Is Cold Email Dead?

Email Marketing — Tue., Aug. 13, 2024

I was recently asked whether cold email is dead. It's hard to answer because it's actually multiple questions rolled into one. Let's tease that question apart to get at the key issues, including legality and effectiveness.

Is cold email going to become illegal? OK, so even this question is too broad because there's potentially considerable legal nuance here. Let's break this aspect down further. Is sending human-written one-to-one cold emails going to become illegal? No, and it never will be illegal. Individual people will always have the right to write and send emails to other individual people on a one-to-one basis.

Is cold email becoming less effective? Brands will invest in cold email only if it's effective. There are structural and cultural reasons to believe it will become increasingly less effective. First, email deliverability rules are tightening up. And second, generative AI (GenAI) is breaking down reciprocity. Cold emails written by a human and sent to one person will always be OK, but using scale-boosting tools like marketing platforms and generative AI to cold-email probably doesn't have a long-term future.

... continue reading below