Week 1

Infrastructure

Set this up on Day 1. Then don’t touch it for 3 weeks. Your only job right now is to start the warmup clock.

Step 1: Buy Domains

Buy 10 .com domains. No numbers, no hyphens. They need to look like your real company. Example: acme.com becomes getacme.com, tryacme.com, useacme.com.

The math: 1 domain = 60 emails/day x 20 working days = 1,200 emails/month. 10 domains = 12,000 emails/month.

Recommendation: Minimum of 10 domains to be able to add real volume.

Where to buy: GoDaddy. Most popular domain registrar. Bulk purchasing is easy.

Step 2: Buy Inboxes

3 inboxes per domain. 10 domains = 30 inboxes total. Why 3? If you use 5 inboxes, you’re paying more for lower volume per domain. If you use 1 inbox, you risk that domain burning fast because all your sending is concentrated on a single mailbox. 3 spreads the load without wasting money.

Buy inboxes built for cold email. Not regular Google Workspace. You need dedicated servers, aged IPs, and managed warmup.

Where to buy: Aerosend. Dedicated servers, aged IPs, managed warmup, burn detection. Built purely for cold email. Starts at $4/mailbox.

SMARTLEAD30

Your webinar code: 30% off for 2 months. Valid 48 hours.

Step 3: Start Warmup

21 days minimum. Non-negotiable. Warmup sends and receives emails automatically for 21 days to build a positive sending reputation with Google and Microsoft. Without it, your emails go straight to spam.

This is handled for you if you use Aerosend. If you’re doing it yourself, use a warmup tool. Either way, don’t skip this step.

Step 4: Connect Your Sequencer

Export your mailboxes into your sequencer. Smartlead, Instantly, lemlist, whatever you use. Aerosend gives you a CSV export that plugs right in.

Sequencer: Smartlead. Unlimited mailboxes, powerful rotation, great analytics. The sequencer we recommend.

You’re done with Week 1. This should take 1-2 hours. Now don’t touch anything for 3 weeks while warmup runs. You can start Week 2 today if you’d like. Week 2 will take the most time.

Your domains are warming. You have 2-3 weeks before you can send. Use them.

Week 2 — Part 1

Know Your Buyer

This is where you spend 50% of your time. Get this wrong and nothing else matters.

Step 1: Define Your ICP

You’re a B2B company. You sell to other businesses. So start there.

Start broad, then remove. List your entire market. Then cut everyone who isn’t a fit. What’s left is your ICP.

Segment by what changes your pitch. If the problem is different, the pitch is different. That’s a new segment.

Pick your lowest-hanging fruit first. Don’t launch 5 campaigns at once. Pick ONE segment. Nail it. Then expand.

Aerosend helps companies with cold email infrastructure. So technically, every B2B company that sends cold email is a potential customer. That’s millions of businesses.

But that’s not how you do it.

We started by eliminating. We looked at our “all B2B companies” list and asked: who should we NOT sell to?

Companies with 500+ employees. Too many stakeholders, too slow to close.
Product-led growth companies. They don’t do outbound, so they don’t need us.
Industries with a tiny TAM. Not enough leads to sustain campaigns.
Anyone with an ACV under $2K. The cost of cold email doesn’t justify the deal size.

That one exercise cut our target market by 80%. What was left were companies that actually needed us and could afford us.

Then we segmented. We realized not everyone who was left had the same problem. An agency managing 30 clients has a completely different pain than a solo founder sending their first campaign. So we split them:

Lead gen agencies

Managing deliverability across dozens of clients

High-volume senders

Tens of thousands per month, need scale

Low-volume senders

Just getting started, need it simple

Same product. Three completely different pitches. The email we send to an agency talks about managing deliverability at scale. The email we send to a solo founder talks about making it simple.

Then we divided further. As small as it made sense. For example, “high-volume senders” with 1-10 employees is a very different company than “high-volume senders” with 10-50 employees. The pitch changes when that happens. A 5-person startup needs simplicity. A 40-person sales org needs scale and reliability. So we segmented further.

In the end, we had 8-10 ICP combinations. Each one gets its own campaign with its own messaging. That’s the level of specificity that gets replies.

That’s the process. Start broad, eliminate, segment, then keep dividing until the pitch changes. If it doesn’t change, you don’t need a new segment.

Step 2: Define Your Personas

Your ICP tells you which companies to target. Your personas tell you which people inside those companies to email.

A persona is a specific type of person at your target company. Their title, seniority, department, and what they care about. Different personas get different emails because they have different problems.

