Scaling B2B outreach campaigns requires a meticulous balance of strategy, technology, and execution. When a large home décor manufacturer sought to connect with thousands of wholesalers across the U.S., they turned to a data-driven email strategy to efficiently generate leads, nurture relationships, and convert them into hundreds of new accounts.
Here’s a detailed breakdown of how a precise combination of outreach planning, advanced automation, and email infrastructure delivered transformative results.
The Challenge: Reaching and Engaging Thousands of Wholesalers
With a database of over 400,000 potential wholesale buyers, the manufacturer faced several operational and technical challenges:
How to effectively clean and verify the contact list to maintain high email deliverability.
Scaling email volume without compromising sender reputation.
Crafting personalized messages for a highly segmented audience.
Balancing cost-effectiveness with measurable results.
Traditional outreach methods, like manual follow-ups and generic email blasts, had proven inadequate. They needed a scalable system that could achieve significant outreach while maintaining professionalism and engagement.
The Data-Driven Solution
We created a cold email outreach system that combined robust planning with advanced automation. Here’s how we calculated and implemented each critical component:
1. Database Cleaning and Verification
The initial contact list of 400,000 emails required cleaning to ensure maximum deliverability. Research shows that sending emails to invalid or spammy addresses can result in high bounce rates, damaging domain reputation.
Verification Cost Calculation: Email verification tools typically charge $0.0026 per email. Verifying all 400,000 emails cost approximately $1,040.
Post-Cleaning Estimate: Assuming 70% of the addresses were valid, the verified list reduced to 280,000 usable emails.
2. Email Volume and Frequency
To achieve significant outreach, we calculated the total email volume required based on weekly campaign goals.
Campaign Frequency: Three email campaigns per week (a mix of cold and warm email drips).
Monthly Email Volume: Each campaign targeted all 280,000 contacts, resulting in 800,000 emails per week and approximately 3,360,000 emails per month.
3. Cost of Email Sending
Email service providers typically charge $0.001 per email sent. This resulted in a manageable monthly cost:
Monthly Sending Cost: 3.36 million emails × $0.001 = $3,360 per month.
4. Email Infrastructure and Domains
High-volume campaigns require a robust email infrastructure to maintain deliverability. Each sending domain was set up with mailboxes to gradually scale the sending capacity.
Warm-Up Strategy: A newly created domain starts with a limited volume (~5,000 emails/month) to build reputation. Over time, this volume is gradually increased to 100,000 emails/month per domain.
Required Domains and Mailboxes: To handle 3.36 million emails per month:
36 mailboxes were necessary.
10 domains were used, with a 1:4 ratio of domains to mailboxes.
Infrastructure Costs:
Domains: $1–$19/month per domain (~$95/month total).
Mailboxes: $6/month per mailbox (~$216/month total).
5. Deliverability Optimization
Maintaining sender reputation was critical. This included:
SPF, DKIM, and DMARC authentication for all domains.
Monitoring bounce rates (kept below 1%).
Automating removal of invalid addresses and engagement-based segmentation.
Results and Metrics
In just three months, the system delivered the following measurable outcomes:
Key Performance Indicators:
Emails Sent: 9.5 million emails (3.36 million/month × 3 months).
Open Rates: ~28%, resulting in 2.66 million opens.
Click-Through Rates: ~4%, resulting in 380,000 clicks.
Conversion Rates: ~2%, generating 7,600 new wholesale leads.
New Accounts: Hundreds of wholesalers converted into active accounts.
Cost Analysis:
Total email verification cost: $1,040
Total email sending cost: $10,080 (over three months).
Domain and mailbox cost: $1,860 (over three months).
Total Investment: ~$13,000 Estimated Revenue Impact: With hundreds of wholesalers onboard, the projected increase in revenue far exceeded the investment.
Key Takeaways
This project demonstrates the value of using a detailed, data-driven approach to cold email campaigns. The success hinged on the following key practices:
Meticulous Planning: Calculating and optimizing every aspect of the campaign, from infrastructure to email frequency.
Efficient Infrastructure: Investing in a scalable domain and mailbox setup to handle high volumes while protecting sender reputation.
Personalization and Automation: Crafting highly targeted email sequences and automating follow-ups based on engagement metrics.
Continuous Monitoring and Optimization: Leveraging data to refine email content, segment audiences, and improve performance metrics over time.
