How to write a cold email that gets replies

Write a short, specific message, with Sales.co reply data behind each rule.

Impact
High
Effort
Medium
Filed under
Cold Email, Sales
Updated

Cold email copywriting is the craft of writing one short message that tells a specific person who you are, why you are writing to them and what you want back. It matters, but less than most guides claim. In Sales.co's data, who you email and whether the message reaches the inbox come before the words, and the first email brings 69% of all replies (1.5M+ emails, December 2025). Write that first email well, keep it short, and ask one easy question.

How to do it

  1. Choose the reader before the words. Sales.co's response-rate data lists the levers in order of impact: who you email, whether you land in the inbox, then what the first message says. A mediocre email to the right people beats a clever one to the wrong list.
  2. Open with the reason you are writing to this person. Use a fact you actually checked (a job post, a product launch, a page on their site). If you have no real fact, skip the personal line and start with the offer. Sales.co's sending data (April 2025 to September 2026) shows an AI-written first line sent to 360,004 contacts: 0.53% replied, against 1.00% of 28,896 contacts who got a plain template with no personal line.
  3. Say what you do in one plain sentence, for whom, and one result you can show. Use only results you can back up. Cut adjectives. "We build outbound lists for B2B software companies" beats "We offer full-service lead generation solutions."
  4. Ask one question that is easy to answer. Sales.co's cold email statistics report (2M+ emails, 61,770 classified replies) found that "Want to see it in action?" drew a 30.05% positive share of replies, against 8.59% for "Mind if I send more info?" That is the share of replies that were positive, not replies per email, so treat it as a hint about wording, not a promise.
  5. Keep it short and informal. In the same report, ultra short and medium-length emails tied at about 8.8% positive replies, long emails reached 6.42%, and informal tone beat formal tone 10.36% to 5.83%. Read the draft out loud. If you would not say a sentence to a stranger at a conference, rewrite it.
  6. Check it on a phone before sending, then send it to yourself from the same address you will use.

Examples

Sales.co's own tests are the clearest examples available. The AI first line did not help: in the same-month comparison, the plain template matched or beat it every month both ran. In Sales.co's tracking of its own campaigns, the human reply rate per contact first-emailed fell from 2.36% (April 2025) to 0.45% (September 2026), across 1,279,153 contacts first-emailed from April 8, 2025 to September 25, 2026. The company reports that changes to how its emails were written did not move the line.

Below is the same message rewritten. It is sample copy, not from a real campaign.

Weak: "I hope this email finds you well. We are a trusted provider of full-service lead generation solutions and would love to schedule a call."

Better: "Hi Dana, I saw you are hiring a second SDR. We build prospect lists for B2B software teams, checked by hand before they reach you. Want me to send ten sample rows for your market?"

When it backfires

Copy cannot fix a bad list or a blocked inbox. Sales.co's data says below 1% raw response "usually points at deliverability or list quality problems rather than copy."

Cold email is regulated. The FTC states that CAN-SPAM makes no exception for business-to-business email. The law bans deceptive subject lines and requires a valid physical postal address, and you must honor opt-outs within 10 business days. Each violating email can cost up to $53,088.

Google's sender rules for senders of 5,000+ messages a day to Gmail require SPF, DKIM and DMARC and one-click unsubscribe for marketing messages, and tell senders to keep reported spam below 0.10% and never reach 0.30%. Google also says not to send messages to people who did not sign up to get them, which is the risk cold email carries.

Sales.co sells cold email, and these figures come from its own sending tool and campaigns (often run for clients), so they show what happened there, not what will happen for you.

Sources

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