For each ICP segment, list the job titles you want to reach. Think about who actually feels the pain your product solves. That’s not always the CEO.

Define seniority and department. A VP of Sales and an SDR Manager both work in sales, but they care about completely different things.

Write down what each persona cares about. This becomes the foundation of your email copy later. If you don’t know what they care about, your email will be generic.

Build inclusion AND exclusion lists. Titles to target and titles to skip. Be specific. “Manager” is too broad. “Operations Manager at a company with 16-50 employees” is a persona.

Remember our three ICP segments? Agencies, high-volume senders, and low-volume senders. Within each one, we broke it down further by persona.

Take our “high-volume senders” segment. These are companies with 16-50 employees that send a lot of cold email. But who do we actually email there? Three different people:

The Founder/CEO

Cares about: revenue, pipeline, ROI. Doesn’t want to think about infrastructure.

The Ops Manager

Cares about: setup time, managing domains, reducing manual work. They’re the one doing the work.

The Sales Lead

Cares about: reply rates, meetings booked, inbox placement. They see the results.

Same company. Same ICP segment. Three completely different emails.

The email to the founder talks about pipeline and ROI. The email to the ops manager talks about automated setups and burn alerts. The email to the sales lead talks about reply rates and inbox placement.

Here’s the real Aerosend email we send to ops managers at companies with 16-50 employees:

Hey {{first_name}},

I’m assuming you set up your company’s cold email infrastructure since you manage operations.
I know you’re running a lot of domains, but do you have a process to get alerts when domains start burning?

You might be losing out on a lot of replies.

We built inboxes that perform better than traditional inboxes, have automated setups, and we send alerts when domains need replacement. They’re built purely for cold email.

Open to testing them out?

See how specific that is? It references their role (“you manage operations”), their pain (“domains burning”), and offers something concrete (“alerts when domains need replacement”). That’s what happens when you define your persona before you write your email.

Each persona becomes its own campaign. Build them one at a time. Perfect the first one, then move to the next.

80%

of cold email failures are a list problem, not a copy problem.

Week 2 — Part 2

Build Your List

You know who you’re targeting. Now find them, verify them, and make sure the list is clean before you send a single email.

Step 1: Find Qualified Companies

Forget contacts. Build a list of companies first. Different tools are better for different types of companies. Pick the one that matches your ICP.

Targeting Agencies

Go to Clutch, build your URL, enter it in Aerosend.

Clutch has the best directory of agencies by type, size, location, and reviews. Build a filtered URL and scrape it through Aerosend.

Clutch.co

Targeting SaaS Companies

Go to Crunchbase, build your URL, enter it in Aerosend.

Crunchbase lets you filter by funding round, industry, employee count, and more. Best source for funded SaaS companies.

Crunchbase

Also try: SaaSyDB, GetLatka

Targeting Businesses Not on LinkedIn

Go to Aerosend and scrape Google Maps.

Barbers, dentists, restaurants, local services. These businesses aren’t on LinkedIn or Crunchbase. Google Maps is where they live.

Aerosend Google Maps Scraper

Targeting E-commerce

Go to Store Leads, build your list, enter it in Aerosend.

Store Leads has every Shopify, WooCommerce, and BigCommerce store. Filter by revenue, traffic, tech stack, and more.

Store Leads

Targeting something else?

Try to find a directory specific to your industry and scrape it. If you’re stuck, reach out to Aerosend support. We’ll help you figure out where your companies live.

Also worth knowing: Apollo has a solid free tier for finding companies. You can use it to build initial lists, filter by industry, size, and tech stack, and export for free.

Step 2: Clean Your Company List

Before you move on, your company list needs to be clean. You probably scraped hundreds or thousands of companies. Not all of them belong.

Upload your list to a spreadsheet or Claude. Look at what you have. Are there companies that clearly don’t fit?

Filter out bad employee sizes. If your ICP is 10-50 employees, remove everything outside that range. Same for revenue, location, or any other criteria you defined in Step 1.

Remove duplicates and irrelevant industries. Scrapers pull in noise. A Clutch scrape for marketing agencies might include IT staffing firms or PR agencies. Clean them out.

Make sure you have domains. You need company domains (websites) for the next step. If a company doesn’t have a domain, it’s useless.

This step matters. A dirty company list turns into a dirty contact list, which turns into bad reply rates. Spend the time here. Your list should be tight before you move on.

Step 3: Find Contacts

Now you’ll find the actual people to email using the companies you found and the ICP/personas you built earlier.

Sign up for a free Apollo.io account. You don’t need a paid plan for this.

Upload all your companies. You need domains here. Apollo matches domains to companies in their database.

