"With great power comes great responsibility." – Uncle Ben Parker, Marvel Comics

Cold email outreach can be an incredibly powerful tool for connecting with potential customers, driving engagement, and expanding your network. We are absolutely on a mission to make you a superhero in your ability to grow your business and we are excited to add Email Marketing to the suite of tools marketing available in the PropertyRadar app. Our objective is to empower you with both the tools you need and the information necessary to ensure your success.

Email Marketing provides powerful capabilities to quickly, easily, and strategically connect with leads using data and insights accessed within the app. While creating and sending emails is very simple, email marketing requires consideration and responsibility to ensure effectiveness, compliance, and protection of your email account.

This guide provides a comprehensive overview of the essential strategies for email outreach, best practices to maximize deliverability, insights on compliance, and how to avoid the spam folder.

Cold emails differ from traditional marketing emails in that they are typically unsolicited emails sent to leads or contacts with whom you have no prior relationship. Because cold emails are unsolicited, it's especially important to follow best practices to maintain a positive sender reputation, achieve high deliverability rates, and ensure compliance with relevant laws like the CAN-SPAM Act.

Cold email and spam are often confused, but they have distinct differences, especially in intent, targeting, and compliance. A cold email is a targeted, personalized message sent to a recipient who hasn’t previously interacted with the sender. It’s typically crafted with the intention to build a professional connection, provide valuable information, or initiate a business relationship. Cold emails that comply with regulations like the CAN-SPAM Act include an email signature with the sender’s physical address (and license number, if applicable), option to opt-out of future communications, and respect the recipient’s time and interests.

Spam, on the other hand, is usually mass-distributed, sent indiscriminately to large lists, often with little regard for recipient relevance or compliance. Spam emails frequently contain unsolicited promotional content, misleading information, or even malicious intent, such as phishing. Unlike cold emails, spam lacks personalization and doesn’t prioritize building genuine connections, which is why spam is often flagged by filters, while well-crafted cold emails are more likely to reach the inbox.

Ensuring success with cold email outreach is easy, and this guide will help you through the process.

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The first step in any outreach is defining your ideal audience. With PropertyRadar, you already have access to powerful data and insights to identify and understand your target audience. Our Email Marketing tool builds on this foundation, making it easy to connect with those leads with effective email campaigns. However, when using cold email outreach, segmentation is key. By carefully segmenting your audience, you’ll create messages that resonate better, improving both engagement and conversion.

Segment Your Audience
Segmenting your email list based on demographics, behavior, or past interactions can lead to more targeted messages that resonate better with your recipients, improving open rates and reducing complaints or unsubscribes. The power of PropertyRadar’s List-Building functionality allows you to use a tailored Quick List or 250+ criteria to create a list of only the leads you want. You can stack lists or segment them further to create personalized email messages for each lead segment. Intentionality around established targeted lists of ideal customers ensures not only reduces the likelihood of your efforts being flagged as spam, but also as you’ll see below provides the basis for personalization of your messages.

Individual Recipients

You may have situations where you need to send an email to an individual recipient, such as when door knocking or driving for dollars. This can be done by selecting the desired Property Profile and choosing Email Marketing from the Actions menu.

Our platform is designed to enhance deliverability and ensure emails follow best practices. To achieve this, users connect their own email accounts directly to our platform, allowing emails to be sent from their personal or business accounts rather than through commercial email delivery services such as SendGrid, Amazon SES, or MailChimp. Sending from the user’s own account builds credibility and reduces the risk of being marked as spam.

Choosing the right email type for outbound marketing depends on your business's needs and resources:

Business Email Accounts (e.g., xyz@yourdomain.com):

Personal Email Accounts (e.g., xyz@Gmail.com):

If you choose to use a personal email address, such as Gmail, specific tactics can help improve deliverability and minimize risks associated with using free email providers. These providers do have strict sending limits for new accounts. For large, established companies, these limits may be increased, but smaller or newer senders need to be mindful of volume limits to avoid flagging. See the section below on Email Warming guidance for tips on warming up your email account to avoid being flagged.

Selecting the right format is essential for optimizing email deliverability.

Minimal Formatting: Emails with fewer images and links are less likely to be flagged as automated and more likely to bypass spam filters. Emails should feel authentic, like one-to-one messages from real people rather than automated marketing content.

Limited HTML Use: While our platform supports HTML, we recommend saving these for contacts who are already familiar with you or for audiences who expect a more polished, formatted email.

Creating a compliant, high-quality message is key to avoiding spam filters and optimizing deliverability. Additionally, keeping subject lines and messages concise, clear, and engaging is key to capturing your recipient's attention without overwhelming them. We’ve identified several best practices to help you in crafting the message.

Email Personalization is one of the most effective ways to increase engagement and decrease the likelihood of being marked as spam. Each email should contain unique elements tailored to the recipient, such as their first name in the greeting, relevant property details, or neighborhood references. This reduces the risk of being flagged as spam and increases engagement. More importantly, emails with personalized content are more likely to achieve better open and click-through rates, which improves sender reputation and deliverability over time.

