Cold email
An unsolicited email to a recipient with whom the sender has no prior relationship — typically for outreach or sales.
Cold email is email sent to a recipient with whom the sender has no prior relationship, typically for outreach, sales, or networking. Distinct from spam in that cold email is research-driven, individually relevant, and sent in low volume — though the line is legally and operationally fuzzy.
In the US, cold email is governed by CAN-SPAM, which permits unsolicited commercial email provided certain rules are followed (clear sender identification, accurate subject line, valid physical address, working unsubscribe). In the EU and UK, GDPR and PECR require an opt-in or legitimate interest justification for B2C cold email. B2B cold email under GDPR is permissible under legitimate-interest grounds when the recipient's professional role makes the message relevant.
Effective cold email is specific, brief, value-led, and has a low-friction ask. Reply rates above 10% are considered strong; above 20% is unusual. The single biggest determinant of reply rate is relevance — generic outreach to mass lists fails; researched outreach to small lists converts.