Ajay Goel, Author at GMass Blog

GMass takes a different approach to reporting and analytics than most Email Service Providers, and in this article you can learn how to access and analyze email campaign data.

This Article Contains:

The Dashboard
Web-based Reports
–Getting the link
–Live Feed
Inside Gmail
–Why we use a Gmail Label
–Troubleshooting not receiving the reports
–Replies, Bounces, Blocks
–Manually request a report inside Gmail
The Main Stats
Domain Reports
Export Campaign Reports
Sharing Campaign Reports
Accuracy of Reports

There are three places you can view campaign statistics.

Inside Gmail in the GMass Reports–>[CAMPAIGNS] label.
On the web, using a link to a responsive, web-based campaign report.
In your dashboard. The dashboard also contains a link to the web-based campaign reports.

This approach allows you to access campaign reports easily both while on the go, inside the Gmail app on iPhone and Android, and in a more real-time way on the web. The web-based report contains some extra charts and graphs showing a time-based distribution of opens and clicks.

1. Dashboard

Go to gmass.co/dashboard or click the Dashboard button at the top of Gmail if you have the GMass Chrome extension installed.

From the dashboard, you can search for any of your campaigns in the Current Campaigns, Previous Campaigns, or Transactional sections. With the advanced search options you can locate campaigns by multiple criteria, including number of recipients, dates, open rates, click rates, reply rates, and whether or not the campaign has follow-ups.

Once you find your campaign, click on any of the statistics, such as Recipients, Opens, Clicks to open a panel on the right side of the screen with more details. And from there, you can download a CSV or Microsoft Excel file of the data behind each metric. Or export the data to Google Sheets.

When you click on Clicks (click inception?????), you’ll see a breakdown of how each link in your email performed, along with the raw data of who clicked what.

You can also click the right carat (that’s the > icon) next to the report ID to see an even more in-depth look at the campaign, including all of its settings and its follow-ups.

Click the “live report” icon (the one that looks like a graph) to link directly to the web-based report. The web-based report will always display the most up-to-date and easy-to-use information for a particular campaign.

2. Web-based Responsive Reports

The web-based campaign report is beautiful, easily accessible, and works on desktop and mobile.

It’s meant to stay open in a tab, auto refreshing and updating in real time so you can see your campaign’s progress.

Here’s what it looks like.

Click on any of the stats in the report and a panel on the right side of the screen will give you even more details.

Once again, if you view Clicks you’ll see how each individual link performed. You can also see open, click, and reply rate by day, if you want to see how a multi-day campaign is performing over time.

You can download the results for any of the results (e.g., opens, replies, and so on) by clicking the download icon next to the name of that stat. Or by clicking the Download link at the top of the right-side panel.

You’ll have the choice to download a CSV or Microsoft Excel file with your results — or to export to Google Sheets.

The web-based campaign report also has a section called Edit History which will show you how your campaign performed before and after you made edits.

Below that, you can see a log of everyone who opened, clicked, or unsubscribed. The first time they opened the campaign is labeled “First” and there will be a little fireworks display for each first-time opener.

Also, you can mouseover their IP address to see their location and see what browser they used to access your email.

Beneath that will be your list of links in your email with their click totals.

You can also share your campaign results on social media. Copy Shareable link at the top of the report.

Paste it into your social media app of choice. GMass will use some magic to automatically generate a chart showing your campaign performance.

And when someone clicks through, they’ll see a web-based version of your report (with all the sensitive/recipient details removed).

You can also monitor your if your campaign is sending, and the sending speed (which is great if you’re using throttling).

Where’s the link to the web-based report?

Having trouble finding the web-based report? You can get a link to the report from several places:

The campaign report inside Gmail, in the GMass Reports –> [CAMPAIGNS] Label.
Any “Your emails have sent” notification that we send you after your campaign finish sending.
Your dashboard.

Note that the web-based report doesn’t require you to log in. The URL is public and accessible to anyone, so anyone you share it with will have access to all of that campaign’s data and your account’s full unsubscribe and bounce lists. There’s a unique identifier that’s part of the URL that will prevent anyone from guessing your report URLs, so nobody can access it unless you share it. See the Sharing section below for how to share your report data securely with your team.

Live Feed

The web-based report has a live feed showing opens, clicks, and unsubscribes in real-time. No need to reload this report — the stats update on their own via AJAX.

3. Inside Gmail

Why inside a Gmail Label?

The second place you can access your campaign reports is right inside your Gmail account, in a special label called GMass Reports –> [CAMPAIGNS].

Viewing your reports inside Gmail has the following benefits:

It allows you to easily access your reports whether you’re using Gmail on your desktop or whether you’re using the Gmail app on your mobile device.
You never have to log in to a separate website. You only need to be logged into your Gmail account.
The rest of the GMass experience happens inside your Gmail account, and it’s nice that Reports should exist inside your Gmail account too.

Here’s a screenshot of a campaign report as shown inside the Gmail app on an iPhone.

The top level Campaign Report

The most important campaign report is founder the Label GMass Reports –> [CAMPAIGNS].

This is a report that summarizes all of your data in one screen. From here you can see:

how many emails were sent
how many people opened your email
how many people clicked a link

Here’s a sample campaign report from my own account:

Let’s start at the top and explore what this report shows.

It starts with a campaign ID. The campaign ID is a unique identifier for every mail merge campaign you send with GMass. If you ever need help understanding a campaign, make sure to provide our Support team with the campaign ID. Next is the Subject Line, which is self-explanatory. If your campaign was connected to a Google Sheet, the spreadsheet name is listed next.

If you’re not getting reports inside Gmail

There could be a several reasons you’re not seeing a report for your campaign:

You didn’t enable Open Tracking. Campaign-level reports are triggered whenever there’s an “open” on your campaign. That’s how GMass “decides” when to generate this report and insert it into your [CAMPAIGNS] Gmail Label. If there are no opens, then this report will never be generated automatically.
You did enable Open Tracking, but your email was a plain text email rather than an HTML email, which means that opens still won’t be tracked.
There haven’t been any opens in a while, so the report hasn’t been refreshed. There might have been other activity, like clicks or replies or bounces, and so your statistics have been updated internally, but no report has been generated.

If any of these are the case, you should manually request a campaign report.

Event Logs for Opens, Clicks, and Unsubscribes

Anytime an email is opened, clicked, or unsubscribed, GMass places a notification in a corresponding Label. The notifications in these Labels serves as an event log for activity in your overall account. For example, you can see a live feed of all opens for all your GMass campaigns in the GMass Reports –> Opens Label.

The following event log labels are used:

GMass Reports –> Opens Label anytime an email is opened.
GMass Reports –> Clicks Label anytime a link in an email is clicked.
GMass Reports –> Unsubscribes Label anytime someone unsubscribes.

How can you use the event log labels?

If you ever want to send a new campaign to everyone that’s ever opened any email from you, or anyone that’s ever clicked a link in any email from you, can easily do so by going to the appropriate Label, and clicking the build email list button. Secondly, if you’re monitoring your campaign activity from your mobile device and you use the Gmail app, you can go to the appropriate Label and watch notifications appear and feel confident that people are engaging with your campaign. It’s an easy way to watch real-time activity on your campaign wherever you are and whatever device you’re using, whether it’s a laptop or mobile phone.

If you use a third party email client, like Apple Mail, sometimes these notifications can flood your Inbox, making for a very annoying experience. If that’s happening, you can turn these event notifications off.

Replies, Bounces, and Blocks

After you send an email campaign, GMass scans your Inbox looking for replies, bounces, and blocks.

Replies are left in your Inbox and labeled GMass Reports –> Replies.
Bounces are removed from your Inbox and placed in the GMass Reports –> Bounces Label.
Blocks are left in your Inbox and also labeled GMass Reports –> Blocks.

As of August 2023, the Replies and Bounces Labels are applied seconds after they arrive in your Inbox — thanks to GMass’s instant reply and bounce detection. For more information on how GMass categorizes and labels these messages, see the post on automated reply management. To understand how replies are found, see our detailed article about replies.

Manually request a campaign report inside Gmail

As a GMass user sending mail merge campaigns from your Gmail account, you are likely aware that campaign-level reports are sent to the [CAMPAIGNS] Label, which is a sub-Label of the GMass Reports Label. Campaign-level reports are updated every 10 minutes, as new campaign activity is recorded, like opens and clicks, however, if open-tracking is turned off, then a campaign report may never appear.

Therefore in certain situations, you may want to manually request a campaign report. These situations include:

You haven’t received a particular campaign report, because you had open-tracking turned off.
You have turned off GMass report notifications, in which case you will never receive a campaign report.
You wish to see the campaign report for an old campaign that was sent before GMass campaign reports existed.

To request a campaign report on demand, follow these instructions:

Launch a new Compose window in Gmail.
Set the To field to report@gmass.co.
Enter the campaign ID of the campaign whose report you would like in the Subject field. If you do not know the campaign ID, you can find it in the email confirmation you received after the campaign finished sending. This email message will contain the campaign ID or a “Schedule ID”. Either ID is acceptable.
Click the red GMass button. Do not click the Gmail Send button. You must click the red GMass button.
Go to the [CAMPAIGNS] Label under GMass Reports and you will see your new report.

Understanding the Main Statistics

The core statistics for an email campaign are:

Total Recipients: Total number of email addresses that this campaign sent to.

Unique Opens: Total number of email addresses that have opened the email. This is NOT the total number of Opens, since usually there are multiple opens registered for a single email address.

Didn’t Open: Total number of email addresses that have NOT opened the email.

Unique Clicks: Total number of email addresses that clicked at least one link in the campaign. Will only show if click tracking was turned on and your email contained trackable clicks.

Replies: Total number of email addresses that replied to the campaign. Note that GMass may take a couple hours after a reply is received in your Inbox to detect the reply and update this stat.

Unsubscribes: Total number of email addresses that clicked the Unsubscribe Link, if it was inserted into the campaign.

Bounces: Total number of email addresses that came back as undeliverable because the address is invalid. Bounce detection is part of the automatic reply management feature.

Rejections because Gmail account over limit: Total number of email addresses that were not sent to because Gmail limited your account’s sending ability.

Blocks: Total number of email addresses that came back as undeliverable because the address rejected your email as spam.

Export Campaign Data

All of the reporting data is downloadable directly from this report. Just click the download link next to each statistic. If you use the download main campaign report option, you will download a CSV that contains a full list of your recipients, any personalization data that was a part of the original spreadsheet, and columns indicating whether that recipient opened, clicked, unsubscribed, bounced, or replied. You can then import this CSV file into a new Google Sheet for safekeeping and future mail merge campaigns.

download campaign CSV file — *Access this report from the [CAMPAIGNS] Label under “GMass Reports” on the left side of Gmail.*

Just click the “download” link shown above to download a CSV file of the report. It will look like this.

You can also download your account’s complete Unsubscribe and Bounce lists using the download all link next to each statistic.

Warning: Don’t forward this report
Because the campaign report contains download links to your full recipient lists, we recommend you only forward this report to people you trust to have access to your email marketing data.

