Does cold email still work?

Short answer: For those who do it well, but less than it used to. Melissa Kwan and Will Allred say most cold outreach is so bad that a thoughtful email stands out. In Kyle Poyar and Maja Voje's survey of 300 B2B leaders, cold email and LinkedIn outreach ranked C-tier, below signal-based outbound in the A tier.

What the experts say

Cold outreach is marketing more than sales

Melissa Kwan (eWebinar) · Nov 2, 2026
After 20 years in sales, Melissa spent a month learning Clay and Instantly. She calls cold outreach another discovery channel, one that makes you look familiar when buyers see you elsewhere, and says most people do it badly, so "the bar to stand out is not that high."
→ Read Melissa's post

The bar is lower than you think

Will Allred (Lavender) · Oct 28, 2026
Will's inbox was full of automated emails, and he didn't reply to one. A relevant, thoughtful message stands out, he says, and Lavender has seen that just downloading its tool lifts response rates, probably because it makes people pause before they send.
→ Read Will's post

Cold outreach doesn't work like it used to

Kyle Poyar (Growth Unhinged) · Oct 23, 2026
In Kyle and Maja Voje's survey of 300 B2B leaders, cold email and LinkedIn outreach ranked C-tier: it "seems cheap, doesn't work like it used to." Signal-based outbound made the A tier, though Kyle says most companies only use website visits or content engagement as signals.
→ Read Kyle's post

SaaS Marketing Experts collates expert opinions from around the web. We have no affiliation with any of the experts cited here. If you're one of them, ask us to correct or remove your take.