinkedIn and Twitter seemed to be the ideal place to look at since these are where they run most of their ads.

Based on our research, we discovered the agency worked with another thought leadership, pain-point SEO agency.

We also discovered a tweet where the Head of Growth was showing support for Ukraine at the beginning of the war. 

So, we leveraged this information and crafted a very personalized email opening line and short cold email copy.

Here’s the email.

Here’s how it turned out.

As you can see, they pay $1,400 per article. Also, notice how the guy praised the cold email as one of the best he’s received in ages.

At the rate of 1 article per month, that’s $16,800 in revenue per year. At the rate of two articles per month, that’s $2,800, or $33,600 in annual revenue by sending a single cold email. 

Key takeaways

• Cold email marketing is a highly effective lead generation and customer acquisition tool. Sending a single cold email can result in hundreds of thousands of dollars down the road. But making sure you’re working with the right people is always key to the success and results you obtain.
• Hiring a cold email agency is always hard. But the first step in ensuring you get off on the right foot and establishing a long-lasting relationship is to be clear about your expectations. As the client, you must understand that hiring a cold email agency doesn’t necessarily you will start making millions right away. Have realistic expectations and understand that there is a process to it. 
• Before getting in bed with your cold email agency be sure to ask them the right questions to ensure they are a fit to qualify your needs. Don’t rush into working with an agency, ask questions, understand their marketing philosophy, discuss prices, reporting, and all. 
• It’s not just with Marc Thomas. We’ve done it with Ross Simmonds, Irina Maltseva, and more. Our cold email agency, Nerdy Joe, is completely built on the back cold emails and the campaigns we’ve run have helped generate hundreds of thousands for our clients. Talk to us here!

Email marketing is a powerful tool for businesses of all sizes. It’s a cost-effective way to reach a large audience, build brand awareness, and increase sales.

But to be effective, you need to understand the current state of things and the latest email marketing statistics and trends. 

In this blog post, we’ll explore the most important email marketing statistics for 2021 and beyond, including open and click-through rates, conversion rates, mobile optimization, and more.

General email marketing statistics and trends

These email marketing stats concern all areas of a digital marketing that involve email marketing and email users.

So whether you are looking for the numbers on marketing emails, personalized subject lines, or email marketing ROI, we go you covered.

General email marketing statistics: Worldwide email usage data

• Each day, more than 306 billion emails are sent and received worldwide. (Statista, Daily Number of Emails Worldwide, 2021)
• 4 billion people use email for communications and marketing on a daily basis. This number is expected to climb to 4.6 billion by 2025. (Statista, Number of Email Users Worldwide, 2021)
• The number of brands who place great importance on email marketing has increased from 41.5% in 2019 to 78% in 2020. (Litmus, Insights From the 2021 State of Email Report 2021)
• Email marketing is used by 64% of small businesses to reach out to customers. (Campaign Monitor, Small Business Marketing Trends, 2021)
• There is a 15.8% loss of emails resulting from spam filters or missing emails. (Email Tool Tester, Email Deliverability Test, 2022).

Email marketing statistics: Email marketing investment and ROI

• Email marketing revenue is expected to reach almost 11 billion by the end of 2023. (Statista, Email Marketing Revenue, 2021)
• The ROI for email marketing in the B2B industry is typically higher than in the B2C industry, with an average ROI of 3800%. 
• Businesses are allocated more and more money to email marketing.A third of brands are increasing their email budgets, while just one percent are cutting it. (Litmus, Insights From the 2021 State of Email Report 2021)
• Email marketing has an average return on investment (ROI) of 122%. (eMarketer).

Email marketing stats: Engagement, conversion, and preferability stats

• The average open rate for emails is around 20%. (HubSpot, Email Open Rates) 
• The average click-through rate for emails is around 3%. (MailChimp, 2022 Email Marketing Statistics & Benchmarks)
• The majority of emails are opened on mobile devices.Over 61.9% of emails are opened on mobile devices by subscribers for checking the inboxes. (EasySendy, The Ultimate Mobile Email Open Statistics)
• The average bounce rate across all industries is 9.96%. (Constant Contact, Average Industry Rates for Email, 2022)
• Email is the most preferred method of business communication for users. 74% of people chose email as their preferred method of communication, and 89% email at least once every month for business or personal reasons. (SendGrid, The Future of Digital Communications)
• A whopping 22 percent of email campaigns are opened within the first hour after they are sent.(GetResponse, Email Marketing Benchmarks, 2020)
• Email is one of the most popular ways consumers discover coupons from brands in the U.S. (Statista, Common Ways to Find Coupons Among Consumers, 2021)
• The majority of respondents (59%) say that marketing emails have influenced their purchases.(Salecycle, Essential Email Marketing Statistics, 2020)
• Over 80% of people will open a welcome email, which generates 4x more opens and 10x more clicks than other types of emails. (GetResponse, Email Marketing Benchmarks, 2020)
• 98% of the single message autoresponder email recipients opened it, and 37% clicked on it. (GetResponse, Email Marketing Benchmark, 2020)
• Marketing emails are used by 50% of people at least once a month to make a purchase. (Salecycle, Essential Email Marketing Statistics, 2020)

Email frequency

• The average number of emails sent and received per day is around 121. (Radicati, Email Statistics Report). 
• The most popular day for sending emails is Tuesday. (Nerdy Joe, Best Time and Days for Sending Emails, 2022)
• The best time to send emails is 10 AM in the recipient’s time zone. (Nerdy Joe, Best Time and Days for Sending Emails, 2022)
• 63% of businesses reduce the frequency of emails sent to subscribers based on their levels of engagement. (Databox, Email Frequency Research, 2022)
• 33% of marketers send weekly emails, and 26% send emails multiple times per month. (Databox, Email Frequency Research, 2022)
• Keeping your newsletters under five a week will have a positive impact on your open and click rates. (GetResponse, Email Marketing Benchmarks, 2020).

iOS data privacy changes

• Data privacy changes have forced email marketers to prioritize different KPIs, which has been one of the most significant ways they have adapted. (HubSpot, Apple iOS 15 Impacting Email Marketers, 2021)
• As a result of Apple’s Mail Privacy Protection, 43% of marketers are changing how they measure email performance, while 24% aren’t making any changes. (Litmus, Insights From the 2021 State of Email Report, 2021)