Domain Reports

The domain report shows a breakdown of all domains sent to for a particular campaign, along with the opens, clicks, bounces, and blocks on a per-domain basis. You can even compare your individual domain-statistics to our system-wide domain statistics by clicking on any individual domain. For example, if you want to know if your open rate to gmail.com email address is better or worse than average, you can compare your open rate to our lifetime gmail.com open rate.

The domain report is available only in the web-based report.

Here you can see the domain report inside a Gmail-based campaign report.

[screenshot to come]

Here is the domain report that’s part of the web-based campaign report.

How to share reports with your team

Sharing the web-based report with colleagues

If you wish to share the campaign report but prevent someone from downloading your lists of email addresses, use the “Shareable link” feature at the bottom. That will generate a link you can use to share your high level campaign statistics without providing access to the lists of email addresses that opened, clicked, and took other actions.

Team leaders can see team member’s statistics

If you’re the leader of a team plan, then in your dashboard, by default, you’ll be able to view the campaign statistics for your entire team or any individual team member.

Share reports with other Gmail accounts

If you have team members, whether internal or external to your organization, with whom you would like to share your GMass Campaign-level Reports, you can now do that. By sharing reports with others, every time a report is updated under your GMass Reports –> [CAMPAIGNS] Label, each person with whom you are sharing will get the same updated report in his/her account.

Click Compose to launch a new window.
Set the To field to share@gmass.co.
Set the Subject to the email address of the account with whom you wish to share your reports. My email address is ajay@wordzen.com and I want to share my reports with john@wordzen.com, so I would set the Subject to john@wordzen.com.
Hit the GMass button. Do not hit the Send button.

Revoke access to your campaign reports

Follow the same procedure as above except set the To field to revoke@gmass.co.

FAQ on Report Sharing

Q: Does sharing my reports with another user give them any other access to my Gmail account?

A: No. Sharing your reports only sends a copy of your campaign-level reports to them. People you share with cannot see anything in your Gmail account, nor can they send GMass campaigns on your behalf.

Q: Can I share my reports with people who don’t use Gmail?

A: No. You can only share reports with existing GMass users, and all GMass users obviously have Gmail accounts.

Q: Can I share my reports with people who aren’t paying GMass subscribers?

A: Yes. You can share reports with any other GMass users, whether they have free accounts or paid accounts.

Q: How can I see everyone I’m currently sharing reports with?

A: If you’re sharing reports, then each campaign report in GMass Reports –> [CAMPAIGNS] will have a section at the bottom detailing with whom the report is being shared.

How to export reports

You can export all of your reporting data to CSV files, which you can then further analyze using any spreadsheet or database system, including Microsoft Excel, Google Sheets, or Google’s Data Studio.

Links to export reports to CSV files are available inside the Gmail-based reports, the dashboard, and the web-based responsive reports.

Lists of email address that opened, clicked, replied, unsubscribed, and bounced are all available from the dashboard or any report.

Additionally, GMass generates several special CSV files that give you an wholistic picture of your campaign’s success.

Keeping a Google Sheet updated

If you’re using GMass to read data from your Google Sheet, you have the option to have GMass keep your Sheet updated with reporting data in real-time.

Entire Campaign as a CSV file

From either the Gmail-based report of the web-based report click the link to the “download campaign CSV”. This will be a comma-delimited file showing all recipients in the campaign along with who opened, clicked, and took other actions.

Auto follow-ups exported as a CSV file

If you’re sending email sequences with auto follow-ups, you can download a CSV file showing all campaign recipients and which follow-up stages have been sent to each recipient.

How accurate is open-tracking?

GMass uses a number of technical innovations and other tricks to make sure your campaign analytics are as accurate as possible. Still though, there are scenarios where your statistics may be inaccurate.

Open tracking can be inaccurate for several reasons, including if you open the email yourself from your Sent folder or a bounce notification.

Note: GMass invented an open-tracking technology that circumvents technology that blocks the ability to detect opens.

Additionally, certain user agents will automatically trigger opens and clicks on emails, skewing both metrics upwards. GMass’s reports separate out opens from Apple Mail into a separate stat, since Apple Mail Privacy Protection automatically “opens” emails.

A note about click-tracking just selected links

While click tracking is enabled by default, you may want to skip tracking on certain links, like YouTube links and Google Docs links. You might also be interested in the details of just how click tracking works.

Ready to send better emails and save a ton of time?

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Ajay Goel

Ajay is the founder of GMass and has been developing email sending software for 20 years.

twitter.com/PartTimeSnob

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Cold email outreach “doesn’t work.”

It’s “outdated and ineffective.”

You’ve tried a few strategies that simply failed to get a response.

Even used emojis, memes, and gifs to no avail.

We’ve heard ’em all. And yes, cold email outreach can be a boring, tedious, and time-consuming task — and on slow response days, it can feel like everyone in the world is over it.

But the truth is:

Cold email can still absolutely be one of the most effective strategies when it comes to growing your business.

You just have to know what to say and when to say it.

Anything shy of a fantastic outreach strategy can bring subpar results.

The people you’re trying to reach are getting hundreds, if not thousands, of emails daily. Meaning you need a top-notch email that really stands out.

You need a solid fundamental framework of the right way to adapt cold email templates to achieve what you want. And once you have that, you can use these five high-yield cold email outreach templates to jumpstart your success today.

Basic best practices of cold email outreach

Before we dive into some email templates, we need to cover the basic best practices of any high-performing cold email campaign.

Why? Because you might decide to tweak some of these templates.

And while tweaking is great, you can’t risk removing certain aspects of the template that could make or break your campaign.

Tinkering can often be a death trap, but knowing some basic best practices will help you bypass any mistakes.

Best practice #1: Personalization

And no, I’m not just talking about Hey {FirstName}.

Personalization extends way beyond simply using the target’s first name.

That should always be standard in any email outreach campaign and is doable with any tool on the market.

I’m talking about personalization that actually stands out.

For example, researching each prospect, client, or target and providing specific details about them.

That could include all kinds of things. It could be utilizing a post they just wrote to explain how it impacted your thoughts on a subject.

It could be researching the client to see what endeavors they’ve undertaken lately or any new business success they’ve had.

Here’s a personalized email example from Ahrefs to guide you:

This kind of personalization requires time and effort. But, time and effort get you real conversions.

We’ve built out GMass’s personalization features so you can really personalize every detail of your cold emails — from entire paragraphs to the links, images, and attachments you send.

Best practice #2: Don’t ask for anything

Or if you do, do it subtly.

This is one of the biggest mistakes when it comes to email outreach.

In fact, it’s human nature. We want it now. We don’t want to wait.

We want conversions and cash ASAP.

But that doesn’t work in cold email outreach. It just enrages the recipient enough to mark you as spam.

Asking for value without providing it in return is a huge mistake.

For example, take a look at this email:

The sender uses demanding language like “ASAP,” asking the recipient to work on their dime.

That’s a big no-no. Never demand that a recipient do anything for you.

Focus on creating enough value and building a real, symbiotic relationship that will pay dividends for years to come.

Best practice #3: Get to the point

We’re all busy. We have better things to do than read boring emails all day.

If email outreach campaigns have taught me one thing, it’s that getting straight to the point is key.

It saves time and avoids the potential perception that you’re sugar coating a subject, which turns recipients away fast.

Get down to business fast and waste as little of their time as possible (starting with the subject line).

Following those three best practices will help keep you on track with your cold emails, whether you’re mounting a marketing campaign, doing some cold email prospecting, sending cold email to recruit job candidates, or initiating a job search.

Now we’re ready to look at some templates for successful outreach.

1. Cold email outreach templates: Guest blog on any site

Guest blogging is a great way to build brand awareness.

Google doesn’t like it when you do it for the sole purpose of gaining links, but using it as a tool to generate brand awareness is still viable.

Getting on the best sites like Forbes and Inc. isn’t easy, though.

Those often take some serious connections, a series of dumb luck — or strategic persistance.

With this cold outreach email template, you’re sure to land almost any guest blogging gig you can find.

This email’s best for the leading editor or content marketer at the company you’re hoping to guest blog for.

Subject: Guest post for [Company Name]

Hey, [first name]!

I’m an avid fan and reader of [company blog name]. Just wanted to reach out because I’ve been a fan of the blog for a long time and I know that I can add great value to it.

Recently, I [something you did, i.e., grow traffic] after using the tactics from [insert blog post from their blog].

I’d love to contribute, and I’ve prepared a few titles of posts that I believe will fit perfectly with your audience:

Here they are:
[Title 1]
[Title 2]
[Title 3]

Here are a few of my latest posts for you to check out, too:

1. [hyperlink post title] +

2. [hyperlink post title] +

Thanks for your time, looking forward to contributing on the blog.

Cheers,
[Your name]

This template is a great way to land guest posts for a few reasons:

You’re showing that you really are an avid reader by linking your own business efforts to a specific post on their blog.
You’re showing value by providing post ideas upfront.
You’re showcasing social proof by linking a few of your latest posts and the social data on them.

Ready to land your next hit piece on Inc.? Get the ball rolling with this email!

2. Cold email outreach templates: Land a phone call with a lead or prospect

If email outreach isn’t the bane of your existence, landing phone calls with leads or prospects probably is.

You call and call and call only to get a voicemail every single time.

They just don’t want to pick up the phone and talk to you.

When that happens, you can’t give up.

But you also can’t keep dumping time and money into a failing strategy.

Try using this email template to set a hard date with a lead or prospect to discuss business.

Hey [first name]!

Hope all is well with you. I noticed that you [provide a recent, personalized update], that’s awesome!

I was conducting some research today and noticed that you [have a need/pain point that our product could fix].

I’d love to schedule a quick chat with you on our dime to help you address some of these issues.

It won’t take longer than 10 or 15 minutes!

Let me know if one of these dates works for you:

[insert three dates and times]

Looking forward to connecting.

Cheers,

[your name]

Once you’ve landed a few phone calls with your leads, it’s time to move in for the sale.

And if you want an even deeper look at these types of emails, check out our article on B2B cold email templates for lots of examples.

3. Cold email outreach templates: Now convert that prospect into a sale

You just got a few clients on the phone. Finally.

But now it’s time for the difficult part:

Closing the sale and converting them into a full-time customer.

You need to craft one of the best email templates you can to land a sale. After all, sending cold email follow ups is not easy.

People get too many emails, letting them forget about yours isn’t an option.

Being too blunt gives the feeling of begging for their services or not caring about their bottom line.

You need to subtly ease your way into a sale without straight-up asking them to buy from you.

Here’s how to accomplish that and land your next client:

Hey [first name],

It was great to speak with you earlier today and learn more about your role at [their company].

I totally understand [their pain point] that we talked about and how it impacts [problem caused by pain point].

I’ve attached more information on this email about how, together, we can go about fixing [pain point] and getting your business on the right track for success.

Please let me know if you have any questions or need to discuss anything else.

I’m always available.

Cheers,

[your name]

4. Cold email outreach templates: Build a real relationship to open doors

This template ties directly back to the best practices we discussed earlier.

Providing value is critical for a relationship. Simply asking someone to give you a link, mention you, or buy your product isn’t going to work.

Instead, conveying how they will benefit from the relationship is key.

What’s in it for them?

Focus on building a relationship that’s symbiotic in nature.

Meaning both parties benefit from the relationship.