Continual optimization of your subject lines and email messages is the essence of good marketing, and email outreach is no different. Testing your message is a great way to continuously improve your ability to connect and convert prospects. There are several approaches that can be used:

Before you send that first campaign, be sure you understand your obligations regarding regulatory compliance. Email marketing is regulated by several laws and guidelines globally to protect consumer privacy, prevent spam, and ensure ethical marketing practices. The primary law in the United States is the CAN-SPAM Act which we cover in detail below, but we encourage you to research, understand, and stay updated on other regulations that may be applicable to your operations.

The CAN-SPAM Act (Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act) is a U.S. law that establishes rules for email marketing, gives recipients the right to stop receiving emails, and outlines penalties for violations. Whether you’re using a business or personal email address, adhering to this law is not only a legal requirement but also a best practice for maintaining your sender reputation.

Ensure that email "From" fields, as well as your domain name and email address, accurately reflect who is sending the message.

The penalties and consequences for noncompliance with the CAN-SPAM Act can be significant. If you are following our Good Neighbor Marketing Pledge and our best practices you should have nothing to worry about. But even so, we want you to be aware of the consequences as outlined in the regulation:

Beyond the consequences identified in the regulation, the more likely and immediate impacts abusers may face are issues arising if your domain or IP address is blacklisted by email providers.

While violating CAN-SPAM regulations can result in serious penalties, adhering to best practices will keep your email marketing compliant and effective. To help you avoid these pitfalls and optimize your campaigns for success, here are some key strategies for staying on track and driving conversions.

Now that you’ve identified your target audience, crafted and tested your message, and understand your compliance obligations, it’s almost time to hit the send button. But first, familiarize yourself with best practices on sending frequency and volume, how to avoid the spam folder, and email warming.

The number of emails you should send and the optimal frequency depend on your sender reputation, the email platform you're using, and your recipients' preferences.

Sending Limits

Sending large numbers of cold emails can trigger spam filters and put your inbox at risk. When starting email marketing, limit your email sends to 20%-50% of your typical email send volume. For example, if you send about 10 emails per day, your email marketing daily send limit should be between 2 and 5 emails per day. Email warming services can help to safely increase your daily send limit faster.

Email Frequency

Limit campaign frequency to 1-3 times per month per contact to prevent recipient fatigue. Sending too frequently can increase unsubscribe rates.

Time Your Emails Wisely

Send emails at times when recipients are more likely to engage. Emails typically perform better when sent in the evenings or on weekends.

Monitor Engagement Metrics

You will be able to access open rates, click-through rates, and bounce rates for each email order. If open rates or click rates decrease, consider reducing the frequency or updating your messaging.

Avoid Spammy Words and Phrases

Words such as "Free," "Act Now," and "Limited Time Offer" can trigger spam filters. Be cautious with excessive use of exclamation marks or ALL CAPS.

Monitor Your Sender Reputation

Regularly check tools like Google Postmaster Tools or Sender Score to see how email providers view your domain.

Warm Up Email Addresses Gradually

When you start using email marketing send a small number of emails each day (20%-50% of what you typically send daily) and gradually increase the volume. This process, known as email warming, helps establish a good sender reputation. You’ll find additional information on email warming below.

Avoid Using Link Shorteners

Spam filters often flag shortened URLs. Use full URLs or branded links.

Limit the Use of Images and Links

Emails with too many images or links can be marked as spam. If you do include images in your email, balance the text and images and avoid including more than two or three links.

Avoid Attachments

Sending attachments can cause emails to be flagged as spam unless recipients expect to receive them. Use download links instead.

Send Consistent Email Volume

Sudden spikes in email volume can indicate spammy behavior. Send emails consistently to help build sender reputation over time.

Email warming is the process of gradually increasing the number of emails you send over time to establish a positive sender reputation with email providers. It is especially important if you’re using a new domain or have not been actively sending emails. Here’s how it works:

Email warming services are tools that help automate the process of warming up your email account and domain to improve sender reputation and deliverability. Here's how they typically work:

If you are reading this section of the guide, there is a high probability you didn’t follow the above guidance. Management of your email account and adherence to your provider's terms and conditions is your responsibility. We are here to support you and want you to be successful, but PropertyRadar will not be able to assist you in any aspects of external email account management and/or recovery steps if you are flagged as a spammer. When an email address gets flagged as spam, even unintentionally, different email providers have specific processes, potential consequences, and steps for restoring the account's reputation.

Restoring an email account flagged as spam often requires direct communication with the email provider. Here are the steps users typically need to take to work with their provider on account restoration:

Keep in mind that if you find yourself in a situation where your account has been flagged, it could be several weeks before you are able to restore your ability to send emails – that’s several weeks of lost lead generation, and perhaps inbox access. Follow the above best practices to entirely avoid the situation. Resolution timeframe will vary among providers but in general you can expect the following based on severity of the situation:

By actively engaging with your email provider, following their recommendations, and demonstrating compliance with their policies, you can effectively restore your account and improve its reputation for future email campaigns.

Cold email outreach is a powerful strategy for connecting with new prospects, but it requires a balance of strategic deliverability practices and compliance with regulations like CAN-SPAM. By following the steps in this guide, you can enhance your deliverability, protect your sender reputation, and drive meaningful engagement with your audience. Remember that building trust with recipients and adhering to ethical guidelines will help ensure your cold email campaigns are effective, compliant, and successful.