Need Email/SMS Marketing help - Cold Email

bscape

bscape

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Hi All- Looking for help with a Cold email campaign. I have never set anything of this nature up and frankly do not have alot of experience with outbound work at all. always ran Google Ads. CPA is getting way too high so im looking for alternatives. i tried a small batch through hubspot and they werent too happy about it and made me jump through a bunch of hoops that terminated when i had to verify that the emails were being sent to people expecting marketing communication and that i had emailed at least once within the year. so that option is out.

I have developed a detailed scrape method that targets potential clients well, in very small batch tests these are looking like good leads. We often get a company email address and a personal. We also tend to get cell numbers so i would be open to SMS marketing as well.

I would say not to terribly high volume is necessary- maybe 2-300 emails a day?

This is a "i dont know what i dont know" situation so im not even sure what information or details one may need to start helping with this. Please be gentle.

This is in the GBP Reputation Management space.
 
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bscape said:
Hi All- Looking for help with a Cold email campaign. I have never set anything of this nature up and frankly do not have alot of experience with outbound work at all. always ran Google Ads. CPA is getting way too high so im looking for alternatives. i tried a small batch through hubspot and they werent too happy about it and made me jump through a bunch of hoops that terminated when i had to verify that the emails were being sent to people expecting marketing communication and that i had emailed at least once within the year. so that option is out.

I have developed a detailed scrape method that targets potential clients well, in very small batch tests these are looking like good leads. We often get a company email address and a personal. We also tend to get cell numbers so i would be open to SMS marketing as well.

I would say not to terribly high volume is necessary- maybe 2-300 emails a day?

This is a "i dont know what i dont know" situation so im not even sure what information or details one may need to start helping with this. Please be gentle.

This is in the GBP Reputation Management space.
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Oh I understand and there is a perfect way of setting up a compliant cold email system outside HubSpot with proper inbox warm up, domain setup, and lead validation so you can send 200–300 emails/day without getting flagged. And also structure your outreach (email + optional SMS) for better deliverability and conversions
 
Thanks Maldonadorobert, Interested to hear more. Shoot me a DM when you can.
 
Since the sending volume is below the threshold limit you can go with companies like Bird , Sendy

Good luck :)
 
xcodes said:
Since the sending volume is below the threshold limit you can go with companies like Bird , Sendy

Good luck :)
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X Codes- Thank you- i will research those options.
 
aij89 said:
Remember whatever solution you chose: be patient, follow the data and have perseverance. Cold email is a tough nut to crack.
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Thank you that is great advice. You know its funny as a consumer, i strongly dislike getting cold emails and calls. Honestly i hate it. so this is a tough decision to make- i think that by being tactical in who we choose to email and, like you said following the data- we can connect with people that truly need our services and that we can help - not just annoy until they buy.

Thanks for that advice.
 
Yeah hubspot will ban you in a heartbeat for cold email, glad you got out before they locked your main domain. Honestly for 200-300 a day you need to set up secondary domains. Do not use your main site domain or you will ruin your normal business email deliverability.

Go buy 3 or 4 lookalike domains, set up google workspace or microsoft 365 on them with 2 inboxes per domain max. @bscape since you are doing reputation management, keep the pitch super short and personalized.

Also don't use sendy or ses for cold outreach... you will get banned pretty quick. Use something like instantly or smartlead to manage the sending and warmup. And run your scraped list through millionverifier or debouncer first or you will burn those new domains instantly.

I would leave SMS alone for now, tcpa laws are brutal if you are in the US and it is way too easy to get sued. Stick to email first.
 
SignalMint said:
Yeah hubspot will ban you in a heartbeat for cold email, glad you got out before they locked your main domain. Honestly for 200-300 a day you need to set up secondary domains. Do not use your main site domain or you will ruin your normal business email deliverability.

Go buy 3 or 4 lookalike domains, set up google workspace or microsoft 365 on them with 2 inboxes per domain max. @bscape since you are doing reputation management, keep the pitch super short and personalized.

Also don't use sendy or ses for cold outreach... you will get banned pretty quick. Use something like instantly or smartlead to manage the sending and warmup. And run your scraped list through millionverifier or debouncer first or you will burn those new domains instantly.

I would leave SMS alone for now, tcpa laws are brutal if you are in the US and it is way too easy to get sued. Stick to email first.
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Signal, Thank you. this is exactly what I needed.
 
@bscape one thing I’d add to @SignalMint’s post is don’t jump straight to 300/day even if the tool says you can. Start stupid low, like 10-15 per inbox/day, plain text, no images, no fancy tracking links at first, and ramp over a few weeks.

For GBP reputation stuff your scrape is prob the main advantage, so use it in the opener. Something like rating drop, low review velocity, unanswered negatives, competitor has 3x review count, etc. Generic “we help businesses get more reviews” will get ignored fast.

Also I’d avoid personal emails unless there’s no company email. Same with cell numbers... not worth touching SMS until email is already working and you know your offer converts. And make sure every domain has SPF/DKIM/DMARC right before sending, small mistake there burns time for no reason.
 
Adsmith, Epic. thank you.

And yes, that specificity is what i think will be the differentiator- i get 5 emails a day with "we can improve rankings or 25 free reviews" and its all just noise at this point.

I really appreciate all the help BHW folks, i was half expecting to get roasted.
 
Cold email is difficult itself.

I'd avoid scraping all together, it's always great to have at least some reference of where the users signed up.

Or I'd at least made the reference up and include it in the email template.

Yes as mentioned above - get a number of sending domains, authenticate them, each needs to have an IP, you may need to warm-up or they'll get burned soon.