Select all companies and click “Find People.” This gives you every contact Apollo has at those companies.

Create a persona filter for your ICP. Use the titles, seniority, and department filters you defined in Step 2. This narrows the contacts down to only the people you actually want to email.

Copy the URL from the top of the page and give it to Aerosend. Aerosend’s scraper pulls all the contacts at $5 per 1,000. Much cheaper than Apollo at scale.

Apollo.io (Free Account). Upload companies, find people, build persona filters.

Aerosend Apollo Scraper. $5 per 1,000 contacts. Take the Apollo URL and we handle the rest.

Step 4: Verify Every Email

Non-negotiable. Bounces destroy your sender reputation. Every email on your list needs to be verified before you send anything.

Step 1: Run through MillionVerifier. Upload your entire list. Remove anything that comes back as invalid. This is your first pass.

Step 2: Run catch-all emails through BounceBan. MillionVerifier marks some emails as “catch-all” (meaning it can’t tell if they’re real). BounceBan verifies those specifically.

MillionVerifier. Cheapest bulk email verification. Run everything through here first.

BounceBan. Catch-all verification. Use after MillionVerifier for the emails it can’t confirm.

If you’re non-technical or don’t want to manage this yourself, Aerosend handles email verification for you. Just upload your list and we take care of it.

Step 5: Quality Check Before Launch

Your list is built and verified. Before you write a single email, do one final check.

The 10-row test. Pick 10 random rows from your final list. Not the first 10. Random. Look at each one. Would you personally pitch every single one of them?

Check the company match. Does the company fit your ICP? Right size, right industry, right stage?

Check the contact match. Is this the right person at the right company? Right title, right seniority, right department?

If more than 1 out of 10 rows makes you hesitate, your list needs more work. Go back and tighten your filters. It’s better to send to 500 perfect-fit leads than 5,000 random ones.

This is the most important quality gate in the entire process. Everything after this (copy, sending, follow-ups) assumes your list is solid. If it’s not, nothing else will save you.

Infrastructure is live. List is built and verified. Now write the emails that book meetings.

Week 3

Copy + Launch

Your warmup is almost done. Time to write your emails, set up your campaign, and launch.

The Email Rules

Under 120 words. Shorter is better.

Plain text only. No HTML, no images, no attachments.

No links in the body. Zero. Links trigger spam filters.

One pain point. One benefit. One CTA. That’s it.

Signature: Name, title, company. No banners, no links, no quotes, no phone number.

The Email Framework

Every cold email you write should follow this structure. Not every email needs every piece, but this is the skeleton you build from.

Reason for reaching out (optional)

If you have a good reason (hiring, funding, tech they use), lead with it. If you don’t have one, skip this and go straight to the pain point.

Pain point they might be facing

This is the core of your email. A/B test 2-3 different pain points per persona. The one that gets replies is the one they actually care about.

Your offer / solution

What you do about their pain, in one sentence. Test 2-3 different ways of framing it. Don’t list features. Talk about the outcome.

Unique mechanism (optional)

If there’s something specific about how you solve the problem that’s different, mention it. If not, skip it. Don’t force it.

CTA

One question. One ask. Try lead magnets if possible (“Want me to send you X?”) instead of jumping straight to a call. Lower commitment = higher reply rate.

Proof + Guarantee

Social proof, a stat, or a risk reversal. The PS gets read even when the body gets skimmed. Use it to handle the biggest objection.

Framework in Action: Real Aerosend Email

Here’s how we apply this framework. This is the actual email we send to ops managers at companies with 16-50 employees.

Aerosend → Ops Managers, 16-50 employees

Subject: cold email infrastructure

Hey {{first_name}},

← REASON FOR REACHING OUT
I’m assuming you set up your company’s cold email infrastructure since you manage operations.

← PAIN POINT
I know you’re running a lot of domains, but do you have a process to get alerts when domains start burning?
You might be losing out on a lot of replies.

← OFFER / SOLUTION + UNIQUE MECHANISM
We built inboxes that perform better than traditional inboxes, have automated setups, and we send alerts when domains need replacement. They’re built purely for cold email.

← CTA
Open to testing them out?

Best,
Namit
Aerosend

← PROOF + GUARANTEE
PS: Our accounts integrate with your current sequencer, and we return all costs if they don’t perform.

Every part of the framework maps to a specific job. The reason for reaching out earns you the right to email them. The pain point makes them care. The offer gives them a reason to reply. The CTA makes it easy. The PS handles objections. Write your email in this order and you’ll never stare at a blank screen.

