1. Is Cold Email Spam?

Cold email is not spam. Spammy emails land in the spam inbox folder while legitimate cold emails land in the primary inbox of the recipient.

Picture showing the main difference between Cold Email and Spam

Here 10 key differences between cold email versus spam.

2. Why Cold Email is not Spam

Cold email is not spam for many reasons.

Key difference 1: cold emails land in the primary inbox

I think that's the most obvious difference between cold email and spam. If Google, Outlook & other email providers algorithms don't put your received emails in the spam folder, are they spam?

I don't know you but most cold emails I receive that go to my main inbox are emails that could interest my business and I.

Bad cold emails are spam and go to the spam folders. Average cold emails go the promotions section.

People build relationships before sending cold emails

Key difference 2: spammers send thousands of emails a day

People who send cold emails are generally sales representatives (SDRs & BDRs). Salespeople always try to create meaningful relationships with their target customers. Therefore, they're not sending many emails a day.

Example of a cold email sequence that is sent step by step

Meanwhile, spammers are most of the times scammers selling B2C products or weird courses. That's why they send so many spammy emails in the thousands to at least convert a few into paying customers.

Key difference 3: cold emails are targeted, not spam emails

Cold emails target specific people. That way, the sales pitch made within the cold email must always interest its recipient.

On the opposite, spam emails are send in blast without any segmenting by location or industry.

Like this picture, you need to divide your ICP in multiple ones

Key difference 4: spam emails have too much links, not cold emails

It's relatively easy to spot spam emails compare to traditional cold emails. Spam emails have tons of links and also spam words such as: free, 50% off, try now and so on.

Spam emails are not friendly, cold emails are.

This is an example an email that landed in my spam folder: full of links

Key difference 5: spam emails are awfully long, not cold emails

A good cold email is under 75 words while spam emails are awfully long, sometimes averaging more than 200 words.

Long length is one of the best features of a spammy email. Go to your spam folder, you'll see how awful these emails are.

This is an example of a long email I received in my spam folder

Key difference 6: cold emails are personalized compare to spams

Cold emails can be personalized in two ways:

• you do good prospects segmentation so you can personalize at micro-scale your cold outbound

• you hyper-personalize each of your cold email

When people receive personalized cold emails, they never complain.

Spam emails are not personalized, not even the slightest.

People are fed up with non personalized cold emails

Key difference 7: cold emails have unsubscribe links

Spam emails are not GDPR compliant or legal friendly in general. They don't propose you to unsubscribe to their email list or whatsoever.

Cold emails are mostly legal friendly, by using unsubscribe links or by proposing to be removed from the list in a PS line.

Unsubscribe links can reduce your deliverability though, be careful

Key difference 8: spammy emails are sent in blast

While cold emails are send step by step, for example every two minutes, spam emails are send all at once.

Imagine someone sending 2 million emails all at once. That's spam, not cold email. This kind of practices were really common in the beginning of the web, especially in the early 2000s.

Example of spam words than can send you to the spam folder

Unfortunately people still reproduce this kind of practice now that there are probably 10,000 times people more on the internet and probably 50,000 times more emails being sent every day.

Key difference 9: cold email sequences stop when there is a reply

Cold emails respect their recipients by being no longer sent when there is a reply from the recipient which is not the case with emails sent from spammers.

Their emailing list is so big that they won't bother to remove you from their list.

Example of a cold email sequence in Breakcold

Key difference 10: cold emails are sent by real humans

With the rise of AI, more and more spammy emails are being sent from AI email softwares automatically which reduce even more the quality of the emails sent.

Cold emails are written by humans. Yes, some of them use templates that are not exceptional but still it's something!

3. Other questions about Cold Email vs Spam

These are some regular questions about cold email vs spam I saw on internet.

How to send cold emails that are not labeled as spam?

Pretty simple, follow the best practices about cold emailing that we wrote in this guide and use an email warm up software to boost your email deliverability.

Email warm up tools can help you remove some cold emails to the spam folder

Why people say that cold emailing is spam?

We can't blame people who think that cold emailing is spam because they receive poorly written emails almost every day. But that's good news! It means that you can easily stand out!