16d • General discussion 📣
Cold Email Failure Starts Here 👇
A lot of people blame copy.
Or deliverability.
Or “the market being saturated.”
But in reality, many cold email campaigns are dead before the first send.
The reason?
Bad lists.
If your list quality is off, nothing downstream matters.
Let me break down how to solve this today, so your cold emails actually reach the right inboxes.
Step 1: Confirm Where Your Buyers Actually Exist
Before scraping anything, answer this:
Are your buyers active on LinkedIn?
• If yes → use LinkedIn-based sources (Apollo works fine)
• If no → look elsewhere (Google Maps, niche directories, other socials)
Step 2: Filter Like Your Reputation Depends on It
Because it does.
When I build lists in Apollo, I stack filters aggressively:
• Job titles
• Company size
• Location
• Email status set to "verified"
Loose filters = inflated lists = reputation damage.
Step 3: Clean the List (No Exceptions)
Export the list and run it through a verifier.
With Apollo data, you’ll usually see:
• ~70–80% clean
• ~20–30% questionable
What you do next matters.
You can:
• double-check the risky segment with a tool like Clay
• or discard them entirely
What you shouldn’t do is email unverified addresses.
Ever.
Bad email addresses kill your sender reputation…
And no great offer, no “high converting copy”, and no street cred will save you.
If you get the list right, everything else becomes easier.
Try this out, and let me know if it's helpful!
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Cold Email Failure Starts Here 👇
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