How to Master Cold Email Outreach Using Data from Give Me Data

In this post, we’ll break down the four key pillars of successful cold emailing, based on real-world experience and proven results. Whether you're running a social media agency, a SaaS business, or any other service, these strategies will help you scale your outreach effectively.

The 4 Pillars of Cold Email Outreach:

1. The Idea: Targeting the Right Audience

Remember, everything begins with a great idea. Your idea does not necessarily be out-of-the-box, but great if it is. A simple idea can be reaching out to doctors or surgeons. An out of the box idea can be - Hey, I am a wedding photographer, how do I find people who are about to get married? Before sending a single email, you need a clear, high-converting idea of who to target.

🔹 Example: If you offer Instagram growth services, don’t just target small businesses—think of aspiring models, comedians, or influencers who need followers to boost their careers.
🔹 Out-of-the-box thinking: Taking our previous example, instead of targeting brides for wedding photography, reach out to wedding planners who can refer clients. Once you reach out to these planners, they need to get information about the value of your services and how this collaboration can help them grow and succeed.

The right idea makes your outreach more relevant and engaging.

2. Data: Finding Fresh, High-Quality Leads

Let's you are a marketing agency looking to working with SaaS business owners. You can think of a niche of SaaS businesses, and decide to scrape their information. But here's the catch - most cold email campaigns fail because of poor-quality data.

🔹 Avoid buying outdated lists— We do not recommend using old outdated data since the email sent might not land in their inbox. Moreover, we need to also take into consideration that into consideration that, interests and needs changes over time. So, an agency looking for a social media manager in 2020, might not be looking for one in the year 2025. Thus, we recommend scraping fresh data in real time.
🔹 Pro tip: Use Give Me Data, a cool tool we built, allows you to scrape valuable public information from Instagram, such as:
✔️Emails
✔️Phone numbers
✔️Follower counts
✔️Bio details
✔️And more!

Not only this, you can also scrape data based on:
✔️Followers
✔️Following
✔️Profile Data
✔️Hashtags

The extracted data is available to be downloaded as a CSV file, for for ease of access and formatting.:

But let's just say this information is not what you are looking for, and you want emails for email outreach:

You now get much more information such as:

✔️Profile - business account or not
✔️Highlighted reels information
✔️Category of the account - Plastic Surgeon, Entrepreneur, Heallth/Beauty etc
✔️Number of followers
✔️Number of following
✔️Number of posts
✔️Bio details - extract phone numbers and emails if available
✔️External URL - link in bio
✔️Emails
✔️Phone number
✔️Address

For step-by-step guide on how to use Give Me Data, please refer to this YouTube video or this article. BONUS: Also at signup, you get 500 coins for free - sign up using this link! Also, in case you are looking for free ways to extract information, do check out this blog as well!

🔹Important: We recommend not using platforms to 'buy' csv files full of data, but actually use tools to scrape your own data in real life. Through this , you avoid using old outdated data This is another reason to use Give Me Data to scrape and extract fresh data for your campaigns. Lastly, validate emails before sending—only use valid & low-risk addresses to avoid spam traps. Get like a small sample of data first, before placing a big order. You can check whether the 12 emails you got as sample are valid, before placing an order for 1,000 email addresses. We do not want non-useful or outdated data, because we do not want to damage our infrastructure, and this brings us to the next step.

3. Deliverability: Ensuring Emails Land in the Inbox

Funny fact - if you send 1,000 emails and only 1 of those emails you have sent are reported as spam, you will be blacklisted by the email provider, for at least 4-5 days. Again, we are not talking about an email which has been sent to spam automatically, but one which is specifically reported by a receipient. Thus, it is very important to leverage everything in your favor:

🔹 Domain & Infrastructure Setup:

• Use Google Workspace or a private server (depending on scale) - Google Workspace (formerly G Suite) is the gold standard for cold emailing because it provides a professional, trustworthy domain (e.g., yourname@yourcompany.com). Gmail’s infrastructure is highly reliable, reducing the chances of immediate spam flags. Free Gmail accounts (e.g., @gmail.com) are riskier for cold emailing because they have stricter sending limits and are more likely to be flagged if sending bulk emails. For advanced users at scale, use private email servers. If you’re sending thousands of emails per day, a private email server (e.g., AWS SES, Mailchimp SMTP, or a dedicated SMTP service) may be necessary. However, private servers require strict configuration (SPF, DKIM, DMARC records) to avoid spam traps. Remember to always use a provider which has a reputation of it working or build up your own server.

