#158 · Your outbound sucks. Here's how to fix it
It depends on who you're contacting, but if I were in the EU I would send B2B cold emails without any problem. I'm not a lawyer, so this isn’t legal advice.
Cold‑outreach laws are broadly similar across Canada, Australia, and the European Union; the real difference lies in whether people believe and act on those regulations. In the EU, Austria, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, and Switzerland many are successfully doing cold email despite the rules. It's not legal advice, but ask yourself when you last jaywalked—you're fine breaking a rule in some capacity. If you must, door‑to‑door prospecting is a viable alternative; absolutely crush it.
You have to work within the regulations. If you follow GDPR and telecom rules exactly, you won’t be able to send cold emails, so you need to use alternative, lawful channels. Some people set up shell companies to route communications, but that’s a gray area and I wouldn’t recommend it. In practice, just be reasonable, stick to the letter of the law, and look for other outreach methods that comply with EU rules.
Yes, targeting U.S. companies is a solid tactical move if you want to avoid German restrictions. The idea that cold email is 'not allowed' in Europe is often overstated; it’s really a risk‑reward imbalance, not a hard ban—similar to jaywalking being illegal but still safe when no cars are around. You can also set up a U.S. entity and operate from there to minimize risk. All these tactics avoid the underlying risk‑reward misbalance, but they aren’t legal advice.
GDPR and similar rules are low risk for small‑scale cold email because you’re not sending tens of millions of emails like spammers; you’re delivering value. Treat compliance like a stop sign—follow it when practical, but don’t let it block you. You can also incorporate in the US or sell to non‑EU clients to avoid the issue.