Inbox checking

• 99% of email users check their inbox every day, with some checking 20 times a day. Of those people, 58% of consumers check their email first thing in the morning. (OptinMonster, Email Marketing Statistics. 2020) 
• 84.3% of consumers say they check their marketing email at least once a day. (Pathwire, 2021 Email Engagement Report, 2021)
• Consumers spend an average of 10 seconds reading brand emails. (Statista, Time Spent on Brand Emails Report, 2021)
• At least 40% of consumers have more than 50 unread emails. (HubSpot, Marketing Statistics, 2020)

Email marketing strategy

• Recognizing a sender is the most important factor in deciding to open an email, followed by actually having the time to read an email. (Pathwire, Email Engagement Report, 2021)
• Marketers take several actions to ensure accessibility when creating emails, including writing short, descriptive subject lines, clearly displaying links and buttons, and keeping paragraphs short. (Pathwire, Accessibility in the inbox Ebook, 2021)
• Your email ROI will increase when you perform quality assurance, A/B testing, and spam testing. Testing your emails can increase your ROI to 28% higher. (Litmus, Email Marketing Guide on Email ROI, 2022)
• Personalized emails have an open rate 29% higher than non-personalized ones. (Instapage, Personalization Statistics) 
• Segmented email campaigns have an open rate 14.32% higher than non-segmented ones. (MailChimp, Effects of List Segmentation on Email Marketing)
• Subscriber segmentation has proven to be the most effective strategy for email marketing campaigns (78%), it is followed by message personalization (72%), and automation (71%). (HubSpot, Marketing Trends and Benchmark Report, 2021)
• Subject lines with fewer than 50 characters have the highest open rates, while subject lines with more than 50 characters tend to have lower open rates. (UpLandSoftware, Shorter Subject Lines, Better Results, 2022) 
• Segmented emails have a 14.32% higher open rate and a 100.95% higher click-through rate than non-segmented emails. (MailChimp, Effects of List Segmentation on Email Marketing)
• Emails with video have an open rate 49% higher and a click-through rate 65% higher than emails without video. (Campaign Monitor, Average Click-Through Rate (CTR) from Videos?, 2021) 
• ​​75% of email revenue is generated from triggered personalized campaigns, rather than one-size-fits-all campaigns. (DMA, National client email report) 
• 50% of SMBs use marketing automation software to send automated email drip campaigns. (Statista, Leading Marketing Automation Software, 2021)
• A whopping 87% of B2C marketers use automation for email marketing. (HubSpot, ​Marketing Strategy & Trends Report, 2021)
• Email, along with social media marketing and the organization’s website, is used by 79% of B2C marketers to distribute content effectively. (Content Marketing Institute, Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends, 2019)
• The most commonly used type of email is automated emails, like welcome emails, used by 58% of B2C marketers. (Content Marketing Institute, Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends, 2019)

Email subject lines statistics

• 47% of email recipients open email based on the subject line whereas 69% of email recipients report email as spam based solely on the subject line. (Invespcro, Email Subject Lines – Statistics and Trends, 2021)
• 33% of email recipients open emails because of catchy subject lines. (OptinMonster, Email Subject Line Statistics, 2020)
• 64% of consumers make a decision to open abandoned cart emails based on subject lines. (Barilliance, Abandoned Cart Email Subject Lines, 2021)
• A/B testing their subject line helped Skandium to increase their CTR by 26.96%. (Barilliance, Abandoned Cart Email Subject Lines, 2021)
• 47% of marketers A/B test their subject line before finalizing their emails and sending them out. (HubSpot, Tips to Write Email Subject Lines, 2019)
• Eighty-two percent of marketers send emails with subject lines under 60 characters.(Convince & Convert, Email Marketing Stats, 2020)

Email usage by generation

• A majority of Millennials (59%) and Generation Z (67%), respectively, use their smartphones to check their email. (Bluecore, 2021)
• Among Baby Boomers, 74% think email is the most personal channel for brands to reach out to them, followed by 72% of Generation Xers, 64% of Millennials, and 60% of Generation Zers. (Bluecore, 2021)

B2B email marketing campaign engagement stats and industry benchmarks

Average email open rates by industry

The average email open rate is one of the most important email marketing statistics to track.

It indicates the percentage of people who opened your email marketing campaign out of the total number of people who received it.

Tracking and analyzing your own email open rates over time allows you to get a better understanding of how your campaigns are performing and to identify areas for improvement.

The average open rate for marketing emails is around 20%.

However, this can vary widely depending on your industry, the quality of your email list (email subscribers), the email subject lines, sender reputation, your email marketing software and many other factors.

Here is a general overview of email open rates by industry:

• Retail: 20-30%
• Finance: 15-25%
• Healthcare: 20-30%
• Technology: 20-30%
• Nonprofit: 20-30%
• Travel: 20-30%
• Education: 20-30%

Keep in mind that these are just rough estimates, and your own open rates may differ significantly. 

To increase your open rate, make sure to segment your email list, use catchy and personalized subject lines, and send emails at the right time.

Make sure to get all the technical stuff (such as SPF, DKIM, and DMARC.) set up and right. 

Also, always optimize your emails for mobile device (for smartphone users) since most emails are read on those devices.

Or, you can look at your existing customers to see which device they use the most and optimize accordingly.

Average email click-through rates by industry

The click-through rate (CTR) is the percentage of people who clicked on a link in your email out of the total number of people who received it. 

The click-through rate mainly tells you how convincing or compelling your email is and how interested your recipients are in discovering more or simply at taking on your call to action. 

And so, your email CTR may vary based on factors such as the quality and relevance of your content, the effectiveness of your subject line, the segmentation and personalization of your email list, and the frequency of your email sends.

The average CTR for business emails is around 2.5%. Here is the average email click-through rates by business industry:

• Retail: 3.29%
• Healthcare: 2.5%
• Finance: 2.3%
• Business Services: 2.3%
• Travel and Hospitality: 2.3%
• Manufacturing: 2.3%
• Non-Profit: 2.1%
• Technology: 1.9%
• Education: 1.9%

A few tips to increase your CTR, make sure to use clear and compelling calls to action, design eye-catching emails, and segment your email list. 

