B2B Cold Email - Outlook ESP

Anyone cracked the outlook esp for cold outbound.

With my lists and email content being the same, this is the following results that I am getting consistently;
Outlook to Outlook (mediocre results)
Google to Outlook (okay - average)
Google to Google (excellent).

I am struggling to crack outlook esps, I barely even get OOO replies either.

Outlook is shit. There's not much to do because they don't provide tools like Google Postmaster Tools where you can analyze why your emails are landing in inbox / spam, being marked as spam, etc.

Microsoft's SNDS is only useful when you have a dedicated sender IP. Google Postmaster works when you only have domain and shared sending IP

As @Nameless Knight said, Outlook is a tough one. I'd say ESP matching wouldn't move the needle for you that much.

But we've run campaigns with Google infra to Enterprise, which mostly consisted of Outlook infra. Domains were aged and actively warming up + sending for at least 6 months. And we were pulling better reply rates than some of my Google-to-Google campaigns.

So I'd say domain age and the mailbox past activity are big factor. You can either buy aged domains from resellers or just grab a bunch on domain registrar yourself and let them marinate. Just make sure you get .com ones tho, it's the safest bet.

Now on the script side, I'd make sure you're using spintax (changing variations of sentences/words) and avoiding all sensitive spam words (you can look them up).

Hope this helps

dogg1e said:

its probably your copy - you really need to get creative to land in outlook im not going to lie

how are you measuring deliverability? do you test before you send?
how long is your copy - happy to chat privately. we send a lot of cold emails and always looking to lend a helping hand

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i managed to crack it since the last post, because now im actively doing well outlook esps. now im focused more on the offer and ctas

naz10101 said:

Anyone cracked the outlook esp for cold outbound.

With my lists and email content being the same, this is the following results that I am getting consistently;
Outlook to Outlook (mediocre results)
Google to Outlook (okay - average)
Google to Google (excellent).

I am struggling to crack outlook esps, I barely even get OOO replies either.

Click to expand...

qualifications: I send about 10-20k emails per day; from emails we rip 300-500k in rev annually; ive been in the cold email space for 2 years now

I'm ripping about 1-3% reply rate, with about 70% of the replies being positive on my campaigns with about 50 domains, all running on Microsoft (azure) infra, each domain has 49 accounts that send about 15 warmup emails a day and 2-5 real emails.

google workspace also works pretty good too - we (and probably you too) are mainly targeting google workspace emails which makes landing a lot easier

the most important thing where people fuck up is not cleaning their emails. always run your emails through an email verification software, not going to namedrop suppliers but just look up a decent priced reputable one.

make sure your emails are under 80 words for deliverability and engagement

no links, or photos

always test send your emails thru glass & mail reach to make sure your stuff is landing before you send

5k sends in you want to test again to make sure they are still sending - its not really a set and forget

make sure the spin tax is good and your not using spammy words like 'free' or 'discount' or 'limited time offer'

also what works best for me if there is a specific trigger that im referring to

for example, im in real estate so ill usually trigger my emails with "hey Paul, congrats on closing 123 elm street. we offer agents X that solves Y problem that you encountered closing" blah blah blah - something relevant.

I usually have 3-5 follow up emails if they dont respond

final note

when writing an email, something to help guide your thinking is like - what would you say to this guy if you were in person? just be concise and honest and come bearing value that solves a real problem - most people overthink and go way too salesy on the first email

best of luck

Outlook seems stricter with cold email. I’d focus on domain reputation, clean lists, low sending volume, and simple emails rather than trying to “crack” the filter.

danielrbrooks said:

Outlook seems stricter with cold email. I’d focus on domain reputation, clean lists, low sending volume, and simple emails rather than trying to “crack” the filter.

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i am doing well with outlook now because i tried a different set of inboxes and my workspace inboxes have been warmed up longer and is performing really well. like im cracking 4-5% response rates with outlook esps.

but im struggling to crack the offer part of it