You can use this approach to contact new influencers, prospects, and more.

Here’s a template to help you do just that:

Hi [first name],

My name is [name], and I work for [your company]. Nice to e-meet you!

I’ve been following [recipient, or recipient’s company] for years now.

I thought that [recent bit of news revolving around them or their company] was extremely inspiring. Congratulations on the success of that!

I had some ideas that I thought you’d love and was hoping to get in touch with you to discuss [specific, actionable topic] a bit more.

If you’re interested, I’d love to set up a phone call and discuss how we can both bring mutual value to our businesses.

I’m free [range of dates/times] and would love to hear from you.

All the best,

[your name]

This template is a surefire way to open the doors for amazing relationships to come.

You can use it for any type of introductory email that focuses on building connections that will last rather than one-off promotions.

5. Cold email outreach templates: Get high-quality backlinks fast

Links are the name of the game when it comes to ranking your content high on a given Google search engine results page.

Not only are they a top ranking factor according to Google, but they also have the power to drive loads of relevant traffic from high-performing sites.

The only trouble is actually acquiring them.

Try using this template to yield tons of high-quality links for your latest blog post or even just your site in general.

But before we get to the template, you need to locate some broken backlinks.

The goal here is to locate broken links on high-profile websites and then capitalize on them with your own content.

Offering your own link for an easy swap is a proven strategy for landing backlinks.

First, you need to use a tool like Check My Links:

This will scan pages for broken (404 error) links.

Now head to the sites where you want links and scour their blog for dead links within each post.

Once you’ve found some, it’s time to slide in and steal that link with your own content:

Hey [first name],

I was researching [topic] for my next [blog post, presentation, etc.] and stumbled on your post:

[post title + hyperlinked].

This was awesome. Seriously, it helped me [insert pain point that was solved].

Great work.

However, I did notice that a few links weren’t working. I went to click on one for more contextual info, and it gave me a 404.

Let me know if you’d like me to send you the exact details on that.

Best,

[your name]

Now, wait for them to respond. This email sits on the fine line of clickbait, almost forcing any good webmaster to respond.

Remember best practice #2? This taps into subtly asking for a link and providing tremendous value upfront without demanding the link.

Once they respond, you have the perfect chance to give your own content as a replacement link:

Great to hear from you again!

Here’s the list of broken links I saw:

1. [anchor text + hyperlink]

2. [anchor text + hyperlink]

3. [anchor text + hyperlink]

I actually just wrote about [topic], which broken link [broken link # in the list above] references in detail.

I think it could make a great replacement for that broken link.

Anyway, I was glad to help.

Best,

[your name]

Now implement these cold email outreach strategies with GMass

You have your templates ready to go.

Now it’s time to make game-changing moves for your business.

Implementing these high-yield templates can be a difference maker for your cold outreach strategy.

Using GMass, you can schedule out cold email campaigns in advance.

And it has powerful personalization settings to tap into.

You can even send automatic follow-up campaigns and drip-based emails to those who haven’t responded.

Take your email strategy to the next level by combining these templates and GMass for successful cold outreach.

Cold email outreach templates: Final thoughts

Cold email outreach is dead.

It doesn’t work. Why? It just doesn’t.

Cold email outreach can be one of the most frustrating tactics.

It’s often hit or miss. Or even just miss.

You prep hours of content and a great drip-email campaign only to get one response.

But the truth is, cold email outreach does work.

In fact, it can be one of the most impactful tools for your business.

But it requires fine, hand-crafted emails that most people just aren’t using.

Implement these five high-yield cold email outreach templates today using GMass, and you’ll be on your way to driving those conversion rates through the roof. And if you’d like more, read our post on 5 Cold Email Templates for Any Situation.

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Ajay Goel

Ajay is the founder of GMass and has been developing email sending software for 20 years.

twitter.com/PartTimeSnob

Love what you're reading? Get the latest email strategy and tips & stay in touch.

Most marketing tactics that big names tout require one thing you don’t have:

Brand awareness.

For example, generating backlinks by capitalizing on brand mentions that don’t have a link.

But that requires other people who are already talking about you.

And when you’re a startup, getting PR isn’t that easy.

Plus, getting the right PR almost never comes cheap.

But, you need it.

You need it if you have any hopes of attracting large investors, fast sales, and evangelical brand supporters.

And if you have any dreams of breaking out of the startup phase.

Here are four amazing ways to get PR for your startup without breaking the bank.

1. Genuinely support a cause

Quick, name the first five major brands that come to mind.

In any industry.

Think of them in your head right now.

Now analyze them deeper:

What’s their message? Their mantra? Their ethos?

More than likely, at least one of those big brands supports a cause or donates part of their profits to charity.

For example, take a look at Pura Vida Bracelets. They display their ethos prominently on their homepage where it says “Giving Back”:

Here they explain how they provide sustainable jobs to artisans worldwide while also raising awareness for charities.

And they put it in their emails.

They even dedicate an entire page to their “Story,” which showcases the greater purpose of the brand aside from generating revenue.

On their story page, they highlight the great things they’ve been able to accomplish as a brand.

For example, they state that giving back to communities is their core belief.

They’ve supported over 190 different charities around the world, donating $1,500,000 to causes they believe in.

They even encourage more charities to contact them to get involved.

Their entire ethos focuses on giving local, small communities around the world the chance to have work and a better life.

It’s one of the biggest reasons why they’ve generated so much free PR and brand awareness.

The founders were even featured on Forbes’s 30 under 30. How’s that for PR?

In 2014, they did over $9 million in revenue, and they’ve only seen positive growth since then.

And it’s not because they make the best bracelets around.

It’s not because they have the best Instagram (although it is excellent).

It’s not because they’ve optimized their Facebook page.

It’s because they’ve genuinely supported a cause and made waves in the business world with their charitable donations.

Their product isn’t proprietary. Anyone can make a bracelet and sell it.

Meaning PR wouldn’t have come their way without their charity-based mission.

They’d just be another bracelet company out there making good revenue.

A survey from Fortune found that 66% of people between the ages of 18 and 34 were more likely to work and buy from a company that gives to charity.

It’s plain and simple:

Supporting a cause is a great way to generate PR buzz.

To put this into practice, try donating a portion of your profits from every sale.

This is a mission that TOMS puts into practice.

Every purchase from TOMS will help a person in need.

It works because it helps the consumer feel like they’ve taken part in something greater than just another shoe purchase.

They’ve aided someone in need.

They’ve made a difference in the lives of others.

Want PR without breaking the bank?

Start genuinely supporting a cause, and the PR will naturally come.

2. Compile an outreach list

More often than not, PR doesn’t just fall out of the sky.

That hit piece you want Forbes or Entrepreneur to write about you won’t just get dumped into your lap.

Unless your startup is changing the game in a given industry, you need to get proactive with your PR journey.

Outreach is critical.

Instead of sitting idly by waiting for your moment of glory, you need to make it.

Take matters into your own hands and get a hit article featuring your company.

Most of the time, startups don’t have the connections to do it, though.

When you’re a nobody without any money in the budget to spend on PR, it’s tough.

But it’s not impossible.

To do this, you’ll need to do some good, old-fashioned research.

Get started by heading to Google and conducting a basic search like “startup pr.” Be sure to select “News” instead of a general search.

Now scan the latest news articles on this topic to look for any media/news outlets that you’d want to be featured on:

For example, you can quickly see sites like Forbes and PR.com show up.

These are big-name sites that could be huge in terms of startup growth.

Next, click on each of the news articles you see.

Create a new spreadsheet and note the author, the site (Forbes in this case), and the specific link to the article.

Now simply repeat this process until you have a sizeable list.

The next step is to get their emails for outreach.

Head to Voila Norbert and create a free trial account to get 50 free searches.

Norbert is a tool that helps you find emails with just a full name and company website link:

First, type in the full name of the article author on your list. Then, enter the company website that they wrote on or their business URL.

This should quickly pull up their email.

Now add that back to your spreadsheet and repeat the process for each author on your list.

Once you’ve done that, you’re ready to conduct outreach.

The key to conducting outreach for PR isn’t being naggy, annoying, or self-serving.

It’s a mistake that marketers and small businesses alike make all the time.

And it’s the reason why so many people claim that outreach is dead.

Think about it:

When was the last time you got an email from someone asking you about promoting their company?

I bet you deleted it.

Why? Because nobody wants to spend their own time promoting someone for free with no mutual benefit.

You should always focus outreach on crafting a symbiotic relationship where each entity receives unquestionable value.

PR doesn’t come overnight.

Jumping the gun and asking for a full-fledged article before you even know the author isn’t going to land PR.

It’s going to get you blocked or reported as spam.

Start by creating an introduction and building a real relationship.

Here’s an email template I’ve used to build relationships and land PR shoutouts:

Hey ___,

Loved your article on (insert topic + hyperlink). Their story is inspiring, and you really brought that to life in your writing.

I’d love to chat with you about ___ for startups.

You have some excellent knowledge on the subject.

My own startup is doing (quick blurb, don’t get overly pitchy).

Would love to get your thoughts on it.

Cheers!

Don’t expect PR buzz overnight or ask for promotion immediately.

And don’t just send one email and call it a success or failure. Treat this like any other email campaign. Create follow-up emails and then automate them so you don’t forget.

But focus on relationship building within your outreach, and your success will be steady.

3. Create a library of meaningful content

Content is king.

We’ve heard it before, but is it really true?

Does content really drive business, PR, and sales?

It does.

According to HubSpot, the more a company blogs, the more traffic they get to their site:

Posting more than 16+ times per month generates the most traffic.

On top of that, more blog posts each month also means more inbound leads and sales:

SEO and inbound optimization are all about content marketing.

The more stellar content you can create, the better.

Piggybacking off the first tip in this post, you need to tie it back to your story.

Your brand identity and purpose.

Not just any blog post will generate PR buzz.

Writing about XX tips to grow your business isn’t a PR-generating post.

Instead, focus on writing meaningful content that will resonate with users in your space.

Did you change the lives of a community? Did you donate meaningful dollars to charity that resulted in something great? Did you build houses for a local community with your employees?

Leverage this amazing gesture by writing a post about it.

Summarize it in story format and share it on every social media channel you can. Send it out to all of your contacts, or at least your contacts in the community.

Having it already written will attract tons of writers and bloggers looking for their next case study.

Case studies are one of the most popular writing tools.

Everybody loves reading stories about business success.

But nobody knows about yours until you share it.

Start a blog and create a library of meaningful content that people can easily find.

4. Apply for industry awards

Applying for, landing, and receiving an award is almost always free.

And when done successfully, it can generate unparalleled amounts of buzz and PR

The problem is that most companies don’t even know that they exist in their industry.

But the truth is, awards are important. They distinguish you from your competitors.

Industry awards also work as a form of social proof.

Social proof is a key driver in online sales and PR.

If people are backing your company and supporting it, there’s no doubt that PR will follow.

Don’t limit yourself to company-based awards, and never sell yourself short.

Thinking that they are “out of reach” or “too big for our small company” is a mistake.

Awards like Forbes’s 30 under 30 or Startups to Watch are dedicated to the entrepreneurial mindset, and they allow anyone to apply.

There’s usually no cost and no risk to applying, so give it a try to earn some powerful recognition.

