Despite decades of evidence showing its diminishing returns, Ironpaper's research found that 74% of B2B leaders still purchase cold lists to feed their pipelines. For many, this seems like an easy answer to pipeline pressure: push more messages, get more meetings. But the tactic is increasingly risky in an era of privacy regulation, crowded inboxes, and buyer fatigue.
So why do B2B marketing teams still use cold outreach? And when it works, what's different? We must look at the realities of cold outreach and the conditions under which it can provide value.
The Hard Truths About Cold Email
It wastes resources. Cold outreach looks like a volume game, but the outcomes rarely justify the effort. Most emails are deleted or marked as spam. The time spent building, sending, and managing campaigns rarely translates into meaningful opportunities.
It damages reputation. Every email a company sends affects its sender score. A sender score is the hidden metric determining whether messages land in the inbox or the junk folder. Ironpaper's research shows that overreliance on cold outreach burns bridges not only with prospects but with future campaigns aimed at engaged leads.
It carries regulatory risks. GDPR and data privacy laws worldwide penalize unsolicited email campaigns, and fines can be significant. Despite minimal legal exposure, the reputational risk of ignoring consent is high.
It erodes trust. Buyers see through spray-and-pray outreach. In crowded markets, differentiation depends on clarity and substance. Cold email signals the opposite: generic messaging, transactional thinking, and a lack of empathy for the buyer's journey.
Why Companies Default to It
If the downsides are clear, why do three-quarters of B2B leaders still buy lists?
- Ease of launch. Sending a mass email requires little upfront investment compared to building an inbound program or an ABM strategy. It's a short-term activity that feels productive, even if it erodes long-term potential.
- Activity masquerading as progress. Leadership often equates volume with momentum. Cold email produces activity metrics like emails sent, opens, and clicks. This can be mistaken for growth, even when the revenue impact is negligible.
- Weak marketing foundations. Without a strong marketing foundation like clear messaging, buyer-centric content streams, and a demand engine, companies grasp for shortcuts. Cold lists become a fallback when better systems aren't in place.
Can I still see success with cold email?
Despite the drawbacks, some companies do see near-term success. These cases share common traits:
Obsessive testing. Organizations that document and analyze every aspect of their outreach, including subject lines, CTAs, offers, and timing, gain insights into buyer behavior. But this takes discipline, resources, and time, which most teams lack.
Highly targeted outreach. Purchased lists fail because they treat all buyers as interchangeable. Cold outreach is more effective when it mirrors an account-based mindset. Targeted outreach strategies include identifying a specific buying group, personalizing the message to their context, and integrating email into a larger sequence of value-driven interactions.
Value-led messaging. The rare successful cold email doesn't ask for time. It offers it back. It might share an industry insight, a research brief, or a framework for tackling a known pain point. Instead of extracting attention, it creates it.
The Intelligent Path Forward
The alternative isn't abandoning email. It's reimagining it as part of a buyer-enablement system rather than a standalone push tactic.
Account-Based Marketing (ABM). Instead of buying cold lists, invest in building and nurturing target accounts. Email can play a role, but only as one touchpoint in a system that integrates insights, content, and sales alignment.
Inbound demand generation. Create systems that attract and engage buyers with clarity. Research, insights, and transformation stories make owned media a magnet for ideal customers.
Owned media and first-party data. Build lists that will reliably and predictably engage recipients through value exchange. Buyers who subscribe to content, attend webinars, or download resources are giving consent and signaling intent.
Buyer enablement. Use email to answer buyers' questions, such as, "What am I missing? What should I do next?" Provide tools, transformation guides, and industry impact briefs that help them act clearly.
The Cold Email Transformation Question
Cold email persists because it reflects a transactional mindset: do more, push harder, hope for a win. However, sustainable growth comes from systems prioritizing clarity, trust, and buyer relevance. The real question for leaders isn't whether cold email still "works." It's whether their outreach builds bridges with buyers or just burns them.
Sources:
Ironpaper Research, The State of Cold Email in B2B