Average email conversion rates by industry

Conversion rate is the percentage of people who took a desired action (such as making a purchase or signing up for a newsletter) out of the total number of people who received your email. 

Tracking and analyzing your conversion rate can tell you what works best for your business.

You can easily understand whether or not your email marketing strategy is working and improve it. 

The average conversion rate for business emails is around 1%.

Some industries may have higher conversion rates due to the nature of their products or services and the target, while others may have lower conversion rates. 

For example, selling to B2B professionals is more complex and takes longer as it requires multi-stage marketing strategies and involves multiple decision makers. 

Here are some general conversion rates by industry:

• E-commerce: 2-3%
• Healthcare: 2%
• Finance: 1-2%
• Technology: 1-2%
• Retail: 1-2%
• Travel: 1-2%
• Education: 1-2%

Note that actual conversion rates may vary significantly. 

A few of the best practices you can follow to increase your conversion rate include making sure to use targeted and personalized emails, offering incentives and promotions, and optimizing your landing pages for conversions.

Average email bounce rate by industry

Email bounce rate is a measure of the percentage of emails that are not delivered to the intended recipient’s mailbox. 

There are two types of email bounces: hard bounces and soft bounces. 

• Hard bounces are permanent failures, meaning that the email cannot be delivered because the email address is invalid or the recipient’s mailbox is permanently unavailable. 
• Soft bounces are temporary failures, which can occur for a variety of reasons, such as the recipient’s mailbox being full or the email server being down.

Here are some general statistics on email bounce rates by industry:

Industry	Hard Bounce	Soft Bounce
Business and Finance	0.43%	0.55%
E-Commerce	0.19%	0.26%
Education and Training	0.32%	0.51%
Health and Fitness	0.30%	0.40%
Marketing and Advertising	0.44%	0.68%
Non-Profit	0.33%	0.49%
Real Estate	0.38%	0.56%
Retail	0.22%	0.32%
Travel and Transportation	0.31%	0.51%

Source: MailChimp

If you need to troubleshoot a high bounce, you can regularly clean and update your email list, use double opt-in to confirm email addresses, and ensure that your emails are properly formatted and adhere to best practices for email deliverability.

Average unsubscribe rate

The unsubscribe rate refers to the percentage of recipients who request to or opt out of your mailing list after receiving your emails.

A high unsubscribe rate generally means that people are not interested in what you send them or that you need to improve your email copy. 

The average unsubscribe rate for business emails is around 0.1%.

 Here are some general statistics on email unsubscribe rates by industry:

• E-commerce: 0.1%.
• B2B: 0.2%.
• Nonprofits: 0.1%.
• Media and publishing: 0.2%.
• Education: 0.1%.
• Healthcare: 0.1%.
• Financial services: 0.2%.
• Travel and hospitality: 0.1%.
• Retail: 0.2%.
• Real estate: 0.1%.

To reduce your unsubscribe rate, make sure to send targeted and relevant emails, and give subscribers the option to customize their email preferences.

Also, segment your audience and improve the quality of your offers. 

Average email spam rates by industry

Spam rates are the percentage of emails that are marked as spam out of the total number of emails sent. 

It’s difficult to provide specific spam rate statistics by industry. However, in general, spam rates for email campaigns tend to range from 0.1% to 2%.

Also, spam rates in the financial, service, marketing industries tend to be high. 

It’s important to note that spam rates above 2% can be a red flag for ISPs (Internet Service Providers) and may result in the sender’s emails being flagged as spam or blocked. 

So always practice email list hygiene, follow best practices for email marketing, such as obtaining permission from recipients before sending emails, and avoiding spam language and tactics.

Key takeaways

• From promotional emails, transactional emails, or triggered emails, there are many ways you can successfully use email marketing for effective customer engagement. Email marketing is a powerful tool for businesses of all sizes.
• It’s the most effective marketing channel and digital marketing strategy when it comes to customer acquisition and customer retention. Many marketers and small business owners have grown their business and online store on the back of email marketing.
• Remember that while these email marketing statistics provide valuable insights, they’re not one-size-fits-all. Different industries and businesses will have different average open, click-through, and conversion rates. It’s important to track your own email marketing metrics and use them to optimize your campaigns and improve your results.
• The main factors that will impact your email marketing statistics include the quality of your email list, the relevance of your content, your segmentation and personalization efforts, the design and layout of your emails, and more.
• Make sure to focus on building a targeted email list, creating high-quality content, and optimizing your emails for conversions. With the right strategy, you can use email marketing to effectively reach and engage your audience and drive sales.

Cold emailing can be a powerful tool for businesses looking to reach new customers or clients, but it can also be a tricky and time-consuming process.

Every marketer has their perspective of what works and what might not work. But figures don’t lie. 

Before launching cold email campaigns, it’s important to understand the key statistics and trends that can impact the success of these emails.

These figures can inform you on what to expect and what success could look like. 

In this article, we’ll dive into the key cold email statistics that businesses need to know in order to craft effective and successful campaigns.

40+ cold email statistics, benchmarks, and trends to keep an eye out on

On average, the open rate for cold emails is around 15.22% to 28.46% (Source: Writecream.com)

This might appear low to you. But here is why it makes sense.

First, cold emails are typically unsolicited, meaning that the recipient did not specifically request to receive the email. They don’t know about you, your business, or your product so there won’t be any brand recall — you are a stranger. 

This can make it more challenging to get the recipient’s attention, as they may not be expecting or interested in the email.

Second, the subject line of the cold email is often the first and only chance to grab the recipient’s attention and convince them to open the email. If the subject line is not compelling or relevant, the recipient may simply delete the email without opening it.

Finally, the quality of the email list can also impact the open rate. If the list is not up-to-date or contains invalid or inactive email addresses, the open rate will likely be lower.

The average cold email click-through rate is around 2-5% (Source: Quickmail.io)

QuickMail analyzed 65 million cold email campaigns and realized that the average CTR for cold emails is around 3.67%, which is lower than the CTR for other types of emails such as newsletters or transactional emails.

The first reason for this is that cold email campaigns are unsolicited, which is why it can make sense that people don’t want to click through links in emails they didn’t ask for.

