I run a B2B SaaS and got fed up with rising CPMs on Meta. So back in February I jumped into cold emailing with zero experience. Fast forward a few months and I'm sending 1,500 emails daily, getting a 3% reply rate and closing 27% of meetings. It's become one of our best acquisition channels. Here's everything I wish someone had told me.

Technical Setup

Buy separate domains just for outreach - never use your main one.
Set up SPF, DKIM, and DMARC straight away.
Google Workspace or Microsoft 365 (roughly $4/account/month) for deliverability.
Create 1-3 accounts per domain. Start at 10 emails/day each, increase by 10% daily. Cap at 25/day per account once warmed. Example: 4 domains × 3 accounts × 25 = 300 emails daily.
Warm up accounts for at least 14 days.
Add real profile photos, forward your sending domain to your main site, use older domains if you can, and set up a custom tracking domain (e.g. track.yourdomain.com).

Finding the Right People

For office workers: Apollo.io, LinkedIn Sales Navigator + enrichment, Crunchbase, PitchBook.
For local businesses: Outscraper, Clay's Google Maps feature, Serper.dev.
For finding similar companies: Pandamatch (budget) or Ocean (cleaner).
Other useful tools: Instant Data Scraper browser extension, BuiltWith, and Clay for filling missing data.

Cleaning Your List - Absolutely Crucial
Bad emails wreck your deliverability. Use VerifyEmailAI, MillionVerifier, or Listmint (if you need to handle tricky types).

Organising Contacts
Segment by industry, upcoming events, success stories, location, job level, or biggest challenges. Good segmentation beats generic AI personalisation every time.

Writing Emails That Actually Convert
Stick to plain text - no images, no fancy formatting. Use spintax for greetings and sign-offs to keep it varied. Test each template on 50-100 sends first.

Structure:

Personal reason - why this person? Reference something specific.
Value proposition - what you offer and how it helps.
Simple CTA - offer a free audit/trial or a yes/no question.
Proof - handle objections with real results.

Subject lines: keep under 6 words and curious. "Question for {{first_name}}?" or "{{first_name}} - quick thought?" work well.

Best Practices
Keep emails short and human. Use truthful claims - "helped 50+ companies" not "we're the best". Use their industry language.

Example for an SEO client:

Hi Antoinette,
I asked ChatGPT: "best interior design firm in Hoboken". Delphine Interiors and Cheban Interiors came up. Not Antoinette Allande Interiors.
That's where a chunk of your future customers are looking.
If you'd want Antoinette Allande Interiors to show up in those searches on autopilot, I've unlocked 3 free days for you on BabyLoveGrowth.
Luke - Cofounder

Follow-Ups
Send 2-4 max, spaced 2-14 days apart. Keep them simple - add context, remind, or reframe the offer. Focus on new prospects instead of endless follow-ups.

Testing & Optimisation
Before launch: check spam score at mail-tester.com, send small batches (50-100), monitor reply rates and deliverability.

Metrics to aim for:

Reply rate: 2-5%
Positive reply rate: 1-2%
Meeting booking rate: 0.5-1%
Close rate: 20-30%

Quick Start Checklist

Buy 2-3 domains for outreach.
Set up DNS records.
Create and warm up accounts.
Choose your data source and build the list.
Validate every email address.
Segment into targeted groups.
Write and test your first template.
Start small and scale based on results.

Don't overthink it - just start. You'll learn as you go. Hope this helps someone avoid the painful mistakes I made.