When trying to land awards, bring it back to your brand ethos again.

Companies solely focused on revenue rarely get featured for awards.

Why? There are so many of them.

Stand out from the rest by going back to the first tip:

Genuinely supporting a cause and creating a brand image that’s unmatched in your space.

5. Attend events

Attending events can be a great way to connect with influencers and online contributors.

Putting a face to the name can be a huge win for your company when it comes to relationship building.

According to Rand Fishkin at Moz, conferences and events are a great investment.

Although ticket, travel, and hotel costs can be through the roof, the ROI of meeting, engaging, and talking to new connections is unmatched.

If you can’t spend a single dime, look for events in your area.

Events can open doors that normally would be shut for good.

Sometimes, emails and online communications don’t get through.

Recipients see them as spammy, annoying, or overly self-serving.

But conferences work to break that barrier and introduce you to new connections in a relatable medium.

There are multiple “can’t miss” conferences for entrepreneurs that you should seriously think about attending.

For example, the Secret Knock event features huge, TED-style talks and presentations from major brand pioneers like the founder of Make-A-Wish, UGG Boots, and more.

To find events that are in your space or even broader and that relate to startups and business, simply conduct a Google search for them:

There are dozens upon dozens of events designed for startups around the world that take place every single year.

If you don’t have the budget to spend on a full-fledged trip, scout the lists above for local events or ones within cheap travel range.

However you can afford to do it, make it a priority to attend events because they can be a huge way to generate publicity.

Conclusion

PR is the holy grail for any startup.

It can drive sales, build a huge evangelical brand following, and even attract formidable investors.

But it’s elusive.

Anyone who says it’s easy is lying.

It’s like finding a needle in a massive, mile-wide haystack.

There are millions of other startups vying for the same PR as you.

Trying to grow their business by any means necessary.

But typical PR routes aren’t an option for you. They’re too expensive.

Meaning you need to find tactics that won’t cost you millions of dollars.

Start by genuinely supporting a cause.

Companies like Pura Vida and TOMS have built empires by structuring their ethos around charity and making the world a better place.

Next, compile a media outreach list to quickly build relationships to leverage for PR.

Create a library of meaningful content that people can easily find.

Lastly, apply for industry awards and attend events in your local area for amazing PR opportunities.

Want to get PR for your startup without breaking the bank? Implement the tactics in this post, and you’ll be on your way.

See why GMass has 400k+ users and 9,000+ 5-star reviews

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Ajay Goel

Ajay is the founder of GMass and has been developing email sending software for 20 years.

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We’ve discovered that in certain situations, Gmail doesn’t save the addresses in the To field as part of a Draft, when invalid characters are present in the list of email addresses in the To field. For example:

There’s an invalid character, a parentheses, in the second email address, which causes Gmail to think the To field is blank.

GMass works by examining all the parts of a Gmail Draft, and then using that Draft as the basis a mail merge campaign. In a case where there is an invalid character, like a parentheses, in an email address, the Gmail Draft doesn’t save any of the addresses, which results in GMass thinking the To field is blank, even though it isn’t.

If you get an error telling you that you don’t have any To addresses, but you clearly do, please check your To field for invalid characters.

Email marketing, cold email, and mail merge inside Gmail

Send incredible emails & automations and avoid the spam folder — all in one powerful but easy-to-learn tool

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Ajay Goel

Ajay is the founder of GMass and has been developing email sending software for 20 years.

twitter.com/PartTimeSnob

Love what you're reading? Get the latest email strategy and tips & stay in touch.

I just deployed some improvements to the “Just create Drafts” feature. As a reminder, this is the feature that allows you to create individual Gmail Drafts for your mail merge campaign, so you can review them first, and then click a link to send them (or delete them).

1. No more delays. Recently, several users have been frustrated at the lengthy delays between clicking the link to send the Drafts and when the Drafts were actually sent. This is now fixed, and Drafts should begin sending within 60 seconds of clicking the link, no matter how busy the system is. This is because I’ve changed how this works from a sequential processing system to a parallel processing system.

2. Throttling works now. A while back I introduced a throttling feature that inserted a few seconds of pause in between emails. If you used the “Just create Drafts” feature, along with the throttling feature, then that throttling would apply to the creation of the Drafts instead of the sending of the Drafts. This is now corrected. If you check the throttling checkbox, your Drafts will be created without the pause, but if you click the link to send them, then that pause will kick into effect.

3. Checking for over-limit bounces. Previously, if you clicked the link to send your Drafts, GMass never checked to see if your account was over limit. If it was, Drafts would continue to try sending, and they would bounce back. Now, just like when you normally send a campaign (without creating Drafts first), GMass will monitor for those pesky “You have exceeded your limit” bounces and if found, the Drafts will pause sending for 24 hours so your account quota can reset.

4. Suppression lists. The “Just create Drafts” feature can be used to create a manual Suppression List, but there was always a flaw in that if you wanted to create a 5,000 address suppression list, for example, you couldn’t do it all at once, because GMass would spread out a campaign over multiple days to avoid your account hitting Gmail’s sending limits. Now, if you use the “Just create Drafts” checkbox, and the Subject of your campaign has the word “suppress” in it, then GMass will create all the Drafts at once, without regard to your account limits. This will allow you to create manual suppression lists as big as you want without waiting.

5. SMTP-based sending. You might have seen my recent announcements about how you can now hook your GMass account up to a third party SMTP server like Sendgrid, to send unlimited emails and exceed Gmail’s sending limits. Now this capability applies to the “Just create Drafts” feature as well. Meaning, you can launch a campaign to 10,000 people by having the 10,000 Drafts created first, and then clicking a link to send those 10,000 Drafts via the SMTP server.

Ajay Goel

Ajay is the founder of GMass and has been developing email sending software for 20 years.

twitter.com/PartTimeSnob

Love what you're reading? Get the latest email strategy and tips & stay in touch.

You can now send virtually unlimited emails in Gmail. It works by connecting a third party SMTP service like SendGrid, Mailgun, or Mailjet to your GMass account. (Or by applying to use GMass’s in-house SMTP servers.)

The advantages of this setup are:

The ability to send virtually unlimited emails in Gmail and avoid Gmail’s sending limits.
No risk of a Gmail account being suspended by Google.

The disadvantages of this setup are potentially:

A slight decrease in deliverability, although from our testing, we’ve found the open and reply rates using various SMTP servers to usually be just as high as sending natively from Google. See our deliverability database to do real-time comparisons.

How can you send unlimited mail merge emails from your Gmail account?

First, you need a GMass account. Then, you connect your GMass account to any external SMTP server. This will make it so your emails are sent from that server and not from your actual Gmail account, although everything will look as normal inside your Gmail account. Meaning, each email message will still show up in your Sent Mail folder, and GMass will still be able to track replies, bounces, and everything that happens after you send an email campaign.

When you do this, you can:

Choose SMTP sending on a per-campaign basis. Meaning, you can selectively choose which campaigns are sent with SMTP and which are sent with your Gmail account.
If you don’t want to set up your own SMTP account, you might be able to use our internal SMTP service. You can apply to use our in-house server for opt-in email or ColdSMTP, our cold email sending server, if you don’t want to set up your own. Get instant approval if you qualify to send through our server.
If you want to rotate between multiple SMTP services, you can set them all up then choose which you want to use.
Use the SMTP setting with the Preview as Drafts feature to first create Drafts, and then send the Drafts with the SMTP server.

The most popular SMTP servers amongst my users

Here is a live list of the top 10 most popular SMTP servers used by our users. This does not include users who we assign to our own internal SMTPs.

This list was last updated on March 19 and udpates daily at midnight GMT.

SMTP Server	Number of Users
smtp.sendgrid.net	14,555
smtp.gmail.com	1,328
in-v3.mailjet.com	1,302
smtp.sparkpostmail.com	1,263
smtp.mailgun.org	1,223
smtp-relay.brevo.com	679
smtp-relay.sendinblue.com	500
email-smtp.us-east-1.amazonaws.com	467
send.smtp.com	383
mail.smtp2go.com	241

Step 1: Setting up your SMTP service

Option A: Getting your own SMTP service

An SMTP server is simply an email sending server. There are many well-known SMTP service providers, including SendGrid, JangoSMTP, Mailgun, Mailjet, and others. Pricing for SMTP services range from free plans which let you send a few hundred emails/day to around $20 USD/month for thousands of emails/month. Each service has its own advantages and disadvantages, and you’re free to use any SMTP service you like.

In our testing, we’ve found that SendGrid and JangoSMTP are the two SMTP services that are most compatible with GMass, because of their flexibility in not requiring domain-based verification in order to start relaying email through them. This is especially important if you’re connecting a user@gmail.com GMass account to an SMTP service.

If you choose SendGrid, here is a detailed guide to configuring your SendGrid account for GMass use.

Option B: Request to use our in-house SMTP servers

If you’re sending strictly opt-in email, you might be eligible to use our opt-in SMTP server.

And if you’re sending cold outreach, you can apply to use our cold email SMTP server.

Step 2: Linking your GMass account to the SMTP service

New way

You can easily set your SMTP servers in your GMass account dashboard. You can use this direct link to your SMTP settings.

Then click the red button to add a server.

If you have any trouble with the dashboard, you can still set your SMTP server the old way.

Old way

If you set up your own SMTP service, this is how to link the SMTP service to your GMass account. Note that if you’ve been approved to use our SMTP service, you will skip this step.

Configure your GMass account to send via an external SMTP server instead of your Google account. The SendGrid credentials show above are not real.

First, reload Gmail in your Chrome browser to make sure you have the latest version of GMass.
Click Compose to launch a new window.
Set the To field to smtp@gmass.co.
Set the Subject to the word set. Wait a second for the form to appear in the Message area.
Enter the SMTP server, port, username, and password after the colons. If your server does not require authentication, set the Username to “noauth” (without the quotes) and leave the Password blank.
Hit the GMass button. Do not hit the Send button.

GMass will relay a test email through the server to yourself. If successful, the SMTP server will be set for your account and you will now see that setting appear in the Settings box.

To clear out the SMTP settings, set the Subject to “clear” and hit the GMass button. To view the SMTP setting currently on your account, set the Subject to “status” and hit the GMass button.

Step 3: Sending through the SMTP server

You’ll notice an option in the GMass Settings box that allows you to set, on a per-campaign basis, whether the emails should be routed through the SMTP server for unlimited sending, or through your Google account, in which case you’d be subject to Gmail’s sending limits.

Note: This option will only appear if you have connected an SMTP account to GMass.

Note that sending over SMTP is subject to usage-based billing, outlined here. Pricing is different for ColdSMTP, which uses a flat rate.

You’ll also be able to quick reference whether you’re sending your campaign through Gmail or your third-party SMTP server if you collapse the Action settings. For instance, here’s what it’ll look like if you’ve connected a SendGrid account and you’ve chosen to send your campaign through that SMTP server.