That aside, the content of the email and the value proposition must be compelling enough to convince the recipient to take action.

If the email does not clearly articulate the benefits of clicking on the link or does not offer a strong enough incentive, the CTR will likely be lower.

The quality of the email list can also impact the CTR. If the list is not up-to-date or contains invalid or inactive email addresses, the CTR will likely be lower.

The average cold email response rate for is around 8.5% (Source: Backlinko.com)

Cold email responses are notably low most of the time. If you’ve ever tried cold emailing, you know it’s hard to get people to reply to your cold emails.

According to Backlinko research on cold email response rates, a targeted cold email campaign has an average response rate of 8.5%.

Here are a few reasons why this can make sense. 

In most cases, the cold nature of the email makes it challenging to get the recipient’s attention and convince them to take action. 

Also, average cold emails targeting thousands of people won’t cut it. The content of the cold email and the call to action must be compelling enough to convince the recipient to take action.

And if the cold email does not clearly articulate the benefits of taking action or does not offer a strong enough incentive, the average response rate will likely be lower.

The email list quality also comes into play here. Invalid or inactive email addresses or a non-up-to-date list will likely result in a lower response rate.

Personalization can increase cold email open rates by up to 50% (Source: Woodpecker.co)

Personalization means the extra work that will make your cold emails more effective.

According to Woodpecker, personalization can increase cold email open rates by up to 50% — which makes sense because the reason why it works so perfectly is simple. 

Personalizing your cold email helps make it more relevant to the recipient. Also, with personalization, you can tailor the cold email to their interests and needs, which can make it more appealing and engaging.

It makes them feel that the cold email is directed specifically at them (only), and they are more likely to be interested in the content.

In addition, personalization can also help to build trust and credibility with the recipient, which can increase the chances that they will open the email.

When an email is personalized, the recipient is more likely to feel that the sender has taken the time to understand their needs and is more likely to trust the content of the email.

Using a personalized subject line can increase open rates by up to 35.9% (Source: Klenty.com)

Personalizing your cold email subject line and making it relevant to the recipient is key to boosting your open rates.

According to data from Klenty, personalized cold email subject lines can increase open rates by up to 35.9%. 

Personalizing the subject line works in the same way as customizing the actual cold email. It makes your prospects feel valued and helps to get them to trust you. It makes them want to discover what you have to say and as a result, they open the cold email. 

The best time to send cold emails is generally during the workweek, with the highest response rates on Tuesdays and Wednesdays (Source: Woodpecker.co)

We’ve proven this at Nerdy Joe as well. The best days to send cold emails are Tuesdays and Wednesdays. 

First, people are more likely to be at their desks and checking their email during the workweek, rather than on weekends or holidays.

This means that there is a higher chance that your cold email will be seen and read if you send it during the workweek.

Also, Tuesdays and Wednesdays are generally considered the most productive days of the week.

People are likely to be more focused and energized at the beginning of the week, and less likely to be burnt out or distracted by the end of the week.

As a result, they may be more likely to respond to a cold email on Tuesday or Wednesday than on other days of the week.

On top of that, sending a cold email at the beginning of the week allows the recipient more time to follow up or schedule a meeting during the week, rather than waiting until the end of the week or the following week.

This can help to ensure that your email doesn’t get lost in the shuffle or forgotten about.

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Short and concise emails tend to have higher response rates than longer ones (Source: Boomerang.com)

In an exhaustive study involving over 40 million emails, Boomerang (a software platform that syncs with Gmail) determined which factors led to getting responses. 

It was found that word count is strongly correlated with response rate.

On average, emails that are short (but not too short) receive the highest response rate. Emails with 75 to 100 words had the highest response rate (51%). 

Things are so for several reasons.

People are generally very busy and may not have the time or inclination to read through long cold emails — especially since they didn’t sign up for them.

Short and concise emails are easier to read and take less time to get through, which makes them more appealing to busy executives.

On top of that, shorter emails are often more focused and to-the-point, which can make them more effective at conveying their message.

At the same time, longer cold emails make it difficult for recipients to understand the main points or action items, which can lead to confusion or a lack of response.

Also, shorter cold emails are less likely to contain unnecessary or extraneous information, which can make them more relevant and valuable to the recipient. 

Using a clear call-to-action can increase response rates by up to 371% and and Sales 1617% (Source: Wordstream.com)

Using a clear call-to-action (CTA) in an email can increase response rates by up to 371% because it gives the recipient a specific action to take after reading the email.

Without a CTA, the recipient may not know what to do next or may not feel motivated to take any action at all.

A CTA can be as simple as asking the recipient to reply to the email, visit a website, or schedule a meeting.

It should be clearly stated and easy to understand, and it should be relevant to the purpose of the email.

For example, if you are sending a cold email to a potential client, your CTA might be to schedule a meeting or a call to discuss the potential for working together.

Specifying and urging the prospect to follow it gets them clear on the next step. 

How do cold email open and click-through rates compare to other types of emails?

Cold email open and click-through rates can be lower than those of warm emails (emails sent to contacts who have already expressed interest in the company or its products) or transactional emails (emails related to a specific transaction or interaction with the company). 

This is because recipients may be more familiar with and trust the sender of warm or transactional emails, making them more likely to open and engage with the email.

They’ve already established some sort of relationship with the recipient and it makes them more receptive to the sender’s email. 

At the same time, cold emails come in unsolicited and at a disadvantage. It takes strategic thinking and smart targeting to cold emails to work, and most people are terrible at it.

That’s why cold emails don’t generally perform as well as the other types of emails. 

However, there are a few factors that can impact the average click through rate and open rate for all types of emails.

For example, the sender’s reputation (as determined by their domain and IP address) can affect whether the email is delivered to the recipient’s inbox or sent to their spam folder. 

The relevance of the email to the recipient is also important, as emails that are not of interest to the recipient are less likely to be opened or clicked on.

What are the best practices for writing cold emails?

Crafting a compelling cold email requires some careful thought and attention to detail. Here are a few best practices to keep in mind:

Shoot for cold email sequences 

First, cold email sequences give more flexibility and better chances to make a good case for yourself in the campaign.

