What is Google and other mailbox providers views on cold email outreach e.g. a person writing to another person who they do not have a prior relationship with? How does this impact me as a sender of cold emails to people?

KEY TAKEAWAY: A mailbox providers total goal is to help their users receive and manage "wanted" emails. More on this below.

This is a big (no - HUGE) topic, so we will try and break this down as simply and digestibly as possible for you. Google and other popular mailbox providers (Apple, Yahoo, Outlook etc... etc...) are concerned with providing their users (people who have email inboxes provided by them) with a great, productive and safe email experience. Part of this involves basic and obvious things like preventing harmful spam and scams from making their way into their users email inboxes; where they can be interacted with and potentially lead to harm and painful/stressful situations and outcomes. INTERESTING FACT: Something like 90% of email never makes it to a users account, let alone ends up in the users inbox folder where they are likely to see it. Most mail is filtered and stopped by the mailbox provider via the myriad of protection systems they have built and put in place to protect the inboxes and mail accounts of their users.

Really, we should all be thanking them for the systems, technologies and processes they have put in place (and spent many many millions of dollars on); because as users we all benefit from a better email experience.

Part of the challenge with email is how ubiquitous it is - everyone uses it! (Ok not quite everyone but a truckload of the worlds population does). It is also the gateway that we secure and access the various other digital services we have come to so naturally interact with and rely on for day to day life. Therein lies its vast appeal and in turn, propensity to be abused. So the challenge that teams at mailbox providers face is how do they get the balance right? Abuse and unwanted mail needs to be prevented and minimised (it can never be stopped - you are kidding yourself if you think that is possible; go sit back and watch another utopian sci-fi film - LOL). At the same time though, users need to get their emails (all types; critical emails, new contacts emails, existing contacts emails, marketing emails etc...). One (very antiquated) way, is to let emails through and leave the responsibility up to the user to do the job of filtering and deciphering them (manually review them, manage email account settings to help manage your incoming emails etc...). The other way is to play gatekeeper/watchdog as well (which is what all mailbox providers do). All mailbox providers these days have very advanced AI systems designed to understand how each of us individually interacts with our email and thereby determine where to route inbound messages to us (e.g. which folder to put incoming emails into such as spam, promotions, main inbox etc...). The technicalities of these systems is so vast and complex that we couldn't even begin to comprehend them via a content article like this.

So getting back to the point, a mailbox providers job is fundamentally to make sure their user receives "wanted" mail; whilst minimising any unwanted mail. The definitions of wanted and unwanted mail of course are subjective, which adds further complexity to the challenges faced. What I find interesting and am happy to receive may not be what you find interesting and happy to receive; you may, in-fact, find the same content quite offensive and irritating. This subjectivness is also fraught with hypocriticism; because if I receive a cold sales email, I may not want to receive it, but if it was a potential partner or job opportunity, then I would want to receive it. This is partly why mailbox providers have developed systems that filter mail in our mailboxes based specifically on how each of us typically interact with the mail we receive. For example: if I typically label cold outreach emails as spam (or even simply delete them) without reading them, my mailbox will overtime send more and more of what it deems to be similar 'cold outreach' emails to my spam folder without me ever seeing them. If on the other hand I typically open them and even reply to them, more and more of them will make it through to my email inbox overtime. This really is an imperfect science and a huge responsibility that mailbox providers are taking on; because who I am today and what I am interested is so subject to change overtime, so much so that as a user I can never really rely on the mailbox providers technology and mail filtering decisions - I always need to at very least scan through my email inbox to check for things that may have been falsely filtered (or I simply accept that I may miss it).

Anyway, back to the point of "wanted" email and what this means for you as a potential sender of cold emails to new contacts. If "wanted" email is the goal of a receiver of email, then as a sender of email you need to really think about who you are writing to, and why they may accept your email as 'wanted' email - even if possibly only 'somewhat wanted'.

This is where, in a cold email business to business (b2b) context in particular, it becomes especially important to get a bunch of things right; in other words the art of cold emailing.

