Cold emailing remains a cornerstone of effective outreach strategies, enabling businesses to connect with potential customers, cultivate leads, and establish valuable relationships.
When executed strategically, cold email campaigns can yield substantial returns on investment, particularly given their cost-effectiveness compared to other marketing channels.
However, determining the optimal volume of daily cold emails remains a persistent challenge for sales professionals and business leaders.
Sending too few emails may hinder growth, while excessive outreach can jeopardize email deliverability, damage brand reputation, and even lead to getting flagged as spam.
This article provides a comprehensive analysis of the factors that determine the ideal number of cold emails to send per day, along with actionable strategies for optimizing your outreach efforts and maximizing their impact.
Factors That Impact the Number of Cold Emails You Can Send Daily
There’s no universal answer to how many cold emails you should send daily. It’s also worth noting that this answer isn’t the same for everyone. Your recommended sending limit depends on several factors.
The key ones include:
1. Email Service Provider (ESP) Limits
Different email service providers (ESPs) have daily sending limits.
- Gmail/Google Workspace. Google allows up to 500 emails per day with a free Gmail account and up to 2,000 for Workspace users (paid business accounts). Consistently hitting the limit is likely to raise red flags and scrutiny.
- Microsoft 365. For Microsoft Outlook, the daily limit is up to 10,000 for all Business and Enterprise plans, while the maximum number of recipients for a single message is 500. Another limit to bear in mind is 30 emails sent per minute.
- Dedicated cold email tools. VanillaSoft’s dedicated cold outreach automation tool and other similar platforms are designed for cold emailing and can send hundreds or even thousands of emails per day, depending on your plan. However, they often integrate with your ESP and adhere to its sending limits.
Ignoring these limits can lead to deliverability problems or even temporary account suspension. So, before you set up your first cold email campaign, make sure you review your plan and its sending limits.
2. Domain Age and Reputation
Your domain’s age and reputation influence how many cold emails you can safely send. It would be suspicious if a new domain starts sending large volumes of emails immediately. A recommended practice would be the following:
- New domains. If your domain is less than three months old, it’s crucial to start slowly. Sending 20 to 50 cold emails per day and gradually increasing over time can help build a good reputation.
- Established domains. If your domain has been active for over a year and has a positive email history, such as low bounce rates and minimal spam reports, you can safely send between 200 and 500 emails per day.
3. Quality of Your Email List
Sending emails to a poorly curated or outdated list can result in high bounce rates and spam complaints, which can damage your domain reputation. Even if your emails are legit and you’re trying to reach prospects who can benefit from your offerings, you can fall victim to spam filters.
It’s important to consider that people switch jobs and change email addresses, meaning that your email might not reach them. Furthermore, in addition to bounces, these inactive, abandoned, or defunct email addresses pose an even greater risk to your sender reputation because ESPs turn them into so-called honeypots and use them as decoys. Consequently, if your emails are delivered to one of these addresses, your domain reputation will be flagged as spam and your future email campaigns will be in danger of landing in the spam folder.
That’s why it’s vital to keep your email lists as clean as possible by scrubbing them or using an email validation service to prevent hard bounces and avoid potential spam traps before you hit the “send” button.
How to Improve Your Sender Reputation and Avoid Spam Filters?
Navigating the complexities of cold email campaigns requires a meticulous approach to avoid being flagged as spam and jeopardizing your sender reputation. Implementing best practices is crucial to ensure your emails reach the intended recipients and achieve their desired impact.
Here are some tactics you and your team can use to improve your sender reputation, as well as prepare your domain and email account for sending outbound campaigns.
1. Warm up your email address and domain
If you’re using a new email account or domain, or if you’ve had a period of inactivity, it’s crucial to warm them up before launching large-scale cold email campaigns. This gradual process helps establish trust with email providers and avoids triggering spam filters that could hinder your deliverability.