Also, a Woodpecker study revealed that sending 4-7 emails in each sequence as opposed to just 1-3 emails triples the response rate.

They also found that longer campaigns have seen 27% reply rates as to 9% for shorter ones. 

Create clear, compelling subject lines

The subject line is the first thing the recipient will see, so it’s important to make it as compelling as possible. 

Avoid spammy words, misleading, and long subject lines, and try to include specific details about what the recipient will get out of reading the email.

Personalized subject lines always work best.

Here are some cold email subject line statistics you will need to keep in mind. 

• Using the recipient’s first name in the subject line can increase open rates by up to 41% (Source: ConstantContact.com)
• Using a subject line that is less than 50 characters long can increase open rates by up to 59% (Source: Uplandsoftware.com)
• Using a subject line that is vague or unrelated to the email content can decrease open rates (Source: Nerdy Joe)
• Using a subject line that includes a number or statistic can increase open rates by up to 22% (Source: Woodpecker.co)
• Using a subject line that includes a question can increase open rates by up to 13% (Source: Woodpecker.co)
• Using a subject line that includes a sense of exclusivity or scarcity can increase open rates by up to 9% (Source: Woodpecker.co)
• Using a subject line that includes a sense of curiosity or mystery can increase open rates by up to 7% (Source: Woodpecker.co)
• Using a subject line that includes a sense of humor can increase open rates by up to 5% (Source: Woodpecker.co)

Keep the message concise and to the point

No one wants to read a long, rambling email, so keep your message as brief and focused as possible.

Use bullet points or numbered lists to make the email easy to scan, and get to the point quickly.

Personalize the email

As mentioned earlier, personalized emails with the recipient’s name and their specific needs or interests can increase the chances of a response.

Be sure to do your research and tailor the email to the specific recipient.

Use buttons based CTAs

Button-based CTAs make it easier for your prospects to see and click on them. They’re more fun and they easily catch the attention of the recipients.

According to Campaign Monitor research, button-based CTAs improved click-through rates by 127%.

Follow up

It’s not uncommon for cold emails to go unopened or ignored, so don’t be afraid to follow up.

Your prospect could simply be busy or maybe your cold email just came in at the not-right-time. 

According to a Backlinko study, sending multiple follow-ups can double your response rate.

Just be sure to wait a few days and craft a new, compelling subject line for the follow-up email.

Key takeaways

• Overall, cold emailing can be a powerful tool for businesses looking to expand their reach and find new customers, as long as it’s done in a respectful and professional manner.
• While cold emailing can be an effective way to reach out to potential customers or clients, it’s important to make sure you’re following best practices and not spamming or harassing recipients. Also, cold emailing triggered campaigns can be an effective way to automate your cold email sequence.
• The global average open rate and the general cold email statistics may seem low to you, but still, targeted cold emails is the most effective way to reach out to potential customers or clients.
• A/B testing can help you optimize your cold email campaigns by allowing you to compare different subject lines, email bodies, and other variables to determine which ones are most effective.

Lead generation is a crucial part of any business’s marketing strategy. It involves attracting and converting strangers and prospects into leads, and ultimately, customers. Without a steady stream of leads, businesses risk stagnation and a decrease in revenue.

According to a recent survey, a significant percentage of B2B marketers rank lead generation as their top marketing challenge. Generating leads can also be costly, with the average cost per lead varying by industry. 

However, the payoff can be worth it, as converting leads into customers has the potential to drive significant growth for a business.

In this article, we’ll highlight and discuss the main B2B lead generation statistics and strategies. We’ll explore the average cost per lead, lead generation goals, conversion rates for different tactics, what marketing automation generates, and more.

We’ll also highlight the top lead generation strategies most B2B businesses and most marketers use and provide tips for successful inbound and outbound lead generation. 

Top 2 lead generation strategies

Let’s discuss the two main lead generation strategies sales teams and marketers use to generate new leads and see how they compare based on their average lead conversion and their average cost per lead. 

Inbound marketing

Inbound marketing involves generating leads and converting them through targeted, valuable content and experiences that are relevant to the customer. 

This can be achieved through tactics such as email marketing, SEO, social media marketing, and content marketing. And according to HubSpot, businesses using primarily inbound marketing techniques spend an average of $135 per lead.

Outbound marketing

Outbound marketing is a type of marketing that involves generating qualified leads by actively reaching out to potential customers through channels such as advertising, cold calling, or cold mail. 

It is an effective way to generate leads, but it can also be more expensive and time-consuming than other types of marketing, such as inbound marketing. Inbound marketing involves attracting potential customers to the business rather than actively reaching out to them.

Outbound marketing is particularly effective if you are trying to sell a product that doesn’t have awareness (cold selling) or targeting specific demographics or customer segments. It is more demanding and time-consuming. But if you do it, it yields more meaningful results.

According to HubSpot, getting qualified leads through outbound costs 39% more than inbound leads. Also, they’ve found in their State of Marketing Report that less than one-fifth of marketers think outbound practices provide valuable leads. 

The general lead generation statistics

The target industry and its unique factors determine the average cost per lead

The average cost per lead varies by industry. For example, data from a marketing research firm shows that the average cost per lead for the healthcare industry is $162, while the average cost per lead for the software industry is $208.

It’s important for businesses to consider their industry and competitors when setting their lead generation budget.

Here is the cost per lead data by industry. 

Industry	Low	High	Average
Financial Services	$44	$272	$160
IT, Computer, Software, and Technical Services	$39	$370	$208
Education	$37	$66	$55
Healthcare and Medical	$36	$286	$162
Industrial and Manufacturing	$33	$235	$136
Travel & Tourism	$29	$182	$106
Retail	$25	$41	$34
Consumer Products	$24	$182	$105
Telecom	$24	$64	$45
Marketing Agencies	$22	$173	$99
Media and Publishing	$21	$191	$108
Non-Profits	$16	$43	$31
Business Services	$39	$225	$132

Source: linchpinseo.com

The conversion rates vary by industry

Your ability to convert leads will also depend on their industry and the business vertical in which they are. Ideally, it’s easier to get B2C leads to buy than it is to get B2B leads to buy.

