Cold Email
Cold email is unsolicited email sent to someone with no prior relationship. It is not the same as lifecycle, transactional or opted-in marketing email.
Cold email is an unsolicited email sent to someone who has not asked to hear from you and has no active relationship with your company. It is used for sales prospecting, partnerships, recruiting and similar outreach.
It is not lifecycle, transactional or permission-based marketing email. The recipient may not recognize the sender, so relevance, honest identification and a working opt-out matter more than volume.
Cold email vs opt-in email
Email type | Relationship | Typical trigger | Main risk |
|---|---|---|---|
Cold email | No prior opt-in or active relationship | Sender-initiated outreach | Spam complaints and compliance mistakes |
Marketing email | Recipient subscribed or opted in | Campaign or lifecycle program | Unsubscribe and relevance management |
Transactional email | User action or account event | Product, billing, login, or security event | Reliability and account trust |
Keep these types apart. Cold outreach that collects complaints should not share a domain or sending setup with product receipts, password resets or customer lifecycle email.
Why cold email is risky
People who did not ask for a message have less reason to trust it and more reason to report it. Purchased or scraped lists often contain invalid addresses and people who will complain. If outreach and account-critical email share infrastructure, one bad campaign can affect the mail customers expect.
Consent rules differ by country. In the United States, commercial email must meet CAN-SPAM requirements: accurate headers, honest subject lines, a postal address, and an opt-out honored within 10 business days. The law makes no exception for business-to-business email. In Canada, CASL requires express or implied consent before a commercial message is sent, and the sender must be able to prove it.
If you send cold email anyway
Use a separate domain from transactional, billing, login and lifecycle mail.
Identify yourself accurately in the From, Reply-To and subject line. Do not fake a reply or a forwarded thread.
Send to a narrow audience where the reason for contact is obvious from the first line.
Include a clear way to opt out and honor it.
Remove bounces and opt-outs before the next send.
What cold email should not be used for
Password resets, receipts, verification and security alerts belong in a reliable product-email flow, not in outreach tooling. Cold prospects should not be imported into the same lifecycle program as opted-in users. A public email address is not permission to receive any campaign.
How Loops fits
Loops is built for software teams sending transactional, marketing, and lifecycle email to users and customers. Use Loops for product-triggered email, opted-in newsletters, onboarding, trial conversion, product updates, and lifecycle workflows. Keep high-risk cold outreach separate from account-critical sending.
Related pages: CAN-SPAM, email deliverability, transactional emails, email API, and marketing email.
FAQ
Is cold email the same as spam?
No, but cold email becomes spam in practice when it is irrelevant, deceptive, sent to poor-quality lists, or sent without a clear opt-out.
Is cold email legal?
It depends on the country, audience and consent basis. In the United States, commercial email must follow CAN-SPAM. In Canada, CASL requires express or implied consent. Get legal advice for your specific situation.
Should cold email use the same domain as transactional email?
No. Keep outreach separate from domains used for password resets, receipts, verification emails and other account-critical mail.
Can Loops send cold email?
Loops is designed for software teams sending transactional, marketing, and lifecycle email to users and customers. High-risk cold outreach should stay separate from account-critical and opted-in customer email.