Choosing an SMTP server

You have three choices to connect your GMass account to an SMTP server:

If your email sending meets certain criteria, you can use my SMTP server for opt-in emails or my cold email server. These are high volume servers we’ve built and maintain internally. For the opt-in server, your email sends must be either a) non-commercial in nature (like school groups, membership clubs, social causes, churches) or b) completely organically developed. For the cold email server, you must have a demonstrated history of cold emails with strong engagement.
If your email does not match the criteria, or you just want to use your own SMTP service(s), then feel free to set up an account on your own with SendGrid, JangoSMTP, Mailjet, or any other SMTP service provider. Your company may even have its own SMTP server that you can use. In a future post, I’ll be analyzing the popular SMTP providers, also known as transactional email services, and explaining which ones I think are the best and worst. Once you set up an account with an SMTP service provider, you’ll have to configure the account in certain ways.
If you’re technically inclined, you can set up your own SMTP server on your own server. If you’re running Linux, here’s how to set up an SMTP service from scratch on a Linux server.

Configuring your SMTP service account

GMass will connect without TLS/SSL to the SMTP server on the port of your choice. Most SMTP services allow you to connect on ports 25 and 2525 at a minimum.
Ensure that open and click tracking are turned OFF with the SMTP server service. In fact, the SMTP server shouldn’t alter the message at all. It should just pass it through. This is because GMass will add the tracking for you if you set your tracking this way, and we don’t want the emails to be “double” tracked. Screenshot from SendGrid:
Ensure there are no quota restrictions on your SMTP account, or if there are, that they are sufficient to handle your GMass campaigns.
Check to see what Envelope From, also known as MAIL-FROM or RETURN-PATH address your SMTP service will use when relaying your email. Most transactional email services like SendGrid use a sendgrid.net domain by default, which makes it so you don’t necessarily have to alter your SPF records. Some SMTP services require domain verification, because the domain in your From Address will be the domain in the MAIL-FROM. Just be aware of this. You may need to alter your SPF, DKIM, and DMARC records.
Ensure that Bounce Notifications are on. Set them to go to the From Address. This will allow GMass to process your bounces, just like normal. Not all SMTP services have this capability. SendGrid and JangoSMTP do. Mailgun and Mailjet do not. Screenshot from SendGrid:

FAQ

Q: What’s going on here? How do I use an external SMTP server and send unlimited emails from my Gmail account?

A: You simply set up an SMTP account with a popular provider like SendGrid, Mailgun, Mailjet, or JangoSMTP. Then, you link your SMTP account to your Gmail account. Finally, for each campaign you send with GMass, you can choose whether to send the campaign through Gmail or through the SMTP server. If you send through Gmail, you’ll be constrained by Gmail’s limits, but if you send through the SMTP server, you’ll be able to send virtually unlimited emails.

Q: I’m so confused. I would love to be able to send unlimited emails from my Gmail account, but I’m not very technical and I know nothing about SMTP.

A: If you’re sending non-commercial or opt-in email campaigns, you can apply to use our in-house SMTP server — and you can be instantly approved to use it if your account qualifies. If you’re sending cold email, you can apply to use our in-house cold email sending server. Otherwise, please consult your organization’s IT person for further help. Setting up an SMTP account and linking it to GMass can be accomplished by any IT person with a basic knowledge of how email works.

Q: Doesn’t sending through an SMTP service eliminate the deliverability advantage GMass “normally” has, since normally GMass sends email through Google’s servers, which are the highest deliverability email servers in the world?

A: Theoretically, your deliverability may drop slightly if you switch from sending via Gmail to sending via an SMTP server. In our testing with several hundred users though, we have not seen a noticeable difference in deliverability, as measured by open and click rates. You should monitor your own campaign statistics though once you switch to SMTP sending, to ensure this is the case for you.

Q: It sounds like you’re getting around Google’s rules by sending this way. Won’t Google get upset with me if I use my Gmail account in this manner?

A: Sending email campaigns like this doesn’t violate any of Google’s terms. Additionally, thousands of users have set this up and found success. What we are offering here is simply a way to use the Gmail user interface to create, launch, and track an email campaign, while the emails are actually sent by a non-Gmail server.

Q: Do you charge more for sending via SMTP?

A: As of November 15, 2021, we bill for usage of SMTP-based message sending. There is a generous monthly allowance for sent messages before billing begins, and after that, a usage charge is assessed. The details for SMTP-based billing are here. Additionally, you’ll have the cost with the SMTP service provider, which may be an additional $10+/month USD, based on what kind of account you get. For your low-volume campaigns, you could still elect to send natively through your Google Workspace account, allowing for another 1,500-2,000 emails/day, which would not incur SMTP usage-based billing.

For ColdSMTP, billing is done via a monthly charge of $99, with unlimited emails.

Q: Is the SMTP option available for free trial GMass accounts, or do I need to be subscribed to GMass?

A: It will work with a free trial GMass account as well, but using this option with a free trial GMass account defeats the purpose. GMass already limits free trial accounts to sending 50 emails per 24 hours, which is well under Gmail’s own limits, so connecting to an SMTP server to send high volume campaigns wouldn’t solve anything, since a GMass free trial account will already limit you to 50 emails per rolling 24 hours.

Q: Why should I use two services, yours and an external SMTP provider, when I could use one service like SendGrid, which also supports sending newsletters?

A: You are free to use any service you like, but we think that GMass with an external SMTP service makes for a powerful combination for email marketing and email automation. The ease and familiarity of the Gmail interface makes sending an email campaign a time efficient process. Additionally, by combining GMass and an external SMTP service, you can send virtually unlimited emails with the auto follow-up feature, a feat that would be impossible without GMass, since GMass integrates with your Gmail Inbox. Using just SendGrid in a standalone fashion won’t accomplish that.

Here’s our full explanation of why GMass + SendGrid is better than SendGrid alone.

Q: I’ve read that Gmail doesn’t allow its users to send “from” their Gmail accounts using outside servers. So how are you getting away with this?

A: That’s correct. People have been speculating since 2017 about Gmail not allowing free gmail.com users to send using outside servers. And they finally made a change in their DMARC policy in early 2024 that made it so.

Fortunately, we at GMass came up with a unique solution to enable gmail.com users to continue to send via a SMTP server. Check out the full instructions here in our doc on how GMass helps gmail.com + SMTP users achieve DMARC compliance.

If you are sending from your Google Workspace address, then you don’t need to worry about this policy at all, because you get to set your own policy for your domain!

Q: In my Gmail Settings under “Send mail as”, I can add another From Address to use, and then Gmail asks me to specify an SMTP server. How is that different from specifying an SMTP server this way?

A: When you set up a new From Address in your Gmail account, if the From Address is a non-Gmail address, then yes, you are asked to set an SMTP server. However, even in that case, the Gmail sending limits still apply because it is still Gmail that is relaying the emails through your SMTP server. With this new method of linking the SMTP account to your GMass account, Gmail isn’t “handling” any of the email sending and isn’t “aware” of what’s being sent, so the limits won’t apply.

Q: I want to send a 100,000 email campaign using GMass and SendGrid. How long will it take my campaign to send?

A: Admittedly, because of how we are sending these emails, we have not optimized this process for speed. If you need to send 100,000 emails in an hour, then this isn’t the right solution. The rate of sending will be around 3,500 emails/hour. Why so slow? Because the processing power of both sending the email through an external SMTP service AND making sure your Gmail account knows about it is a “costly” procedure, from a computing perspective. So, if you need to send 25,000 emails throughout the course of the day, then this could work well for you. But if you need to send 25,000 emails in the next ten minutes, this is not the solution for you.

Q: Do I need to worry about SPF, DKIM, and DMARC?

A: It depends on which SMTP service you choose and whether you’re sending from an @gmail.com address or a Google Workspace address.

If sending from an @gmail.com account, you don’t need to worry about any of this, because Gmail handles it for you.

If sending from a Google Workspace account, then it depends on the SMTP service you choose.

The default setup with SendGrid is such that you do NOT have to worry about SPF, DKIM, and DMARC. This is because in the default setup the MAIL-FROM used in email sending is a sendgrid.net address, so the SPF and DKIM signing is taken care of by SendGrid’s DNS records and infrastructure.

If you opt for SendGrid’s “whitelabel” option though, then the MAIL-FROM can be based on your own domain, and then you would need to ensure that SPF is set up to allow sending from your domain through SendGrid, and you can then have emails DKIM-signed by your own domain as well. For other providers, like Mailgun, for example, you have to “whitelabel” your domain from the outset, and handle SPF/DKIM from the outset. Therefore we can conclude that getting set up on SendGrid is easier because they don’t require this setup.

Q: Do you recommend certain SMTP services over others?

A: There are many SMTP services to choose from, including SendGrid, JangoSMTP, Mailgun, Mailjet, SparkPost, Amazon SES, and others. Each has its strengths and weaknesses. Personally, I’m most familiar with SendGrid and JangoSMTP, as well as our in-house servers. Full disclosure: I created JangoSMTP back in the early 2000s, and it was acquired in 2013, but I’m still close to the JangoSMTP team.

Common Scenarios

When you link an SMTP account to your GMass account, you may encounter these common scenarios.

You are sending a campaign with Gmail when before your campaign finishes sending, you start to get “You’ve exceeded your limit” bounces and GMass pauses the sending of your campaign. If you then link an SMTP account to your GMass account, GMass will switch any pending campaigns to SMTP sending so that you don’t get these bounces anymore.
You’ve just linked your SMTP account, or we’ve just approved you to use ours. When you compose your next campaign, the option in the Settings box will default to SMTP sending. You can of course switch it to Gmail sending. The Gmail vs SMTP option in the Settings box will remember whatever you last set it to.
You set your campaign to just create Drafts rather than send right away. When you then click the link to send the Drafts, you’ll be given a choice of whether to send them via Gmail or via the SMTP server linked to your account.

More Resources

If you’d like to dive deeper into Gmail, SMTP sending, and the correct configuration for an SMTP account, you might be interested in:

Using SendGrid? The recommended SendGrid configuration.

If you’re setting up an SMTP account, we generally recommend against getting a dedicated IP. Here’s why.

What is an SMTP server? Here’s the Wikipedia article on SMTP.

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Ajay Goel

Ajay is the founder of GMass and has been developing email sending software for 20 years.

twitter.com/PartTimeSnob

Love what you're reading? Get the latest email strategy and tips & stay in touch.

We recently announced the official launch of unlimited sending in Gmail. It works by allowing you to connect your GMass account to an external SMTP service like Sendgrid or JangoSMTP. You can read all about it here.

If you’re used to using the Just create Drafts feature, which allows you to preview each individual email in your campaign as a Gmail Draft first, and then click a link to send all the Drafts, then hooking up your account to an SMTP service has special implications for you, because of the timing of the creation of the Drafts.

Normally, when you don’t have your account linked to an SMTP service, the creation of Drafts operates on the same limits as Gmail’s sending limits. Meaning, if you launch a campaign to 5,000 people from a G Suite account (G Suite has a limit of 2,000 emails/day), and choose the Just create Drafts option, then the Drafts will be created at 1,950 Drafts the first day, another 1,950 Drafts the second day, and the final 1,100 Drafts on the third day.

If, however, you have linked an SMTP service to your GMass account, you may want all the Drafts created now, so that you can send all the Drafts now via the SMTP service.

Therefore, we have modified the interface such that if you have an SMTP service linked to your account, and you choose the “Just create Drafts” option, you will now be presented with a choice as to whether all the Drafts should be created now, or whether they should be created according to your Gmail account’s sending limits.