This can be explained by the fact that B2B companies mostly include many decision-makers, require more thorough marketing strategies, and more. Also, bear in mind that conversion can mean many things, and it isn’t just about sales.

Here is the average conversion rate data per industry. 

Industry	Average Conversion Rate
Agency	3.30%
Automotive	2.00%
B2B Ecommerce	3.20%
B2B Services	3.50%
B2B Tech (SaaS)	1.70%
B2C eCommerce	2.00%
Cosmetics and Dental	2.30%
Financial	4.30%
Healthcare	5.60%
Industrial	5.60%
Legal	2.60%
Professional Services	9.30%
Real Estate	1.70%
Travel	4.70%

Source: ruleranlytics.com

Lead generation tactics have different conversion rates

Conversion rates for different lead generation tactics can also vary. 

For instance, data from the marketing research firm, Barilliance, shows that email marketing has an average conversion rate of 15%, while Power of Digital Marketing (PDM) found that social media has an average conversion rate between 2-5%. 

It’s important for businesses to test and track the conversion rates of their lead generation efforts in order to determine which tactics are the most effective.

Lead Gen Tactics	Average Conversion Rate
Organic	16%
Amazon Advertising	9.47%
Google Ads	3.75%
Microsoft Advertising	2.94%
Paid	2.50%
Social media	3.00%
Referral	2.60%
Email Marketing	15.22%
Direct	2.00%
B2B content marketing	1.1%-8%
Landing page	9.70%
Event marketing	3-5%
Video marketing	4.80%
Chatbots	10-30%
SEO	2.40%
Pop-ups and overlays	3.09%
LinkedIn lead gen	13%

Sources: barilliance, firstpagesage, sumo, chatdesk, linkedin, yansmedia, ruleranalytics, vwo, invespcro

The time it takes to convert a lead into a customer also varies by industry

The average time it takes to convert a lead into a customer can also vary by industry. On average, whatever marketing tactics or channel through which you acquired the lead, it takes weeks to convert leads into customers. 

For example, the average time it takes to convert a lead in the software (SaaS) industry is 28 days. This is mainly because selling a software product requires long sales cycles, proper customer education, and creating some product experience before integration can happen. 

The average conversion rate for leads to customers is 4% (MetricHQ)

As we mentioned earlier, lots of factors influence the lead to customer conversion benchmark. It can vary by industry, marketing strategies, channels, and even the device type. 

That cleared; a good lead conversion rate, according to Klipfolio is around 2.4% globally for the average webpage. They’ve also found that a lead gen landing page can have a lead conversion rate of around 4%.

40% of marketers measure the success of their content marketing strategy by lead generation. (HubSpot)

It makes sense for marketers to measure the success of their content marketing strategy by lead generation because lead generation is the first win in marketing success. 

When you measure the success of your content marketing strategy by lead generation, it allows you to determine whether your content is effectively attracting and engaging customers and contributing to the growth of your business.

Only 56% of B2B companies verify business leads before passing them to the sales team. (HubSpot)

Verifying leads is an important step in lead generation. It helps you ensure that the leads are high-quality and are more likely to convert into paying customers before passing them on to your sales team. 

Failing to verify leads can result in your sales team wasting time and resources following up on leads that are not actually interested in making a purchase, which can be costly and detrimental to your company’s bottom line. 

And unfortunately, not all marketers do this. HubSpot’s State of Marketing Report found that only 56% of B2B companies verify business leads before passing it to the sales team.

Google gets 3.5 billion searches a day, making it prime real estate for any ad campaign, especially lead gen. (HubSpot)

According to HubSpot, Google gets 3.5 billion searches per day. 

This simply makes Google the best and the most reliable platform for any sort of advertising, including lead generation campaigns.

Advertising on Google allows you to reach a large audience of potential customers who are actively searching for your products or services. This can be an effective way to generate leads and drive sales.

Marketers face a huge challenge connecting with prospects, as it takes an average of 18 calls. (Gartner)

According to data from a Garnter research on lead gen, it takes an average of 18 calls for a marketer to connect with prospects.

It’s just not easy in everyone’s ken to easily engage customers into meaningful conversations through phone calls, especially when you’re cold calling. And so, it can be time-consuming and require a lot of effort to connect with prospects and convince them to provide their contact information or make a purchase.

The most challenging aspect of lead generation is prospecting and lead qualification, according to 34% of salespeople. (Writer’s Block Live)

Both prospecting and lead qualification are crucial for successful lead generation. They help you identify and target the most promising leads and increase the chances of making a sale. 

According to Writer’s Block Live, 34% of salespeople see them as the biggest lead generation challenges. That’s because it’s generally a time-consuming and hard process to find and reach potential customers, especially if you are targeting a specific niche or geographic area. 

Also, determining if a potential customer is a good fit for your product or service requires carefully evaluating their needs, budget, potential objections, decision-making authority, and applying sales qualification frameworks to assess the likelihood of a purchase.

56% of leads aren’t ready to buy yet. Only 3% are. (Vorsight)

According to data retrieved from Vorsight, up to 56% percent of the people you are targeting with lead generation are not ready to buy yet, only 3% of them are, and the remaining percentage is poised to begin. 

It simply means that the majority of leads you generate will not be ready to buy at the time you initially contacted them — and it comes as no surprise. It is a common challenge in lead generation, as it always takes time and multiple touchpoints to nurture a lead and convince them to make a purchase.

80% of marketers consider their lead generation efforts only to be slightly or somewhat effective. (Lead Generation Institute)

A large percentage of marketers do not feel that their lead generation efforts are very effective at generating leads or converting those leads into paying customers; that’s what the Lead Generation Institute found.

The problem we find with this is that most marketing messages or tactics don’t resonate with the target audience. Marketers target huge lists of customers, and they fail to create relevant, personalized messages that make sense. 

A successful lead generation strategy requires research and personalization. No two customers are the same and shall not receive a copy of the same message.  

Over half of marketers spend at least half of their budget on lead generation. (Bonsai)

According to Bonsai, 53% of marketers spend at least half of their budget on lead gen and B2B lead generation agencies. 

It’s important for businesses to invest in lead generation as it helps to increase brand awareness and ultimately drive sales. 