Entirely cold emails will take time for warming up.

Run a small test - see what the results are, and compare the costs w. results.

(I've spent 8 years in the email list management business)
 
Thanks Carlos. great advice.

Another question- what programs are you guys using to verify that the emails are landing in inbox and not spam. In the past ive used mxtoolkit.
 
Do you send emails with hyperlinks? (URL to your domain), or you want to send txt offers only?
Because for second variant you could just buy 10 gmail accounts (like $0.20 each) and send 30 emails from each. And setup email forwarding to one of your emails so you can get all the answers.

Or use mailchimp, mailgun (for SMTP), aweber, and similar services, it's pretty simple to send a text only message compared to one that includes URL. Because the moderation is way stronger on campaigns that have hyperlinks.

For cleaning your list the most effective way is just to send an email to them and collect bounces/unsubscribes/spam complaints and remove them from the list. (from mailchimp or other email services).

P.S. to verify if they land in inbox just first send to yourself (a test message) and see where it landed, if it was in inbox, then you also add one of your emails in the middle of the list and at the end of list, so you can get 3 emails and see where each landed. Here you can understand when it started going to spam if it even starts.
 
on the inbox placement question, mxtoolbox is fine for checking your auth records but for actual placement testing use glockapps or mailreach. they seed test inboxes across gmail/outlook/yahoo and give you a spam score plus tell you which provider is sending you to spam. way more useful than just cc'ing yourself since your own inbox has engagement history that skews the result.

one thing nobody mentioned... watch your reply rate and spam complaints obsessively in the first couple weeks. deliverability isnt static, you can start in inbox and slowly drift to spam as volume ramps if your content or list quality slips. the seedbox tools help but the real signal is are people actually replying.

and yeah warmup for a few weeks minimum before you touch real sends, no shortcut there.
 
johnydriver said:
Do you send emails with hyperlinks? (URL to your domain), or you want to send txt offers only?
Because for second variant you could just buy 10 gmail accounts (like $0.20 each) and send 30 emails from each. And setup email forwarding to one of your emails so you can get all the answers.

Or use mailchimp, mailgun (for SMTP), aweber, and similar services, it's pretty simple to send a text only message compared to one that includes URL. Because the moderation is way stronger on campaigns that have hyperlinks.

For cleaning your list the most effective way is just to send an email to them and collect bounces/unsubscribes/spam complaints and remove them from the list. (from mailchimp or other email services).

P.S. to verify if they land in inbox just first send to yourself (a test message) and see where it landed, if it was in inbox, then you also add one of your emails in the middle of the list and at the end of list, so you can get 3 emails and see where each landed. Here you can understand when it started going to spam if it even starts.
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Preferably id like to be able to send something nice looking, and a URl would definitely be a part of that. But to get started text only wouldnt necessarily be a deal breaker.

Thank you for the tips!
 
Ghost Merchant said:
on the inbox placement question, mxtoolbox is fine for checking your auth records but for actual placement testing use glockapps or mailreach. they seed test inboxes across gmail/outlook/yahoo and give you a spam score plus tell you which provider is sending you to spam. way more useful than just cc'ing yourself since your own inbox has engagement history that skews the result.

one thing nobody mentioned... watch your reply rate and spam complaints obsessively in the first couple weeks. deliverability isnt static, you can start in inbox and slowly drift to spam as volume ramps if your content or list quality slips. the seedbox tools help but the real signal is are people actually replying.

and yeah warmup for a few weeks minimum before you touch real sends, no shortcut there.
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Ill check those out, thank you.

Smart thinking to keep a close eye on things- i assumed that depending on how people react it could push the domain into spam territory.

Ive started the process with a bird account and have two domains that i am warming up there. lets see how things go!

Thank you all again for the advice so far- absolutely killer
 
@bscape just saw you mentioned setting up a bird account... if you mean birdsend or messagebird, you are probably gonna get banned there pretty quick just like hubspot. those are opt-in platforms and they do not like cold lists. you really need to stick to dedicated cold email software like instantly or smartlead paired with google workspace or m365.

also with only 2 domains, trying to hit 300 a day is pushing it. you want to keep it to like 30 or 40 max per domain including the warmup emails. i'd grab at least 5 or 6 domains to be safe and spread the load. rep management is a great niche but you gotta protect your sender reputation from day one or you'll just waste time and money.
 
Bro, I wouldn’t even start with that many as 200-300 messages a day, particularly for a fresh domain. It may be flagged as spam or some sort of bot running the messages. I think it is necessary to implement SPF, DKIM and DMARC settings, use business emails if you can. Also what can help is to make the letter personal and include an opt-out possibility. I would be really careful about using scraped personal emails and SMS because the regulations are usually much stricter.
 
starkwaters said:
@bscape just saw you mentioned setting up a bird account... if you mean birdsend or messagebird, you are probably gonna get banned there pretty quick just like hubspot. those are opt-in platforms and they do not like cold lists. you really need to stick to dedicated cold email software like instantly or smartlead paired with google workspace or m365.

also with only 2 domains, trying to hit 300 a day is pushing it. you want to keep it to like 30 or 40 max per domain including the warmup emails. i'd grab at least 5 or 6 domains to be safe and spread the load. rep management is a great niche but you gotta protect your sender reputation from day one or you'll just waste time and money.
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i will def check out thos two you mentioned but im not sure if the platform that i was looking at is the same as bird send or messagebird, the url for the landing page ive been looking at is https://bird.com/en-us/products/email/marketing.
 
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