Free checklist · B2B email

Cold email checklist for B2B in Europe

Cold email in 2026 is harder than it was and better than its reputation. Google, Microsoft and Yahoo now enforce authentication and complaint limits; one careless campaign can burn a domain for months. At the same time, inboxes are so full of obvious automation that a short, specific, human email stands out more than ever. Reply rates of 5 to 10 % on well-built B2B lists are normal in our own outreach; 1 % is what you get from blasting.

What is inside

This checklist covers the whole chain: the domain setup that keeps you out of spam, the list that is actually legal to email in the EU, the email itself, the follow-ups and the measurement. It is written for small teams selling to other businesses in Europe. If you sell to consumers, stop here: cold email to private individuals is not allowed under GDPR and the ePrivacy rules, and no checklist changes that.

  • Domain and deliverability
  • The list (and the law)
  • The email
  • Follow-ups
  • Measure and improve
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8
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Preview

The first three pages, as they are

Work through it in order. The technical part is boring and non-negotiable. The writing part is where most people over-think and under-test.

Cold email checklist, cover Cold email checklist, page 2 Cold email checklist, page 3

Open the 3-page preview PDF →

Section by section

5 sections, in the order we run them

  1. Domain and deliverabilityIf this section is not done, nothing below it matters. Your emails are being filtered before anyone sees them.
  2. The list (and the law)In the EU, who you email is a legal question before it is a marketing one. Legitimate interest covers B2B outreach when it is relevant, proportionate and easy to refuse. That means a tight list, not a big one.
  3. The emailUnder 80 words. One idea. One question. Written like a person who respects the reader's time.
  4. Follow-upsMost replies come from the second or third email. Most spam complaints come from the sixth.
  5. Measure and improveCold email is a numbers game only if you track the numbers. Open rate is no longer reliable; look at replies and meetings.
Sarah Johanna Ferara, founder of Maison Mint
Sarah Johanna Ferara, marketing expert
10+
years in marketing
Who wrote this

Hi, I am Sarah.

I run Maison Mint, a boutique marketing agency in Tallinn that manages Google and Meta ads, does SEO and GEO, and builds the tracking underneath it, for brands growing across the EU. Everything in this checklist comes from accounts we run, not from a course.

The resources on this site are free because the people who find them useful are exactly the people we like working with. No sales sequence, just the Wednesday newsletter, which you can leave with one click.

Book a free 30 minutes About Sarah
Questions

Before you download

Is cold email legal in the EU?

Business-to-business cold email can rely on legitimate interest under GDPR when the recipient has a plausible professional interest, the message is proportionate, and opting out is easy. Cold email to private individuals is not allowed. Section two of the checklist covers what a compliant list looks like; it is not legal advice, so check your own country’s rules.

What reply rate should I expect?

On a hand-built list of 50 to 200 relevant people, 5 to 10 % replies and 2 to 4 % positive replies is normal in our own outreach. Under 2 % replies means the list or the first line is wrong, not the tool.

Which sending tool do you recommend?

Any tool that supports warm-up, per-mailbox sending limits, automatic bounce handling and a suppression list. The tool matters far less than the domain setup and the list.

Why a separate domain?

Because deliverability problems are domain-level. If an outreach domain gets a poor reputation you can retire it; if your main domain does, every invoice and client email suffers.

Do you run cold email for clients?

Yes, our B2B email marketing service builds and runs outreach programmes, including the deliverability setup and the copy. Most of our own international clients came from exactly this method.

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