The idea is that if you intend to send the Drafts natively through Gmail, you probably want the Drafts created daily according to Gmail’s limits. But, if you intend to send the Drafts through the SMTP service, you probably want the all the Drafts created now.

After the Drafts are created, you are emailed a notification with a link to either SEND the Drafts or DELETE the Drafts. If you click the link to SEND the Drafts, you’ll be presented with two options: send via Gmail or send via the SMTP server.

After your Drafts are created, you have a choice of sending them through Gmail or with your account’s linked SMTP server.

Ajay Goel

Ajay is the founder of GMass and has been developing email sending software for 20 years.

twitter.com/PartTimeSnob

Love what you're reading? Get the latest email strategy and tips & stay in touch.

If you’re using the GMass unlimited sending option by connecting an SMTP service to GMass, you may have chosen Sendgrid as your SMTP service provider. If so, here is how you we recommend that you configure your Sendgrid account.

If you created your SendGrid account after 9/17/2020… Accounts created after this date are required to have set up domain authentication before they can upgrade their free plan. More information on SendGrid’s website here: https://docs.sendgrid.com/ui/account-and-settings/upgrading-your-plan#upgrade-your-sendgrid-plan. This also means you cannot use a free Gmail account with a paid SendGrid account unless that SendGrid account predates 9/17/2020 — because, as a gmail.com account, you cannot set up domain authentication. (It’s Google’s domain.) As soon as you log in to your SendGrid account, you’ll be directed to verify a sender, so proceed with that before the rest of this setup. If your SendGrid account was created before September 17th, 2020, then you can skip ahead to step 2.
GMass will connect without TLS/SSL to the SMTP server on the port of your choice. Sendgrid allows you to connect on ports 25 or 587. As of October 2020, you must authenticate into the Sendgrid SMTP relay with the username “apikey” (this is the same for everyone) and then your actual API key that you create from inside the SendGrid interface. Note that you cannot use the username/password that you use to log in to the SendGrid website. See below for an example. Remember: the SMTP username is always “apikey.” The SMTP server is smtp.sendgrid.net.
Go to your GMass dashboard to add the SendGrid server to your list of SMTP servers.

This is how you will set the Sendgrid server to be used in GMass.

Configure your GMass account to send with Sendgrid. You must set the username and password to be “apikey” and your actual API key. Do not enter the username/password you use to log in to SendGrid.
Ensure that open and click tracking are turned OFF. This is because GMass will add the tracking for you if you check the box for open and click tracking under Settings, and we don’t want the emails to be double tracked. Here is how the “Tracking” section of Sendgrid should look:
Ensure that Bounce Notifications are on. Set them to go to the From Address. This will allow GMass to process your bounces, just like normal. Not all SMTP services have this capability. Sendgrid and JangoSMTP do. Mailgun and Mailjet do not. Therefore this is what your Mail Settings screen in Sendgrid should look like:
We generally recommend users do NOT get a dedicated IP address with Sendgrid. We’ve spoken to high level staff at Sendgrid who have explained that dedicated IPs start off as cold IP addresses with no sending reputation. That means that initially, with a dedicated IP you’re likely to see more deliverability issues than if you use an IP address from Sendgrid’s shared pool. Here’s an article explaining the pitfalls of dedicated IPs.
We recommend that you do not get a dedicated IP with Sendgrid.
Similarly, we recommend that you do NOT whitelabel your domain either. Sendgrid highlights the deliverability advantages of a whitelisted domain, but because they force you to create a sub-domain of your domain, and don’t let you use your actual domain for the sending and signing of emails, your sub-domain will start off with no reputation and will likely cause delivery issues. Note: Some Sendgrid accounts require you to whitelabel your domain. Here’s how to get around that.

Since our beta launch a few weeks ago, several users who set up a domain whitelabel have had spam and deliverability issues, specifically where Gmail highlights the white-labeled sub-domain as the source of the spam problem.

We recommend that you do NOT set up a domain whitelabel in your Sendgrid account.
Lastly, do not set up an white-label email link either. This is equivalent to the branded tracking domain feature of GMass. Since we previously turned OFF Sendgrid’s open and click tracking in to avoid double-tracking, there’s no need to customize email links with Sendgrid.
Setting up link whitelabels is irrelevant because you should have turned OFF open and click tracking in Sendgrid, since this will be handled by GMass.

Ajay Goel

Ajay is the founder of GMass and has been developing email sending software for 20 years.

twitter.com/PartTimeSnob

Love what you're reading? Get the latest email strategy and tips & stay in touch.

Email outreach is one of the most important steps in any marketing strategy.

Whether it’s prospecting for new clients, promoting content, or conducting cold email outreach.

But when push comes to shove, the hardest part is often overlooked.

Most cold email tactics tell you to conduct lead research and compile a list of prospects to cold email.

But more often than not, simply researching a lead won’t result in a perfect list of emails.

Finding someone’s email has become harder than ever.

Most people won’t put their email on a public forum for fear of spam.

And sometimes, you can’t just ask them.

But you need their emails if you have any hope of conducting an effective outreach campaign.

Thankfully, there are several different options that you can try.

Here are six sneaky ways to find a prospect’s email address in no time.

1. How to find emails: Start with a basic LinkedIn search

One of the most overlooked ways to find an email address is probably staring you right in the face.

Don’t worry. You’re not the only one.

I’m guilty of this too.

I never thought that LinkedIn prospecting could provide the emails of cold prospects.

But one day, I was browsing LinkedIn and compiling a few targets for a segmented cold outreach campaign.

I was solely researching their interests and pain points when I noticed that dozens of them put their emails on public display on LinkedIn.

As you could probably guess, this came as a shock to me.

But it’s true: Some prospects will put their emails directly on LinkedIn.

To find emails, head to LinkedIn and search for your target prospect in the search bar:

Once you locate their profile, expand the contact info drop-down in the top-right corner:

You should see a dedicated email section within the social media profiles.

This tactic can be hit or miss, but it’s worth a shot.

It’s one of the fastest ways to pull up a verified, legitimate email address.

If you don’t see an email address, don’t fret.

We have you covered with a few more guaranteed ways to find your prospects’ emails.

Even another one directly on LinkedIn…

2. How to find emails: Use this sneaky plugin directly on LinkedIn

Can’t find your prospect’s email address on their LinkedIn profile?

Don’t worry about it.

It’s time to get down to business.

Finding the best prospecting tools is the name of the game when it comes to hunting down email addresses.

Basic LinkedIn searches can net quick, easy emails.

But that doesn’t always happen.

And when it doesn’t, you can’t simply give up and move on to the next one.

LinkedIn inMail isn’t going to cut it for outreach.

You need an email address.

A great next step is using one of the coolest Google Chrome plugins to date:

ContactOut.

It’s a free, Chrome-based extension that allows you to find anyone’s email address based on their social profiles.

30% of recruiters in Fortune 500 companies use ContactOut.

And according to ContactOut, you can generate 2x the responses in 85% less time with their tool.

Plus, they claim to be the best tool on the market, finding emails 61% of the time:

All of their emails are vetted, too. They’re triple-verified and are 97% accurate.

That’s pretty amazing for a free prospecting tool.

Once you’ve prospected, you can even download a list of all of the emails you collected:

You can export that information directly into a Google Sheet for later reference and automation.

To get started, head to ContactOut and download the plugin.

Install it on your Chrome browser and head to a prospect’s profile on LinkedIn.

From here you can click on the Chrome extension, and it will automatically get to work for you:

Once you click this, a box will pop up and show you the email address of your prospect:

If you click “Find more emails,” you can do a second search beyond just their personal email.

This search will automatically detect the user’s current company for an email address associated with it:

This is one of the best email prospecting tools on the web today.

Plus, it’s free.

Once you’ve conducted your email prospecting, you can click “View pipeline” on the plugin to head back to your dashboard.

This is where you can download your lead list and export it:

Simply hit “Export leads,” and you have a perfect list of contacts ready for you to email.

3. How to find emails: Use Voila Norbert with only a name and website

What if you have almost no information on a prospect?

All you know is their company website and name.

This is a common occurrence in email outreach.

You’re browsing a company website, and you scroll to the “About” page.

You notice that there’s a list of every individual in the company, including C-suite executives.

But you can’t find them on LinkedIn.

Maybe they don’t have accounts. Maybe they’re private.

But you need their emails. Fast.

I have some good news for you:

Using Voila Norbert, all you need is a full name and company website.

It’s that simple.

Voila Norbert isn’t free, which is the only downside. But signing up for a free trial can get you 50 free lead searches:

To get started, create your free account and get 50 free lead searches.

Once you create a login, all you need is a prospect’s name and website:

Enter their first and last name into the first search bar. Next, type in their company website.

When you’re ready, hit the “Go Ahead, Norbert!” button, and it will find a verified email address for you.

But Voila Norbert is more than just an email prospecting tool. It has lots of other great features, too.

If you want more information about a newly-found email, you can click on it to pull up location and social information:

It will add each new email prospect as a “Lead” in your funnel.

You can even create segmented lists based on your goals.

For example, is this prospect for content promotion?

Create a separate list and add them to it.

Then use that list to automate email campaigns.

4. How to find emails: Subscribe to their newsletter for insights (and a real email)

One of the lesser known tricks in the industry is subscribing to a prospect’s newsletter.

Not only will you get their email address, but you’ll also gain valuable insights to leverage.

Plus, they’ll probably check to see if you actually follow them.

Being genuine is critical in email outreach.

If you’re lying to prospects and being disingenuous, you’re setting yourself up for a disaster.

Personalization works best when it’s sincere.

For example, telling a prospect that you liked their latest blog post and used it to improve your own business.

That’s not something to lie about. It’s something that you should want to achieve.

And you can directly accomplish that by tapping into a prospect’s newsletter.

Now, this tactic obviously won’t work for everyone on your list.

And it’s not supposed to.

This tactic is best served for your highest-value prospects.

The ones that could send your business to new heights.

To implement this tactic, head to your prospect’s site and sign up for their newsletter or input your email anywhere you can.

That could be for anything, such as an e-book, a newsletter, or any form of lead magnet.

Now, you simply play the waiting game.

For example, I recently signed up for a checklist lead magnet on AdEspresso.

Not long after, I got an email directly from the founder of the company:

This is an effective way to collect emails from your high-value targets while also gathering insights.

Leverage the lead magnet you downloaded to genuinely email your prospect and use it as an introductory talking point.

By doing so, you’re showing that you actually care about the prospect and the content or offerings they create.

It’s an effective one-two punch to get your prospect to respond fast.

5. How to find emails: Conduct a detailed Google search

Ah, Google.

Arguably the best search engine in existence.

Most people neglect it when it comes to email outreach.

But it’s actually one of the best tools around.

If someone’s email is listed online, you can find it quickly with a Google search.

This obvious and simple method is seriously underrated and forgotten.

Google knows our website content. Meaning if an email is out there on the world wide web, it’ll find it.

To get started, you’ll need a specific Google search.

One that I’ve used countless times with great success is the following:

[full name] + [company] + “email”

Adding their company name will help you narrow down the search results dramatically.