Subject Lines

Keep them short, lowercase, and boring. They should look like a real email from a real person.

Don’t	Do
“EXCLUSIVE: 10x Your Revenue!”	“cold email infrastructure”
“Quick question for you {{firstName}}”	“{{company}} + Aerosend”
“I found something about {{company}}”	“outbound for {{company}}”
“GUARANTEED results inside”	“{{company}} deliverability”
“RE: Our conversation”	“what we did for [competitor]”

Follow-Up Strategy

How many emails you send per lead depends on how big your list is. Most replies come from email #1. Every follow-up has diminishing returns.

Large TAM (30K+)

1 email

per lead

Medium TAM (10-30K)

2 emails

per lead

Small TAM (2-10K)

3-4 emails

per lead

Spintax

Rotate words that don’t change meaning. Helps deliverability at scale because each email is slightly unique. Use ChatGPT to add spintax. Read it before sending. Remove anything that sounds off.

        {Hey|Hi} {{first_name}},

        {Saw|Noticed} {{company}} is {hiring|growing|scaling} …

Launch Checklist

Domains bought and configured

Inboxes warmed for 21 days

ICP defined and segmented

Lead list built and verified

Copy written, spintax added

Sequencer campaign configured

All green? You’re ready to launch. Expect 8-15 meetings/month as a beginner at 12,000 emails/month. Total cost: approximately $250-400/month. If your first client is worth $2K+, cold email pays for itself on meeting #1.

Launched and not seeing results? Don’t panic. Debug first.

Talk to Namit

Not Working?

There are only 4 things that can go wrong.

Walk through these checks in order before changing anything else.

Targeting

Are you reaching out to the right people?

Pick 10 random rows from your list. Does every single one make sense?

Messaging

Are you saying the right things?

Show your email to someone who doesn’t know your company. Do they understand it?

Volume

Are you sending enough emails?

You need a minimum of 5-10K emails/month to see real patterns.

Deliverability

Are you landing in the inbox?

If you don’t know, ask your inbox provider. This is their job.

Webinar Giveaway

Step 1: Buy Domains

Step 2: Buy Inboxes

Step 3: Start Warmup

Step 4: Connect Your Sequencer

Step 1: Define Your ICP

Step 2: Define Your Personas

Step 1: Find Qualified Companies

Step 2: Clean Your Company List

Step 3: Find Contacts

Step 4: Verify Every Email

Step 5: Quality Check Before Launch

The Email Rules

The Email Framework

Framework in Action: Real Aerosend Email

Subject Lines

Follow-Up Strategy

Spintax

Launch Checklist

How it Works

Testimonials

Integrations

Isolation by Design

Domain Burn Alerts

Dynamic IP Rotation

Domain Variations Generator

Deliverability Checker

SPF/DKIM/DMARC Checker Soon

Blacklist Checker Soon

Email Spam Checker Soon

Blog

Cold Email Course

Glossary

Clay Templates

Cold Email Blueprint

Whitelabel

Note: Keep your API key secure. We only use it one time to generate your report.

Note: Keep your API key secure. We only use it one time to generate your report.

Webinar Giveaway

Step 1: Buy Domains

Step 2: Buy Inboxes

Step 3: Start Warmup

Step 4: Connect Your Sequencer

Step 1: Define Your ICP

Step 2: Define Your Personas

Step 1: Find Qualified Companies

Step 2: Clean Your Company List

Step 3: Find Contacts

Step 4: Verify Every Email

Step 5: Quality Check Before Launch

The Email Rules

The Email Framework

Framework in Action: Real Aerosend Email

Subject Lines

Follow-Up Strategy

Spintax

Launch Checklist

How it Works

Testimonials

Integrations

Isolation by Design

Domain Burn Alerts

Dynamic IP Rotation

Domain Variations Generator

Deliverability Checker

SPF/DKIM/DMARC Checker Soon

Blacklist Checker Soon

Email Spam Checker Soon

Blog

Cold Email Course

Glossary

Clay Templates

Cold Email Blueprint

Whitelabel

How to Get Your Instantly API Key

Step 1 : Log in to Your Instantly Account

Step 2 : Navigate to Settings

Step 3 : Select Integration

Step 4 : Get Your API Key with all:read Scope

Note: Keep your API key secure. We only use it one time to generate your report.

How to Get Your Smart Lead API Key

Step 1 : Log in to Your Smart Lead Account

Step 2 : Navigate to Settings

Step 3 : Select API Integration

Step 4 : Generate Your API Key

Note: Keep your API key secure. We only use it one time to generate your report.