Warming up a new email account
- Start with manual sending. To act as naturally as possible, begin by sending a few personalized emails per day to contacts you know, like friends, colleagues, or business partners. Engage in genuine conversations and encourage replies to simulate natural email activity. The objective is to reach out to people you already know and are sure will open your messages. This approach ensures your sending activity won’t come across as suspicious.
- Gradually increase volume. Slowly increase the number of emails you send each day over several weeks. Avoid sudden spikes in volume, as this can raise red flags with email providers.
Warming up a new domain
Bear in mind that warming up a new or inactive domain takes longer than warming up a new or inactive email account. In general, the reputation-building process lasts about three months. However, this could be even longer if you’re setting up more than one email account.
- Start slow and steady. The first step is sending a very low volume of emails from your new domain, perhaps 10-20 per day. Gradually increase this number over several weeks or even months.
- Prioritize engagement. Focus on sending emails to engaged recipients who are likely to open, click, and reply. This positive engagement signals to email providers that your domain is legitimate.
- Monitor deliverability. Keep a close eye on your email metrics, including open rates, bounce rates, and spam complaints. If you notice any issues, adjust your sending volume or content accordingly.
Key points to remember:
- Be patient. Warming up your email account and domain takes time and consistency. Don’t rush the process or try to take shortcuts.
- Focus on quality. Send well-crafted, personalized emails that provide value to the recipient. Avoid generic, mass emails that could trigger spam filters.
- Monitor your reputation. Use tools to track your sender reputation and identify any potential issues.
2. Don’t forget about email ramp-up
Although similar, warming up and ramping up don’t mean the same. Email ramp-up refers to gradually increasing the volume of emails sent from an already warmed-up email account or domain. In other words, it’s used for achieving a higher sending speed in a safe way.
This is done to avoid sudden spikes in sending volume that could trigger spam filters and negatively impact your deliverability rates.
Our Ramp-Up feature can help you achieve your desired speed without triggering spam filters.
3. Segment your lists
Segmentation plays an important role in the success of your cold outreach campaigns. By dividing your email list into smaller, targeted groups based on factors like industry, job title, location, company size, specific pain points, or any other criteria, you can create more relevant messages for each audience.
This improves open and click-through rates while reducing the risk of being marked as spam.
Personalized emails are far more effective than generic ones. Segmentation lets you tailor your messages to specific needs and challenges, making your cold emails feel less intrusive and more like a helpful introduction.
4. Go multichannel
If you’re concerned about hitting sending limits or damaging your domain’s reputation, consider diversifying your outreach by combining cold emailing with other channels.
A multichannel approach can help you reach prospects more effectively through warming up your cold email outreach. Instead of start sending cold emails eight away, try interacting with your prospects through a multichannel cadence that will establish you as a familiar face/name before you send your first cold email.
Here’s how you can do it:
1. Combine emails with LinkedIn outreach
LinkedIn is a powerful tool for B2B outreach. Send a cold email, then follow up with a personalized LinkedIn connection request. This helps establish trust and ensures your message isn’t ignored. A more effective approach is to initiate the entire conversation by sending a connection request and then liking, sharing, or commenting on their recent post or update.
After a few rounds of comments, send them a direct message, and after a few more interactions, you can finally follow up with a cold email that feels less “cold” because you’ve already established some level of engagement.
2. Use SMS or phone outreach
After your initial email, follow up with a phone call or text message. This can add a personal touch and increase response rates, especially if your target audience is more responsive to direct contact.
In Conclusion
When it comes to cold emailing, there’s no magic number of how many emails to send per day, as it depends on your domain age, email list quality, ESP limits, and other factors. However, the key takeaway is that quality should always come before quantity. Sending hundreds of poorly targeted or irrelevant emails can do more harm than good, while a smaller number of well-crafted, personalized emails is more likely to generate positive results.
If you’re starting out, begin with a modest volume, monitor your metrics, and gradually scale up. Always stay aware of email provider limits and maintain a focus on delivering value in every email you send.