If that doesn’t work, try replacing “email” with the “@” symbol.

Keep tweaking your searches until you find the email you’re looking for. And if you don’t find your particular prospect’s email but you do find their company always uses a standard email structure (for example, LastnameFirstInitial@company.com), you can try that out for your prospect.

Remember that if you can’t find it, you have other tools at your disposal.

You can also use this tactic as a verification tool.

Search your prospect’s email on Google to see what comes up.

If their email and company show up, you’re on the right track to perfecting your outreach list.

6. How to find emails: Just ask

Sometimes that’s all you have to do.

Prospects aren’t these scary, mythical beings that you can’t approach.

Most people are genuinely eager to learn more about you and your business.

If you focus on building relationships, all you have to do is politely ask for their email.

Whether on a social media direct message or over the phone, just asking can often net amazing results.

And more often than not, it’s actually more natural. You aren’t intimidating or scaring the prospect by sending them an email out of the blue.

Here’s a specific outreach message that I’ve used many times to get the conversation started and collect emails by just asking.

This is best used on social media platforms like LinkedIn or Twitter. Simply send them this direct message, and you’ll be on your way to collecting emails naturally:

Hey [first name],

We’ve been connected on [social media platform] for a while now.

Your content is always top notch! Loved that last post on [post topic].

I actually just covered something similar, so it was great to get your take on it too.

Any chance that I could email you about it more? I’d love to connect on [pain point / topic].

Cheers,

[your name]

This template excels at showing genuine and sincere interest in the prospect and their content.

Give it a shot today to collect emails that you simply can’t find with other methods.

Or, use it as a conversation starter instead of a cold email that can be awkward or annoying.

How to Find Emails: Final thoughts

Email outreach is amazing.

You can use it to promote new content, capture new leads, and drive more sales.

But it has one huge flaw:

You often need an email address that you haven’t collected and isn’t currently accessible to you.

And without an email, you don’t have a cold outreach strategy.

Thankfully, there are a few sneaky ways to find your prospects’ emails.

Start with a basic LinkedIn search. While it may not be the be-all and end-all of your email collection strategy, it’s a great place to start.

Next, download the ContactOut plugin for Google Chrome. It’s a free, reliable prospecting tool that gets the job done fast.

If that doesn’t work, give Voila Norbert a shot. All you need is a name and company website to generate emails.

You can even directly search on Google or direct message someone on social media.

Implement these sneaky email prospecting tactics to get a perfect list of emails fast.

And one more note: After you find the prospects’ emails and bring them into GMass (you are using GMass for your cold email, right???), GMass can automatically detect their first names just from their email addresses. And if you do have their name, make sure to personalize your cold email To header for an extra little detail that can make a big difference.

Now go out and hunt down some emails.

Ajay Goel

Ajay is the founder of GMass and has been developing email sending software for 20 years.

twitter.com/PartTimeSnob

Love what you're reading? Get the latest email strategy and tips & stay in touch.

Personalization is the name of the game when it comes to email outreach.

If you aren’t personalizing, your results are going to be subpar.

Personalized emails deliver a 6x higher transaction rate than non-personalized emails.

According to a study done by Aberdeen, personalized email messages can improve your click-through rates by 14% and your conversions by 10%.

But what is real personalization?

Beyond just [first name] and [company name]?

Most personalization aspects are the norm now.

Meaning they aren’t even a tactic. They’re commonplace.

But that also means that most real personalization tactics take too long.

They take copious amounts of research. And research takes time.

Time that you simply don’t have to waste.

Personalization can be tedious work, too. It feels like busywork that never ends.

Here are a few ways to fully personalize your email outreach while doing the minimum amount of busywork.

What real personalization looks like

Have you ever gotten an outreach email that referenced your latest article?

Or maybe one that said:

I loved your latest [blog post, social post, etc.].

That’s one of the most common personalization tactics in the book.

And while it’s a great start, it’s too common to generate abnormally high conversion rates.

It’s the easy route that many take to save as much time and effort as possible.

But the truth is:

Personalization takes a bit of time.

The only thing you can do is minimize that time with tools of the trade that are scaleable.

Real personalization comes in the form of small-talk-style conversation that would happen in the real world.

For example, talking about sports teams or life events.

Things that people actually care deeply about rather than their latest blog post.

Or talking about a book that was moving and inspirational.

These are some of the toughest things to personalize at scale, but doing so is what separates you from the rest.

For example, check out this personalization email from Yesware:

In that example, you can see deep personalization in a couple of spots:

The reference to the recipient’s own guide to structure the email
The reference to the event

It excels because it contains real, scalable personalization.

While this may seem overwhelming and time-consuming, it’s not.

With specific tools and tactics on GMass, you can personalize these efforts fast.

Meaning you don’t have to spend all day doing busywork or much research at all.

GMass has powerful, custom parameters that allow you to create any insert, similar to standard [firstname] parameters.

With GMass, you aren’t limited to basic customization of [firstname] and [lastname].

With the integration of Google Sheets, you can create any new personalization parameter you desire.

Are you ready to take your personalization to the next level with the minimum amount of busywork?

Here’s how to get started.

Step 1. Start with a Google Sheet

To get started with full personalization, you need a Google Sheet.

GMass allows you to do personalize at scale in any way that you want.

For example, you can set custom parameters like [favorite sports team] that GMass will utilize in the personalization process of your email.

All you have to do is set this up, and GMass takes care of the rest.

To get started, you need to develop a comprehensive spreadsheet.

The spreadsheet will contain everything from your prospects email to their first and last name, company, and any further personalization you want.

Open up a new spreadsheet and enter the basic information first:

Once you’ve done this, populate your leads into the spreadsheet.

Add in all of their basic contact and name information that would go in a standard outreach list.

From here you can add serious personalization efforts that you can really scale.

Meaning you don’t have to sit on the computer all day typing in new emails to send.

First, you just have to figure what personalization style you’re going for.

For example, do you want to tap into their favorite TV show? Their favorite book? Sports teams?

It all depends on what you’re going for with this campaign.

But I won’t leave you empty-handed.

One of the best personalization tactics follows a popular writing style called PAS:

Problem, agitate, solution.

Here’s a perfect example of PAS in action that you might recognize from reading blogs posts:

Problem: Personalization takes too long.

Agitate: But it generates higher conversion rates. You need it, but you can’t afford to spend all day on it.

Solution: Using XX tools will help you personalize in less time.

PAS is an old-school format that still applies today.

Sales Hacker published one of the best email templates of all time that follows this similar style:

Hi John,

I’m guessing your roof got hit by the hail storm over the weekend. [Situation/Problem]

Jess, our roofing engineer, just completed a repair audit of the building next to yours (Joe’s Plumbing) and found a way to cut repair cost by 50%. [3rd party success]

Do you want me to ask Jess to drop by and take a look at your roof? [Offer]

Best,
Dan

By leading with a problem, you’re tapping into your potential customer’s pain points perfectly.

Showing that you know, care, and can help alleviate that stress from their daily lives.

Next, you showcase social proof in the form of third-party success.

You show that you’ve been able to solve that problem for others.

Lastly, you close with an offer that doesn’t require them to pay you anything up-front.

This effectively eliminates any and all risk from the equation.

And thankfully, this is highly scalable in just minutes.

To get started scaling this template, you need to outline three major things:

1. The recipient’s pain point/situation/problem

2. An example of social proof (i.e., third-party success)

3. Your offer

The great part about these three things is how scalable they are.

When you’re developing a list for outreach, you likely have the same goal in mind:

Driving them to a sale, a signup, or something of that nature.

Now analyze the problem that you’re solving with your product.

For example, if you’re selling or attempting to get signups for an SEO e-book, you’re solving the problem of low traffic numbers.

As your situation/problem, you can write:

Getting sustainable organic traffic is nearly impossible in today’s online landscape.

Next, write out your example of success. You can even draw from case studies for this:

We recently helped a company grow their organic traffic by 30% in just one month.

Lastly, outline your offer:

We crafted this amazing, free e-book to help your business get more traffic. Would you like me to send it over?

And just like that, you’ve personalized on a whole new, scaleable level.

Head back to your Google Sheet and input those three main factors. Customize each pain point to your specific lead so that no two emails are the same:

Repeat this process until you’ve filled out each lead on your Google Sheet.

Remember that you should adjust these values for each lead, too.

If you have differentiated members on your list, simply enter new problems, success examples, and offers.

The goal here is to personalize, not mass produce.

Meaning that you should tailor each problem, success example, and offer.

You can also customize this for almost any personalized topic!

For example, you can tap into your prospect’s favorite sports teams:

Hi [first name],

I noticed that you’re a fan of the [sports team]. You must be excited about their recent [win, event, etc.], I know I am.

Now you can tie that back into your problem, success examples, and offers.

The options are limitless.

Once you’ve done that, it’s time to integrate it directly into GMass to save you tons of time and effort.

Step 2. Integrate your Google Sheet with GMass

After you’ve compiled your scaleable outreach document, head to your Gmail account and click on the Google Sheet integration:

Select the spreadsheet of your leads that you just created and upload that into GMass.

From here, navigate to the personalization settings and make sure that your custom parameters loaded properly:

You should see “Problem,” “SuccessExample,” and “Offer,” or whatever custom parameters you chose to create.

Now, use these new parameters and craft a perfectly personalized email for each member of your list.

Insert those custom parameters amongst your text to differentiate each email.

Step 3. Schedule out your campaign

The next step is to schedule out your campaigns for the best success.

On GMass, click the settings arrow to pull up your dashboard.

From here, select to schedule out your emails for a specific date and time.

According to CoSchedule, the best time and date to send an email is Tuesday at 10 a.m.

Be sure to schedule your email campaign in advance for the best performance possible.

I personally recommend cutting your email list into two separate Google Sheets.

This will allow you to test two different times to see which performs best.

It’s a small scale A/B test that can give you some powerful insight into how timing will impact your success with your targets.

Lastly, you need to automate if you want to reduce busywork.

Here’s how.

Step 4. Set up auto responses

Drip email campaigns are the bread and butter of automation and time-saving tools.

Personalization takes a long time.

Especially when it’s genuine.

And we know that genuine content and messaging get the best results.

But sending multiple campaigns is busywork.

It’s boring, tedious, and takes hours of manual labor.

Thankfully, you can automate your campaigns with GMass to keep sending emails if certain targets aren’t responding.

Unfortunately, not all leads will respond to the first contact email.

Meaning you need an automated system to send multiple emails until they do respond.

In GMass, you can quickly set this up for your new personalization-based campaign.

Before you send your next campaign, head to the GMass settings and enable the auto follow-up feature:

This will allow you to create multiple “Stages” of emails directed at targets who aren’t responding:

Customize each stage with the goal of getting them to come back and respond.

This should save you tons of time and money that you would otherwise spend writing replies to all your leads.

Final thoughts…

Personalization is necessary.

We all know that.

But it takes far too long to implement in a scalable way.

It takes real research to personalize beyond typical [first name] parameters.

And research takes time that you simply don’t have to waste or offer.

You need to focus on a few personalization tactics that will net you the majority of your results with the least amount of busywork.

The way to start is by creating a customized spreadsheet with all of your lead contacts.