Lead generation stats by marketing strategies

Here is what studies say about the different lead gen strategies, channels, and tactics that marketers use to target and acquire leads for their business. 

Email marketing

The most effective lead generation channel for B2B marketers is email, according to 79% of B2B marketers. (Writer’s Block Live) 

There are a variety of channels and tactics that B2B marketers use to generate leads, including email, social media, content marketing, events, and more. 

But according to Writer’s Block Live report, email is particularly effective for this purpose, as a large majority of B2B marketers believe it to be the most effective lead generation channel. 

This mainly has to do with the fact that email allows businesses to directly reach and engage with potential clients in a personalized and cost-effective way. 

There is also the fact that you can automate your email campaigns — thereby saving time and ensuring that your leads are consistently being nurtured and followed up on.

Compared to other lead generation methods, email marketing drives 50% more sales leads. (WebFX)

Email allows businesses to engage in targeted and personalized messaging. According to WebFX, email marketing generates 50% more sales leads than the other lead gen methods. 

Marketers get to send messages to potential clients based on factors such as their pain points, unique challenges, goals, and more. And it helps increase the relevance and effectiveness of the email, as it is more likely to be of interest to the recipient.

Content marketing

70% of people prefer to learn about a company through articles rather than ads (Demand Metric)

Demand Metric found that 70% of people prefer to learn about a company through articles rather than ads. 

In general, people perceive articles to be more trustworthy than ads — given that they are typically based on facts and provide in-depth information about a product. Also, articles often provide valuable and interesting information that readers can relate to and learn from.

91% of B2B marketers use content marketing to generate leads. (Writer’s Block Live)

Blogging (aka content marketing) generates 67% more leads than traditional marketing methods, it only makes sense that the majority of marketers focus their efforts and resources there to generate leads. 

According to lead gen data from Writer’s Block Live, 91% of B2B marketers use content marketing to generate leads. 

When marketers target leads based on their position in the sales funnel, they have 73% higher conversion rates. (SmallBizGenius) 

This boils down to strong personalization and increased efficiency in your lead nurturing. 

Because by targeting your leads based on their position in the sales funnel, it lets you send more relevant and personalized messages, which can increase conversion. 

Also, it allows you to focus your marketing efforts on leads that are more likely to convert, rather than wasting time and resources on leads that are not yet ready to buy. 

Social media marketing

Social media generates almost double the marketing leads of trade shows, telemarketing, direct mail, or PPC (HubSpot)

According to HubSpot’s State of Marketing Report, social media is the best lead generation tool, generating almost double the marketing leads of other methods such as trade shows, telemarketing, direct mail, or PPC.

That’s because social media marketing offers targeted advertising options that allow you to reach specific demographics and interests. These options allow you to create and increase the relevance and effectiveness of your social media ads. 

60% of B2B marketers think social media is the second most effective lead generation strategy. (Writer’s Block Live)

According to data from Writer’s Block Live, 60% of B2B marketers see social media is the second most effective lead generation strategy. 

Social media opens your brand to the largest market you can have. It also gives your brand the ability to connect with potential leads in real-time and you can easily generate awareness for your business or products and build relationships with the audience directly.

66% of marketers generate leads from social media by spending only six hours per week on social media marketing. (Bonsai)

According to lead generation data from Bonsai, 66% of marketers are able to generate leads from social media by spending only six hours per week on it. 

This indicates that social media facilitates both prospecting and lead generation.  Better yet, it also indicates that it is a low-effort and cost-effective way to generate leads compared to other methods. 

LinkedIn lead generation statistics

LinkedIn is the most effective B2B social media channel for generating qualified leads. (Bonsai)

According to Bonsai, LinkedIn is the most effective B2B social media channel for lead generation.

One reason for this is that LinkedIn is a professional networking platform, and many users are actively looking for new business opportunities or partners. 

LinkedIn Inmail allows businesses to create company pages, publish content, and use paid advertising to reach potential leads. These features make it easier for you to connect with and nurture leads on the platform.

47% of marketers use LinkedIn to generate leads, and 45% of them gained customers through the platform. (Bonsai)

Bonsai also found that almost half of the marketers who use LinkedIn for lead generation are able to get leads and 45% of them get customers directly through the platform. Building on what we discussed earlier, these only go further showing the effectiveness of LinkedIn outreach. 

Paid advertising lead generation statistics

Paid search advertising has an ROI of 200% (Truelist)

According to PPC statistics from Truelist, paid search advertising can generate a return on investment (ROI) of 200%. This is a very attractive ROI for businesses, especially when compared to other marketing channels.

Paid search advertising is that effective for lead generation because it allows you to target specific keywords and phrases that potential customers are using to search for products or services online. 

Referral marketing

Referral marketing generates 3 times as many leads as traditional outbound marketing (HubSpot)

According to HubSpot, referral marketing generates three times as many leads as traditional outbound marketing methods. 

This may make sense for lead generation because referral marketing relies on recommendations and personal connections, which can be more effective at attracting potential customers than more generic forms of outbound marketing like cold calling or cold email. 

Event marketing

Events and webinars generate a median of 18% of total leads for B2B companies (Bonsai)

Events and webinars can be effective for lead generation because they provide an opportunity for businesses to connect with potential customers in a more personal and interactive way. 

Attending an event or webinar allows potential customers to learn more about a company and its products or services and ask questions and get answers in real time. 

73% of B2B marketers believe that webinars are the best strategy for generating high-quality leads. (Writer’s Block Live)

This makes sense as it joins the point we made earlier for events and webinars. Businesses can target a large audience and be more personal and interactive in their approach. They can build authority and credibility and gain the trust of their attendees. They can also collect their information.

Landing pages

Landing pages with forms that ask for less information have higher conversion rates (Cobloom)

The idea is simple. 

Seeing a form full of space holders for a lot of information to fill in will not be encouraging for your potential leads. Also, the more information you ask, the more friction you create, and can considerably reduce your chances of getting the lead.

Using video on a landing page can increase conversion rates by 86% (EyeView)

Videos explain things better; both people and search engines prioritize them, and they let people learn and discover products in a way that is fun and interesting. 

So, adding a video to your landing page helps increase conversions because it allows you to more effectively communicate the value of your product or service and engage visitors. 

