How to launch your first cold outreach campaign

This guide shows how to prepare and launch your first cold outreach campaign in Snov.io without hurting deliverability.

You’ll follow the full setup flow: prepare sender accounts, warm them up, build a targeted prospect list, write your sequence, launch the campaign, and monitor early results before scaling.

Set up your domains and mailboxes

Your first campaign starts with the right sending setup. This is the foundation for deliverability and long-term outreach results.

Keep your setup simple at first. Use 2–3 sender domains, with up to 5 mailboxes per domain.

With 2 domains and 5 mailboxes per domain, a limit of 10 campaign emails per mailbox per day lets you contact around 100 prospects per day. After about a month of careful ramp-up, you can increase the volume if your deliverability and reply rates stay healthy.

What to do in Snov.io:

Go to Email Accounts, click Add email account, and choose how you want to connect your mailboxes.

Connect your existing accounts

You can connect mailboxes you already use:

• Google Workspace or Microsoft Outlook: use direct sign-in for a faster API connection
• Other providers: connect through SMTP/IMAP

Purchase done-for-you mailboxes

If you don’t have sender accounts ready, you can buy done-for-you mailboxes in Snov.io. You can use them together with your existing accounts. Warm them up in advance so you have ready-to-use senders when you need to scale.

Prepare mailbox settings

Before you use any mailbox in a campaign, check the sender settings that affect deliverability.

What to do in Snov.io:

Go to Email Accounts, click Edit next to a mailbox, then scroll to Optional settings.

Add a custom tracking domain

If you plan to track opens or clicks, set up a custom tracking domain. This makes tracking safer and reduces the risk that email providers will flag your emails as suspicious.

Control daily sending limits

When you connect a mailbox, Snov.io applies safe campaign limits to help you avoid spam filters.

Sending limits directly affect deliverability. A safe total limit is around 50 emails per day per mailbox, split between campaign emails and warm-up emails.

First week of the campaign:

• 15 campaign emails per day for Gmail accounts
• 5 campaign emails per day for Microsoft accounts
• 40 warm-up emails per day

Each following week:

Increase campaign sending gradually and monitor deliverability.

• Add 5 emails to campaign sending
• Remove 5 emails from warm-up

What to do in Snov.io:

To update limits in bulk, go to Email Accounts, select one or more mailboxes with checkboxes, then click Edit → Daily sending limit. In the left-side panel, enter the campaign limit in Messages per day.

Warm-up emails don’t appear in the sending limit in Email Accounts, where only campaign emails are counted. Still, warm-up emails are real emails. They count toward the total daily volume your mailbox sends.

Check sender health

After your sender accounts are connected, check their technical health before starting warm-up.

Fix any detected issues before starting warm-up. If DNS records are missing or incorrect, they may affect the warm-up process and future campaign performance.

What to do in Snov.io:

Go to the Domain Health tab and run a test for each sender account you plan to use.

Check these results:

• Domain Health: aim for 100%
• DNS records: make sure SPF, DKIM, DMARC, MX, and CNAME are configured correctly

Warm up your mailboxes

Warm up your accounts to improve deliverability and build sender reputation with email providers.

Add accounts to warm-up

Start warm-up right after connecting your accounts. Both existing accounts and done-for-you mailboxes need warm-up before campaigns.

Make sure you have available warm-up slots. You can check it in the Billing settings. The number of email accounts you can warm up at the same time depends on your plan.

You can start warm-up in two ways: quick launch or manual configuration with advanced settings.

Use quick launch to start warm-up in one click for one or multiple accounts at once. We’ll automatically select the optimal preset for each account based on recent activity.

Click the quick launch button under Warm-up for a specific account.

To launch warm-up in bulk:

In the Email Accounts list, select accounts with checkboxes on the right, and click Start warm-up in the top panel.

To review progress or adjust warm-up settings, go to the Email Warm-up dashboard.

Recommended warm-up presets

For new or low-activity accounts:

Progressive strategy: gradual ramp-up during the first month.

• Starts with 2 emails on the first day
• Increases by 2 emails per day
• Ramps up to the warm-up goal: 40 emails/day recommended

For active accounts already used in outreach for more than a month:

Steady strategy: fixed daily warm-up to maintain deliverability. Sends the same number of warm-up emails every day: 10 emails/day recommended.

Build a targeted prospect list

Your first campaign should not start with a large list.

At this stage, your goal is to validate your sending setup, targeting, and message. Start with one clear ICP and one segment.