In this spreadsheet, focus on detailed personalization parameters that you can customize.

For example, you can add favorite sports teams, tv shows, books, or anything you can think of.

Try combining that with a formulaic approach that focuses on solving the user’s problem.

Implement this into a new, schedule-based campaign that incorporates drip emails.

It should only take you an hour to set up for hundreds of leads, leaving you the entire day to sit back and watch the responses flood in.

Personalization is changing daily, and keeping up is stressful. Put these tips to use and develop better personalization that lands clients in less time.

Ajay Goel

Ajay is the founder of GMass and has been developing email sending software for 20 years.

twitter.com/PartTimeSnob

Love what you're reading? Get the latest email strategy and tips & stay in touch.

Email open rates aren’t amazing. We all know that.

Especially when it comes to cold emails or reaching someone for the first time.

But all of that is about to change.

Gmail recently released native, mail-based ads directly into AdWords after beta testing them for a few years.

Now you can deliver display-network-style ads directly into a user’s Gmail inbox.

It allows businesses to interact and engage with users like we’ve never seen before.

When you want to reach someone that you normally can’t, these ads are a perfect way to do it.

They stand out from typical emails in an inbox, so if your prospect isn’t responding, these ads are a great way to drive engagement.

In this post, I’ll walk you through what Gmail ads are, how to set them up, and most importantly:

How to run a Gmail ad campaign that generates a massive return on investment.

Let’s jump in!

What are Gmail ads?

Gmail has more than one billion monthly active users, making it an email haven for countless companies and users around the world.

And now, the platform has gotten even better for advertisers.

In September of 2015, Gmail introduced native ads for all AdWords advertisers on the Display Network.

They worked in beta testing for multiple years with advertisers to figure out how to extend their email marketing and advertising strategies.

Now they’re available for any advertiser to use, which is fantastic.

Gmail ads are targeted ads based on account activity, and they appear within the promotions tab of a given inbox:

These promotions tab ads come in one standard format that Gmail claims is the best in performance.

From beta testing, they’ve reduced the number of ads. So, to increase your open rates, they’ll show fewer ads but make sure that they are more specifically targeted.

Currently, you can set up one format of Gmail ads directly within AdWords, called the “collapsed ad” that contains an “expanded ad unit.”

The collapsed ad is what users see initially in their promotions inbox, mimicking the traditional look of an email:

The Gmail ad will display at the top of the inbox with a yellow “Ad” label to distinguish it from the rest of the content.

When a user clicks on the ad, it expands directly within the inbox:

Advertisers looking to take advantage of these ads can choose from multiple customizable templates for the expanded portion.

Gmail allows users to use single images, highlight promotions, use a CTA button, and even showcase multiple products or offers with the use of a single ad.

For tech-savvy users, the custom HTML format offers flexibility to control your assets and create a rich experience using videos, forms, multiple links, and more.

For example, here’s a sample expanded ad unit based on Gmail’s current templated offerings:

It includes multiple products and CTAs along with promotions.

So, how does the audience targeting work?

It taps into the already-existing display network tools like keywords, affinity audiences, demographics, and more.

Do you sell SEO services? You can target specific topics like “content marketing” or “search engine optimization” to show your ads to relevant customers.

Gmail ads are already proving to have big impacts. Renaissance Hotels has seen a 25% longer time on site and an 18% increase in pageviews per visit from their first few campaigns.

Are you ready to run a high ROI Gmail ad campaign?

Here’s how to set yourself up for success.

How to set up Gmail ads

Gmail ads are extremely easy to set up right within your existing AdWords account.

To get started, all you need is an active AdWords account with your credit card or payment system linked.

Head to the campaigns section and create a new one.

Be sure to select the display network, as this is the only network that is currently compatible with Gmail-based ads.

Clicking the display network as your campaign type will bring up a few different objectives and goals.

Currently, only three of the five goals on the display network will support Gmail ads.

Those include sales, leads, and website traffic:

Choose one of these three ads, and you’ll notice that your campaign subtype options will change.

Be sure to select “Gmail campaign” from the subtype list rather than a standard display network campaign:

From here, you can customize your audience just like you’d do for a standard display campaign.

Select specific keywords or audience functions like affinity groups or intent and life events.

You can even choose remarketing if that’s your goal:

Next, scroll down to the bottom after inputting your bidding and budget information.

Under the ad creation section, click “+ New Ad”:

From the drop-down list, select “+ Gmail ad”:

Now you can start to create a beautiful ad directly on AdWords that is optimized for both mobile and desktop experiences on Gmail.

You can add your business name, a headline, a description, your landing page, and your valuable assets like images and video content.

Clicking “More Options” will allow you to add a custom teaser, create call to actions, and even adjust the color options:

The “Custom teaser” option enables you to add more headline content including a custom offer or discount:

This is the main hub where you can create and edit your Gmail ads.

Now that you know the basics of getting your Gmail ads going, it’s time to dive into specific ways you can produce a sky-high return on investment with this ad format.

Tips for a higher ROI with Gmail Ads

Setting up Gmail ads is the easy part.

But producing a high return on investment in new mediums is tricky.

Flying blind will require you to test the waters for weeks (if not months) all while draining your budget on mostly failed tactics.

Here are a few ways to guarantee yourself a high ROI with Gmail ads.

Improve your open rates for cheaper ad costs

One of the best ways to reduce your ad spend on any platform is to improve the quality score of your ads.

That’s true of the AdWords search network, display network, Facebook, and Twitter.

Each platform sees a massive boost in performance with simultaneous decreases in costs when you optimize your quality score.

Unfortunately for Gmail-based ads, you currently can’t see the quality score of your ads.

But that doesn’t mean you can’t infer if it’s high or not.

Instead, start by looking at your open rates.

It’s the click-through rate from unexpanded ad to expanded ad.

If it’s low, you’ll want to improve it.

Larry Kim of WordStream conducted a study on the relationship between cost per click and click-through rate (open rate) on Gmail-based ads.

He found a strong correlation between the two:

The higher the click-through/open rates were, the lower the cost per click.

Bad open rates? Your costs will be through the roof.

Advertisers with an open rate less than 5% were seeing costs approaching or surpassing a dollar.

Meanwhile, the top advertisers were paying less than 20 cents per click.

The difference is shocking and can lead to huge increases or decreases in return on investment.

So, what does this all mean?

It means that audience targeting and optimizing your offer for that audience is crucial for a high ROI.

You can’t risk targeting an audience who doesn’t want what you have to offer.

That’s only going to sink your ROI and deplete your budget.

To combat this, dial in all of your audience targeting features within each ad setup on Gmail ads.

For example, make sure that each audience you target gets their own customized offer that’s guaranteed to resonate with them.

To do this, start by targeting keywords related to your offer:

For each different ad, you’ll want to target different keyword sets.

This way you can get as specific as possible with each offer rather than just targeting a broad group of “marketing” related users.

Next, specify that audience in more detail by including affinity groups:

Affinity groups will narrow down your audience to only include users who have dedicated interests.

If you combine this approach with intent and life-event targeting, you can narrow your pool a bit more, creating a hyper-specific audience:

Lastly, cap your audience off with demographic-based targeting:

With Gmail ads, you can target by gender, age, parental status, and household income.

For example, if you sell a product geared toward parents, you can eliminate tons of non-parents with a simple click.

Household income allows you to only target audiences who are most likely (or able) to buy from you.

Remember: bigger isn’t always better.

Having a massive 1,000,000-user audience might sound amazing, but if your product is specific, it’s not.

You want a smaller, targeted list of users who will open your ads at high rates and drive your cost per click down.

Boost your open rate more with your own best practices

Chances are, you’ve already conducted some form of email marketing.

So even if you haven’t created a specific Gmail ad before, you likely have experience with email-based campaigns.

MarketingProfs found that email is ranked the best in terms of channels that drive leads for marketers:

Odds are, email marketing is a commonplace tactic for you.

Meaning you have an idea of what works and what gets you a 0.001% open rate.

A great way to increase your open rate is to follow those same practices.

Depending on which analytics software you use, you can analyze which email campaigns have performed best.

Maybe you even recall what they were.

Simply take those existing subject lines and the content within the body of those emails and use them for your next Gmail ad!

You can place the subject line as your new headline to grab attention from users fast.

What worked for you on regular email marketing campaigns can carry over well to Gmail ads.

Test constantly

With any new advertising platform comes confusion.

What works? What doesn’t?

The truth is:

You’ll never know what works for your audience until you try it.

Thankfully, cost per clicks on Gmail are relatively cheap in comparison to typical search network costs.

Most advertisers aren’t paying 20 or 30 bucks a click.

Most are paying just a few bucks or less.

Meaning you can run a few small-scale tests and double down on the ones that show promise early on.

On the display network, create multiple ads for each campaign that you run:

Simply add a new ad to your ad group and see which ad performs best.

Remember: keep the audience targeting the same here. All you want to test is specific variables like headlines and offers.

See which headlines produce a better open rate.

Or, conduct a test to see if coupons and sales-based offers resonate better with your audience.

Always be sure to test one specific variable at a time to pinpoint what changes are causing increases or decreases in your sales.

Testing is the key to producing a high performing, ROI-generating Gmail ad campaign.

Final thoughts…

Reaching customers via email is becoming harder and harder.

Inboxes are more cluttered than ever, and people are getting more emails than ever before.

But you still need to reach those prospects if you have any hopes of growing your business.

With new Gmail-based ads, you can now target your ideal customers with ads directly in their inboxes.

Instead of getting lost in the sea of emails, your ad will display at the top of the inbox, giving you diverse options for converting traffic.

You can include diverse elements like video, product sales and customizable calls to action.

When implementing Gmail ads, work to improve your ROI by refining your audience targeting and boosting your open rate.

Take what you’ve learned from your previous successful email marketing campaigns and put it into practice here. To produce the best ROI possible with Gmail ads, you need to focus on driving your open rates higher.

If you put these pointers into practice, you can run a successful Gmail ad campaign that yields a high ROI.

Ajay Goel

Ajay is the founder of GMass and has been developing email sending software for 20 years.

twitter.com/PartTimeSnob

Love what you're reading? Get the latest email strategy and tips & stay in touch.

We’ve launched a few enhancements to our popular auto follow-up email feature, which allows you to automatically send follow-ups to people until they reply to (or click, or open) your original message.

1. There’s often been confusion between canceling a campaign versus canceling its auto follow-ups. Now, if you cancel a campaign in progress, but it still has auto follow-ups applied, you’ll be shown a warning so you’re aware.

2. Sometimes users accidentally delete the DRAFT for a campaign, and once the DRAFT is deleted, it’s difficult to cancel auto follow-up emails, because you have to restore the DRAFT and then cancel or modify the auto follow-ups. Now, there are additional ways to cancel auto follow-ups, if you don’t want to find the campaign DRAFT first. You can also apply an emergency stop to all auto follow-ups for your account.

3. Finally, if GMass detects that you’ve deleted a campaign DRAFT where the campaign still has pending auto follow-up emails, you’ll be proactively alerted within a few hours.

Ajay Goel

Ajay is the founder of GMass and has been developing email sending software for 20 years.

twitter.com/PartTimeSnob

Love what you're reading? Get the latest email strategy and tips & stay in touch.