• Domain warm-up - Email providers (like Gmail, Outlook) track how a new domain or email address is used. If you suddenly send hundreds of emails from a fresh domain, spam filters will flag it. Warm-up involves gradually increasing email volume over weeks to establish sender reputation. For warm up, we recommend a tool called Warmy or MailToaster:

• Some of the best practices for warming up emails involve:
• • Start with 10-20 emails per day, then increase by ~20% every few days.
  • Focus on high engagement (replies, opens) rather than just sending volume.
  • Avoid automated warm-up tools (like Mailwarm or Lemwarm) because they often send fake emails, which can backfire if detected.
  • Instead, warm up manually by sending real emails to engaged contacts first.

• Avoid spam triggers - You can track pixels using tools (e.g., Mailchimp, HubSpot) embed invisible tracking pixels to log opens. Also, avoid certain words (e.g., "free," "guaranteed," "no risk," "act now") trigger spam filters.

🔹 Blacklist Prevention:

• If 1 email gets marked as spam, Google may blacklist you for 4-5 days. This is because email providers (especially Gmail) use machine learning to detect spammy behavior. Repeated spam reports can lead to permanent blacklisting, forcing you to switch domains.

• Solution: Before scaling, test with 50-100 emails and monitor bounce rates. If bounces are <0.5%, proceed carefully. If higher, fix your list or email content. Also, never jump from 100 to 1,000 emails overnight. Increase volume gradually (20-30% weekly) while maintaining high reply rates.

3. Copywriting: Human, Friendly and Non-Salesy

Most cold emails fail because they sound robotic, overly promotional, or just plain boring. The best-performing emails don’t read like sales pitches—they feel like a quick, natural message from a real person. A lot of times, people think that they need copyrighters for such jobs, but we promise, you do not. The reason being, you literally are emailing strangers, and thus you need to persoanlly enhance their experience.

In this section, we’ll break down the psychology of effective cold email copywriting, why simplicity wins, and how to craft messages that get replies instead of deletions.

🔹 Why Short & Conversational Emails Work Best: One huge problem is that people skim through emails, especially form unknown senders. If your email looks like a long block of text, most recipients won’t even read it, because nobody has time to read long paragraphs. Thus, we recommend to keep your emails 1-3 sentences max; short enough to digest in 3 seconds. Another hack which needs to be addressed, is that most engaging cold emails feel like a casual text or LinkedIn DM. An example of the same - "Hey [Name],‍Quick question—do you handle the marketing at [Company]?". This style email feels low-pressure which thus increasing reply rates. Lastly, you need to understand the power of brevity - every extra word reduces the chance of a reply. Here are two scenarios:

• Bad (too long) - "Hi [First Name], I hope this email finds you well. My name is John, and I’m the founder of XYZ Agency. We specialize in helping e-commerce brands scale their Facebook ad campaigns by leveraging AI-driven audience targeting. I noticed you run an online store, and I’d love to explore how we can help you increase ROI by 30% or more..."
• Good (short & long) - "Hey [Name],‍Do you run ads for [Company]? If so, I might have a way to cut your cost per lead. Let me know if you’re open to a quick chat."