When sending cold emails to people (often on behalf of your business/the business you work for), your job is to make sure you tick the following boxes, because failing to do so will ultimately hinder and negatively impact your ability to send email to people from the mail account and domain you may be currently using:

1. Be Targeted. Think about who you are writing to. If you sell ice, don't contact fireplace retailers, contact fishing tackle shops instead. If you sell car parts, don't contact a swim school or a tennis club. If you are a metal fabricator, then maybe speaking to fireplace retailers about their install jobs makes sense and could be considered by the fireplace representative to be relevant. Its commonsense stuff and marketing 101. If you struggle with this, you need to speak with a Certified Hypadrive.ai Expert Partner or a marketing/sales consultant of your choice because fail to get audience targeting right, or take a 'spray and pray' approach, and you will 100% run into issues that a bit of upfront work can really help to avoid.
2. Be Relevant. This goes hand in hand with being targeted. Ask yourself,
3. Think about reasonable expectations. This is important with regards to staying on the right side of privacy regulations. Could your contacts reasonably expect to hear from you. Again use common sense here. If I sell tennis balls and rackets, then the owner of a tennis school or a coach at that school can reasonably expect to hear from me (especially via a business email address) = no problem, I am well within my right (in a business to business context) to reach out and contact that person without worrying about privacy regulations.
4. Be simply and clear with your messaging; tell the contact/prospect who you are, why you are writing to them and give them a reason they should be interested in what you have to say (keep the gimmicks and cheesy messages to a minimum or better yet don't do them - people are not stupid and can see right through silly, desperate and unthoughtful attempts to reach them). IMPORTANT NOTE: keep the upfront sales pitches to a minimum. Focus on opening the door to a relationship and think long term. The contact may not be a buyer now, but maybe in 6 months they end up calling you back. Your job when you write to them is to introduce yourself and give them a reason to take note of your message; again if you need help with this then we highly recommend you speak with a Certified Hypadrive.ai Expert Partner or a marketing/sales consultant of your choice because getting this right makes a huge difference to the results you will be able to achieve.
5. Be persistent but be 'reasonable' in your persistence. This is a delicate thing to get right. Persistence and following up is key when trying to engage and get the attention of new contacts. If, however, the contact simply wont engage with you, then you need to seriously consider stopping your message to them and giving it a break because overstepping the persistence line will irritate contacts and will more likely than not see them mark your messages as spam; an action you wont be privy to until it is too late and your email account(s) get blocked. Also consider reaching out to contacts via multiple channels - bombarding someone via email when they are not responding to you is futile; try reaching them on LinkedIn or via phone instead for better engagement.
6. Think long term. Relationships take time to build - don't go out there expecting instant sales. Go out there looking to genuinely connect with relevant people. It is that simple. The fast sales approach rarely works well in a cold email context.
7. Get the technical settings right. Speak to an email deliverability expert to help you setting up the email systems you need to make sure you are ticking the technical boxes related to sending emails. The technical requirements and expertise required to get your cold emails to perform are becoming more and more complex. Whilst irritating to some, this is a good thing because it means it is harder for people to abuse systems and it means that those of you who do get your emails delivered, will have a higher chance at your contacts engaging positively with you.

So there you have it; you now know the key drivers of the major stakeholders in the email space and what you need to do in order to succeed with your cold email outreach activities. To your success! Good luck - go kick ass!

IMPORTANT NOTE: The article above does not cover some of the technicalities now required to get mail delivered. This is a whole other topic that relates to the technical sanity of what goes on behind the scenes to establish trust between your email account (the servers it runs on) and the email account of the people you are communicating with (their mailbox providers receiving email servers). For now just be aware that quite apart from the content of your emails, there are a number of important technical factors you need to put in place and get right in order for your mail to make it through to the receiving parties mailbox accounts. It always pays to learn more about email deliverability and cold email best practices; Hypadrive.ai Expert Partners are a great resource for you to tap into to help you with this.

With regards to privacy regulations, if mail is 'relevant' and 'wanted' you wont run into privacy issues. Privacy issues only occur with regards to the sending and receiving of "unwanted" mail.