TL;DR
Start with Apollo.io or LinkedIn Sales Navigator to build a list from your ICP criteria. Enrich it through Clay or a waterfall of data providers for verified emails. Target trigger events — recent funding, new hires, job postings — to catch companies in active buying moments.
Great cold email starts with great lists. Bad targeting is the #1 reason cold email fails — not the copy.
Step 1: Define your ICP precisely before building a list. Industry, employee count, funding stage, geography, tech stack, job titles in the buying committee. The tighter the ICP, the higher your reply rates. "B2B companies" is not an ICP. "Series A–B SaaS companies, 30–150 employees, US-based, using Salesforce, with at least one SDR" is.
Step 2: Build your initial list in Apollo.io or Sales Navigator. Apollo has 270M+ contacts and strong filtering — you can build a list of 1,000 qualified prospects in under 30 minutes at the $49/month tier. Sales Navigator is better for very specific targeting (exact company size + seniority + industry) and is worth the $100/month if you're doing serious volume.
Step 3: Layer trigger events for prioritization. The best cold email hits a prospect at the moment they actually have the problem. Trigger events to watch: recent Series A/B funding (growth mode, hiring), new VP/C-suite hire (evaluating new tools), job posting for roles in your category (they're building the function you help with), recent press coverage of the problem you solve. Clay pulls these signals automatically.
Step 4: Enrich for valid emails. Even good data has stale emails. Run your list through waterfall enrichment: Apollo → Clearbit → Hunter.io → Datagma, using the first valid result from each. Clay does this automatically. Expect 80–90% email coverage on a clean ICP list.
Step 5: Validate before sending. Run your list through ZeroBounce or NeverBounce to remove invalid emails. Sending to bad emails burns your domain reputation. Keep bounce rate under 3%.
The advanced play: Build Claygent workflows that auto-research prospects overnight. When you wake up, you have 200 accounts enriched with company news, LinkedIn activity, and AI-generated personalization angles. This is how you hit 10%+ reply rates at scale.
From Cactus: Cactus uses Clay-powered workflows to build and enrich prospect lists for clients — combining ICP filtering, trigger event detection, and waterfall enrichment to produce lists that convert 3x better than raw Apollo exports.
Cactus Marketing embeds with B2B tech startups to turn strategy into pipeline. We've worked with 60+ companies, supported 12 exits, and contributed to $7B+ in client valuations.
Book a free 30-minute call — we'll give you a concrete plan for your situation.
Book a free strategy call →How do I write a cold email that gets replies?
Write one sentence that's specifically about them, one sentence on their problem, one on your solution, and one CTA. The email should be under 80 words, reference something real about their company, and ask a yes-or-no question at the end.
What is a good cold email reply rate?
A good cold email reply rate is 3–8% for a broad ICP campaign and 8–15% for a highly personalized, trigger-event-based campaign. Anything above 15% with meaningful volume is excellent. Below 2% means something fundamental is wrong — ICP, targeting, or the email itself.
How many cold emails should I send per day?
New domains should warm up for 2–4 weeks before sending real campaigns, starting at 10–20 emails/day and capping out at 30–50/day per domain for sustained campaigns. With multiple warmed domains running in rotation, total volume can reach 500–2,000+/day without domain damage.
How do I warm up an email domain?
Buy a new domain, set up Google Workspace or Microsoft 365, configure SPF/DKIM/DMARC, then use a warm-up tool (Instantly, Smartlead) to automatically exchange emails with a network of inboxes over 3–4 weeks before sending real cold email.