Define your ICP

Choose one customer profile and one value angle for the campaign.

What to do in Snov.io:

Go to Products & ICPs and enter your product description. Snov.io will suggest possible customer profiles you can use for targeting.

Collect prospects

Use your ICP details to find prospects that match your target segment.

What to do in Snov.io:

Go to Database Search. Add filters such as job title, management level, department, industry, location, or company size. Save the best-matching prospects to your list.

Check list health

Before launching the campaign, make sure your list is safe to use. A healthy list has enough verified emails and a low share of risky addresses.

What to do in Snov.io:

Go to Prospects, open your list, and check email statuses.

Remove risky addresses that can increase bounce rate or affect sender reputation.

• Unverifiable emails have a higher bounce risk. Use them carefully, in small batches, and monitor bounce rate closely
• Invalid emails are excluded from campaigns automatically, but it’s still better to keep your list clean

If you imported the list from another source, verify all email addresses before launch.

Write your email copy

Your first sequence needs one initial email and 2–3 follow-ups. Write the copy before you build the campaign, so you can focus on setup and testing inside the campaign builder.

Draft emails with AI

Use AI Studio to create the first draft faster.

AI Email Writer uses your product description and ICP profile to generate email copy. It also suggests unique selling points to offer the right value for your prospect's pain points.

What to do in Snov.io:

Go to AI Studio, generate a few draft options and choose the best version.

Create your campaign

Your first campaign does not need a complex flow. Start with a short sequence that helps you test your setup, understand what gets replies, and learn what to improve before scaling.

What to do in Snov.io:

Go to Campaigns → Create a new campaign → Sequence.

In the sequence builder, add steps from the right-side panel. You can also start with sequence templates and customize them for your offer.

Build a basic sequence

For your first campaign, use a simple sequence.

Recommended structure:

• 1 initial email
• 2–3 follow-ups
• 2–3 days between follow-ups

Write emails directly in the editor or use the templates you created in AI Studio.

For the first campaign, avoid overcomplicating the flow. Add A/B tests, behavioral triggers, and advanced conditions later, after you understand how a basic campaign performs.

Optimize email content

For the first email:

• Avoid images
• Avoid links
• Avoid attachments
• Use plain text when possible

For follow-ups, use no more than one extra element per email if needed, such as one link or one image.

Recommended email length:

• Subject line: around 5–6 words
• First email: 50–100 words
• Follow-ups: 20–50 words

Test email copy and placement

After your email copy is ready, run a deliverability test to check how the actual message performs in inbox placement.

Here, you’re testing the email content itself: the subject line, body copy, links, formatting, spam score, and inbox placement.

The test can also show sender-related risks, such as Sender IP score and blacklist status, but the main goal at this stage is to check how your email copy performs.

• Sender IP score: shows the health of IP addresses used by your provider
• Blacklist status: shows whether your domain or sender IP is on any blacklist

What to do in Snov.io:

Go to Deliverability Check, insert your email copy, and run the test.

Check these results:

• Spam score: make sure the email does not trigger spam filters
• Spam words: remove or rewrite risky wording
• Inbox placement: check whether the email lands in inbox, spam, or promotions
• Provider-level results: review Gmail and Outlook separately, since each provider may treat the same email differently

If the email lands in spam for some providers, simplify the copy. Remove links, images, attachments, heavy formatting, or overly promotional wording. Then run the test again before launch.

Choose tracking options

Open and click tracking can give you useful engagement data, but it may affect deliverability and is disabled by default.

If you use tracking, you can add behavioral triggers to the sequence. Conditions help you create separate paths for interested and unengaged prospects. For your first campaign, use them only if you already understand how the basic flow works.

What to do in Snov.io:

In campaign settings, go to Sending options and choose what you want to track. If you enable open or click tracking, make sure you’ve set up a custom tracking domain.

Add sending schedule

Send emails during your prospects’ working hours. If your prospects are in different time zones, segment them by location and create separate campaigns with the right schedules.

A good starting schedule is:

• 2-hour sending window in the morning
• 2-hour sending window in the afternoon

Create schedule presets on the Schedules page, then apply the right preset in Sending options.

Stop follow-ups after a reply

When a prospect replies, the sequence stops for that person automatically. If you contact multiple people from the same company, you can also stop follow-ups to everyone from that company after one person replies.

What to do in Snov.io:

In campaign settings, go to Sending options → Campaign duration and turn on Stop after a company reply.

Advanced campaign settings

Once your first campaign is running and you understand the results, you can improve your outreach with more advanced settings.