🔹Personalized But Natural (No Forced Flattery) - The Problem with Fake Personalization is that Many cold emails use lazy personalization like: "Hi [First Name], I saw your amazing work at [Company] and wanted to connect!". This feels generic and insincere — your recipients see right through it. Here's our tip on how to Personalize Without Being Creepy. Mention something specific but casual, like: "Hey [Name], Saw your post on LinkedIn about [topic]—do you also manage [related task]?". This shows you did minimal research without sounding like a stalker. Last piece of advice - Avoid Over-Personalization (If Data Isn’t Clean). If you’re scraping emails and don’t have accurate data, don’t force personalization.

🔹Focus on Value, Not Pitching (Ask Before Selling) - This is where we bring the "Interest Check" Framework. Most cold emails jump straight into a pitch, which triggers skepticism. Instead, ask for permission before selling: "Hey [Name], Do you handle [specific task] at [Company]? If so, I might have something useful for you. Let me know if you’d like me to share details.". Also remember to always Leading with a Hook and not a sales pitch. Here are two scenarios:

• Bad: "We help companies like yours increase revenue by 200%!" (Sounds like spam.)
• Good: "Hey [Name], Quick question—are you struggling with [specific problem]?"

This engages curiosity instead of triggering sales resistance - agreed?

❌ What to Avoid in Cold Emails

1. Overly Corporate Language

• Bad: "Dear Sir/Madam, I am writing to formally propose a business collaboration..."
• Good: "Hey [Name], quick question for you..."

2. Long Paragraphs

• Bad: A 5-sentence email with no breaks.
• Good: Short, scannable lines with spacing.

3. Generic Personalization

• Bad: "Hi [First Name], I love your company’s mission!" (Fake & vague.)
• Good: "Hi [Name], saw you recently launched [X]—how’s it going?"

✅ What to Do Instead

1. Be Vulnerable & Human - People trust realness over polished corporate speak. Example: "Hey [Name], I know this is random, but I noticed you’re doing [X] and thought you might find this helpful." Do not provide a sales pitch right away. Assess a 'need' first. For instance, if you have an email list of people trying to grow their Instagram profile, a "Hey, noticed that you are trying to grow your Instagram account. What is the biggest problem you think you are facing at the moment?" message would work perfectly. Another good example would be putting an intentional typo in your email. Definitely not one which shows your inability to spell or type, but one which displays regular day-to-day human errors.

2. Follow Up (3-5 Emails, Spaced Out) - 70% of replies happen after the first follow-up. Example sequence:

• Email 1: Short question (e.g., "Do you handle [X]?")
• Email 2 (3 days later): Add value (e.g., "Here’s a quick tip on [X]...")
• Email 3 (5 days later): Polite nudge (e.g., "Just circling back—let me know if this is relevant!")

Real Life Examples

Niro Knoxx, an amazing LeadGen Master, ran a campaign for a company, which was a modeling agency. This agency launched a new service where models or influencers who are not so famous/successful, can join for a small subscription fee, and get opportunities for nee castings. This is a subscription-based model, where the idea was to find models who are aspiring to be famous and successful, and be recognized on Instagram. This brought Niro to scrape a list of models from Instagram. The tool used for email outrach is Smartlead.ai:

Here is a picture of the pricing plan for Smartlead after the 14-day trial, but do not forget, you save 17% when signup on an annual plan:

Here is the signup link for Smartleads! Here is a picture of the campaign that Niro ran for the above mentioned agency:

Referring from the above screenshot, the bounce rate has to be lower that 0.5% on average. The response rate as per Niro, has to be at least 8% for it be performing good. Here comes a pro tip from Niro: Do not track open rates. Because tracking open rates puts a code in the email, and this will most likely land the email in the spam folder. He focused on quality of email being sent over quantity, as you can see from the above screenshot, and this brought him tons of responses.

Niro Knoxx - Cold Email Mastery Course

If you want to master cold emailing—from crafting high-converting copy to ensuring perfect deliverability—check out Niro Knoxx’s premium course. It covers everything: prospecting, writing emails that get replies, avoiding spam filters, and scaling campaigns profitably. Whether you're a beginner or looking to refine your skills, this course provides actionable strategies used by top performers. Get the Course Here. Stop guessing and start getting consistent results with cold email!