Is cold email dead?
How to use email in today's marketing and sales arsenal.
In 1971, Ray Tomlinson, a computer engineer, sent the first ever email.
Tomlinson was working on a program which allowed files to be transferred between computers, and wrote a test message: "QWERTYUIOP”. It was a simple, but highly profound moment.
As technology evolved, the 1980s saw email primarily used as an internal function. It wasn’t until the advent of the World Wide Web and the expansion of the internet in the 1990s, that the medium became more accessible and increasingly used for external communication.
By the early 2000s, email had become an essential tool for businesses worldwide, replacing traditional paper-based communication methods like memos and faxes.
Since Ray Tomlinson fired off that historic first email in 1971, it’s estimated over 3.8 quadrillion (that’s the number equal to 1 followed by 15 0s) emails have been sent. And yet, whilst email remains a mainstay for internal and external communication, its role as a sales’ tool has changed considerably.
Spam filters tighten.
In recent years, spam filters have tightened significantly. As many as 85% of emails now end up in spam folders, especially if they meet certain characteristics such as bulk sending, lack of permission, use of suspicious language, or poor sender reputation. Even poor Ray Tomlinson’s “QWERTYUIOP” wouldn’t pass muster these days.
In most instances, this is a good thing. Just open your spam folder for a second and you’ll see just how much rubbish you are targeted with on a daily basis. Even if you keep it strictly PG, the senders are almost always a mix of hackers and complete chancers. No one wants to manually sift through the trash, so spam filters serve a vital role. But, tighter spam filters do present a challenge for a favourite sales team tactic: cold email.
The reality is that it’s increasingly difficult to run effective cold email campaigns at scale. Trying to work your way around filters to get in front of that dream prospect now requires a number of steps that each require time and attention:
Setting up proper email authentication
Personalising content - beyond changing a name
Avoiding spammy words and phrases eg. “Free”, “urgent”, “guaranteed”
Penning a clear and honest subject line
Limiting the use of attachments
Avoiding image-heavy emails
Avoiding sending too many emails in a short space of time
Including a physical address in your email footer - particularly if targeting the US
Pumping out thousands of automated emails as part of a weekly sales push is now virtually impossible. If you’re executing properly, then quantity has been limited by an insistence on quality. Ultimately, filters are weeding out the lazy salespeople and testing the good ones.
A cultural shift.
But there’s more tough news for sales teams, because bypassing stricter spam filters is just the beginning. Quite aside from the practical delivery, culturally - certainly within the built world innovation space - cold email has taken a big hit.
Recipients are now hugely sensitive to the type of content they receive, applying their own ‘sales bullcrap’ sensor. Any overtly sales-y language in the opening paragraph and the email is ignored or goes straight in the trash. Worse, if emails are manually marked as spam, then the game is up for the sender. From that point, there are no second chances, putting huge pressure on the use of email in the first place.
Why are people less open to cold email in 2025? You could probably come up with a thousand theories, but the point is this: we don’t want to be sold to - we want to build relationships and trust first. We want it to feel organic. A sales-driven cold email is like being proposed to on the first date. It’s bonkers. Not only does it not work, it actually causes lasting reputational damage.
So where does that leave email? What role should it play in the world of sales and marketing? It’s time for a different approach.
Three ways to use email more effectively.
The days of email as the out and out first choice for all cold contact are over.
That’s not to say it can’t be used, but the historic over-reliance on email as a mass form of cold outreach is finished. In 2025, it’s imperative that companies see email as a specialist tool, rather than a generalist one - using it carefully and thoughtfully.
Given everything that senders now need to do to ensure an email gets past automated filters, AND passes muster with the recipient themself, email requires time, personalisation and care. Rarely do those requirements lend themselves to bulk communication.
But email can and should still be an important weapon in the sales and marketing armoury. It just requires a more nuanced approach.
What might that look like? Here are three suggestions for ways to use email more effectively in 2025:
Employ email as a second contact tool. In many instances, LinkedIn is now the best tool for cold contact. Why? Because it feels less cold. Think about it. You can literally see the face of the person who’s contacting you. You can see mutual connections. You can see their background - who they are, what they do and what they care about. LinkedIn outreach builds trust, and once that trust is established it warms contacts up to an ongoing email dialogue. Email is increasingly more effective as the ‘nurture’ tool, as opposed to a tool for initial outreach.
Offer personalised value. There is of course still a world in which email can be used for cold contact. Technical delivery aside, the whole tone of these emails needs to change. Cold email used to ostensibly serve the sender. They wanted something, and so they were asking for something from the recipient. In 2025, email has to serve the recipient. Senders have to provide something of personalised value to the person they are contacting. This is ABM plus. Senders need to understand the needs and requirements of the person they are contacting and offer them something truly unique and useful to them - an introduction, a piece of tailored content, an event ticket. Selling can only take place once there has been a fair exchange that serves both parties.
Focus on email referrals. Nothing establishes instant credibility and engagement like a recommendation from a trusted mutual contact. Leveraging your network to secure an email introduction to a tier one prospect is one of the most underused but effective ways of utilising email. Referrals not only automatically bypass spam filters, but they also bypass that immediate hesitancy and distrust on the part of the recipient. Whilst this can’t be done at scale, email referrals are possibly the most valuable form of communication in 2025.