Add multiple sender accounts

When you decide you need more volume, use multiple sender accounts in rotation to automatically distribute campaign emails across them.

Only add warmed-up accounts. Keep up to 5 senders per domain and make sure each mailbox follows the recommended daily limit.

What to do in Snov.io:

In campaign settings, go to Sending options and choose the email accounts you want to use for mailbox rotation.

Enable provider matching

Provider matching helps send emails within the same provider ecosystem when possible.

For example, Gmail senders can be matched with Gmail recipients, and Outlook senders with Outlook recipients.

What to do in Snov.io:

• Use filters on the Prospects page to check how many prospects use Gmail, Outlook, or other providers. Add sender accounts from at least two providers
• Go to Sending options → Advanced settings and enable Provider matching

Insert dynamic content

If your list includes different roles, industries, or seniority levels, use Dynamic content to personalize the email.

What to do in Snov.io:

In the email editor, open the Variables menu and choose Dynamic content. Select a condition, such as job position, then add text variants for each audience group.

Enable plain text mode

In the email editor, switch to plain text to remove extra formatting.

Add Spintax

You can also add Spintax from the Variables menu to randomize parts of your copy. This helps make your emails less repetitive to avoid spam filters.

Launch the campaign and monitor results

After launch, check your campaign metrics daily. Your early results show whether you can scale, pause, or adjust the campaign.

Start with these metrics:

• Reply rate: aim for 5–10%
• Bounce rate: aim for 5% or lower

Check campaign statistics

What to do in Snov.io:

Go to Campaigns to see a live summary of each active campaign. Open a campaign to view the full Statistics dashboard with sends, opens, replies, and bounces.

You can also read the guide on campaign metrics.

Scale carefully after launch

Do not use the full daily limit for campaign emails right away. Keep warm-up running in the background with around 10 warm-up emails per day per sender account.

Use reply rate as your main signal for scaling.

• If reply rate stays at 5% or higher, increase campaign sending by 5 emails per day per mailbox each week
• If reply rate drops below 5%, reduce the daily limit by a few emails and review your targeting or copy

After launch, use Deliverability Check as an ongoing monitoring tool. Run tests weekly or before increasing daily limits to make sure your sender accounts are still healthy.

What to do in Snov.io:

Go to Deliverability Check and run a test for every sender account used in your campaign.

• Inbox rate below 95%: reduce campaign emails for this account and increase warm-up
• Spam rate of 10% or more: pause this sender and replace it with a warmed-up backup mailbox

Prioritize prospects by sentiment

After your campaign starts getting engagement, focus on the prospects most likely to convert.

Even without open or link tracking, you can filter prospects by their replies: interested, neutral, or not interested.

What to do in Snov.io:

Open your campaign and go to the Recipients tab. Use the Filter menu to find prospects who showed interest. Then you can move them to a separate list, export them to CSV, or create CRM deals.

See the detailed guide on exporting recipient data from campaigns.

Monitor replies in Unibox

When replies start coming in, you can manage communication from all your inboxes in one place.

What to do in Snov.io:

Go to Unibox and sync your outreach accounts.

Next steps: Optimize, test and scale

If you’re not getting the engagement you hoped for at first, don’t be discouraged. It’s common for outreach campaigns to take time to gain traction.

Moving forward, an essential part of the process will be optimizing your setup and troubleshooting any issues that may arise.

Here are a few tips to help you along the way.

If the open rate is low:

• Use A/B tests to test different subject lines or offer angles. For a clean test, change only one element at a time. For example, test two subject lines or two opening lines
• Run email placement tests again: if your emails still land in spam during tests, pause the campaign for a few days and perform another warm-up
• Double-check the sending schedule: contacting the prospect at the wrong time may mean they won’t notice your email

If the reply rate is low:

• Improve your email/message copy: test different variations with your prospects in mind. A/B testing can help identify what engages your prospects better. Even small changes can make a big difference
• Review your prospect list and collect more leads that match your ICP

Tips for scaling campaigns

• Scale sending only with good engagement: Monitor campaign stats like open rate, reply rate, and bounce rate. If engagement is low, simply adding more prospects is unlikely to bring results. Instead, pause the campaign and see what you can improve in your lead targeting or email copy. During this time, keep the warm-up active
• Increase volume using multiple domains: Rather than just ramping up the limits on existing accounts, create and prepare more accounts to use in mailbox rotation
• Always prepare new accounts: Set up domain records, do a warm-up, and run deliverability tests