Why most cold emails fail
Three failure modes: too long (over 100 words), too generic ('I do beautiful websites'), and asking for too much in the first email ('Can we hop on a 30-min call this week?').
A good cold email is under 80 words, references something specific to the prospect (their Google rating, a missing booking link, a competitor's site), and asks for something tiny (a quick yes/no, a 5-minute mockup review).
The 4-line structure that converts
Line 1: Specific compliment or observation. 'Saw your Google reviews - 4.8 from 240 clients is genuinely rare in [niche].'
Line 2: Specific gap. 'But your site doesn't have a booking widget, and 70% of [niche] inquiries now happen at night.'
Line 3: Tiny offer. 'I sketched a 1-page version with booking baked in - 5 minutes to look?'
Line 4: Soft close. 'Reply 'yes' and I'll send the link. No pitch.'
That's it. Subject line: '[Their business name] + [single specific word]'. No 'Hope this finds you well.'
The 24-template library
Below is our free Cold Email Template Library, with 24+ tested templates sorted by niche (dentist, plumber, restaurant, etc.), by angle (audit, mockup, competitor), and by length (one-line DM to full proposal).
Every template marks personalization tokens explicitly. Every one has been used in real Prospea campaigns. Steal liberally, but always rewrite line 1 (the personal observation) for the specific prospect.
Subject lines, deliverability and follow-ups
Subject lines under 50 characters, sentence case, no clickbait. Our Subject-Line Scorer grades any subject in your browser.
Send from a dedicated cold-outreach domain (not your main inbox), warm it up for 2 weeks, and cap at 20 sends per day per inbox to start. The fastest way to kill your domain is sending 200 cold emails on day one.
Follow up exactly 3 times: day 4, day 9, day 16. After that, mark as 'no' and move on. 80% of replies happen on the first or second touch; the rest is noise.