68% of B2B companies use strategic landing pages to generate leads. (Writer’s Block Live)

Such landing pages are super-focused on a single goal and help you present your information (about your products or services) in a clear and concise way and direct potential customers to take a specific action. 

Calls-to-Action (CTAs)

Personalized CTAs convert a whopping 202% better than basic calls-to-action. (HubSpot)

According to HubSpot, personalized calls-to-action (CTAs) are significantly more effective at converting visitors into leads or customers than basic CTAs. 

In other words, tailoring it to a specific audience’s needs or interests is more effective at encouraging them to take a specific action.

Lead nurturing

Companies that excel at lead nurturing generate 50% more sales-ready leads at a 33% lower cost (Forrester)

Companies that excel at lead nurturing are able to generate more sales-ready leads because they are able to effectively engage and build relationships with their potential customers through their nurturing sequences (no matter what communication and channels they use). 

Nurtured leads make 47% larger purchases than non-nurtured leads (WBL)

This comes as no surprise. Nurtured leads make larger purchases because they have a deeper understanding of the product or service being offered and have had the opportunity to build a relationship with the company. 

Also, they are more likely to trust you and feel more confident in their decision to make a purchase.

59% of marketers say that content marketing is the most challenging lead nurturing strategy. (WBL)

In most cases, lead nurturing (doing it the right way) is easier said than done. It requires a significant investment of time and resources to create high-quality content and to effectively promote it to the right audience. Also, you will need to have a deep understanding of your target audience and their needs.

63% of leads who inquire about your business won’t convert for at least 3 months. (Marketing Donut)

Marketing Donut found that 63% of leads who inquire about your business won’t convert for at least 3 months. This can be because the potential customer is still in the early stage of the buyer’s journey and not yet ready to make a purchase, or because they are still in the process of researching their options.

Marketing automation

By using marketing automation, businesses experience a 451% increase in qualified leads. (SmallBizGenius)

Marketing automation can help you generate high quality leads by allowing you to more effectively target and personalize their marketing efforts and to do it all at scale. Also, you can automate repetitive tasks such as sending emails or posting on social media. 

You can also use a marketing automation software to track the effectiveness of your marketing campaigns and identify areas for improvement.

80% of marketing automation users saw leads increase. (Blogging Wizard)

According to Blogging Wizard, 80% of marketers who use automation see an increase in the number of leads they get. This aligns with the upper statistics as it allows marketers to scale their activities and more results. That’s why Bonsai also found that 77% of marketers convert more leads using automation software than those who don’t. 

Video marketing

Video in email leads to a 200-300% increase in click-through rate (Digital Information World)

Video will always intrigue your leads. Adding video to your email makes the email more engaging and attention-grabbing. It allows you to communicate your message more effectively and be more compelling than with text. 

70% of B2B marketers think video content helps leads convert. (Bonsai)

According to Bonsai, a whopping 70% of marketers think video helps them easily attract and convert leads. Video content gets more reach than any other form of content. Also, studies show that most people would rather watch a video than read a text about a specific topic. 

Video content is more compelling and leaves your audience more interested and engaged. You can easily tell stories, and they can see the actual people behind your brand. This adds an extra layer of trust and credibility to your content that’s hard to beat. 

Chatbots

Chatbots have a 50-80% success rate for lead generation (AnyLeads)

According to Anyleads, chatbots have a success rate of 50-80% for lead generation. 

Chatbots can be an effective lead generation tool because they allow businesses to engage with potential customers in real time and provide them with information about products or services. 

They can have meaningful conversations with your visitors (even when you’re away) and can gather information about leads, such as their contact information and areas of interest.

Customer reviews and testimonials

88% of consumers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations (InvespCro)

Online reviews provide an opportunity for people to read about the experiences of others who have used a product or service. And since most people are skeptical about new experiences, it helps them make informed decisions.

Testimonials are the most effective form of content for converting visitors into leads (Exploding Topics)

According to Exploding Topics, that’s the most effective form of content for converting visitors into leads. 

Testimonials can be an effective form of content for converting visitors into leads because they provide social proof. They can also be more persuasive than other types of content because they are written by real people who have used the product or service and can provide first-hand accounts of its benefits. 

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

SEO leads have a 14.6% close rate, while outbound leads have a 1.7% close rate (The Search Engine Journal)

According to the SEJ, SEO leads significantly have a better close rate (the percentage of leads that eventually convert into customers), 14%, than outbound leads, 1.7%. 

This may be because SEO leads are often more qualified and have a higher level of interest in the product or service being offered. When a person searches for a product or service online, they are actively looking for information and may be more likely to make a purchase. 

In contrast, outbound leads are often generated through cold strategies, such as cold calling or cold email, and the potential customer wasn’t planning for it. As a result, outbound leads may be less likely to convert into customers.

Lead magnets, Pop-ups, and overlays

Pop-ups and overlays can increase email signups by up to 1,375% (AWeber)

Pop-ups and overlays are types of interactive content. They offer you an effective way to increase your email signups as they present visitors with a clear and prominent call-to-action (CTA) and gather valuable information, such as their contact information and areas of interest. 

Gated content can increase lead generation by up to 300% (IronPaper)

You can increase your lead generation by up to 300% by using gated content, according to Iron Paper. Gated content means content behind a form or other barrier that requires the visitor to enter their contact information or complete some action in order to access it. 

Offering a lead magnet can increase conversions by up to 785% (Backlinko)

Lead magnets work in almost the same way as gated content, visitors must give out information or perform an action to access the content, except this time it’s not gated, it’s sold to the visitors (as incentive) and they will know what to expect. 

Follow up

41% of companies struggle to quickly follow up with leads (Verse)

Following up with leads in a timely manner is essential as it allows you to engage with potential customers while they are still interested and to try to convert them into customers. Unfortunately, 41% of companies struggle with it, and 44% of sales reps are too busy to do it, according to Verse.

Key takeaways

• Lead generation is a crucial part of any business’s marketing strategy, as it involves attracting and converting strangers and prospects into leads and, ultimately, customers. 
• You can use the data and stats in this post to continuously improve your lead generation efforts. 
• Be sure to always track the success of your lead generation efforts; you can identify what’s working and what’s not and make necessary adjustments.