What realistic results can I expect from my first cold email campaign, and what volume is needed to start making money?

#202 · 60min open Q&A on how I make $400k/mo

What realistic results can I expect from my first cold email campaign, and what volume is needed to start making money?

There are nine key variables—deliverability, open rate, reply rate, positive replies, meeting attendance, proposal conversion, sign‑up rate, refund rate, and your price—so you can’t give a single volume number. You need to estimate based on your own metrics; if you could send a million emails a day you’d likely make money, but you’d have to pay for that sending capacity.

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Related answers

youtube ↗Cold Email

What is the best strategy for sending cold emails, when did you start your first campaign, how many days did you send them, and after how long did you get your first client?

I started cold emailing around 2018‑2019 with my business partner Gurinder; those early attempts didn’t work well. I kept sending emails for about three to four years before I made any money, and it was probably closer to two years before I saw real revenue. The breakthrough came in roughly 2021 with what I called 'one second copy': I ran many cold email campaigns and offered free sample articles that were produced cheaply using AI, which hardly anyone else was doing at the time. That got me attention from big companies like Kixie. The best cold‑email strategy is to front‑load value—give the recipient more work or benefit than you’re asking for. Instead of asking for free labor, identify a problem they’re suffering from, solve it, and attach the results to your email. For example, I once rewrote 40 YouTube titles for a follower, provided a one‑click doc, and they saw immediate CTR improvements. That’s how successful, ‘rich‑people’ cold emails work: you save them time or make them money, not the other way around.

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youtube ↗Cold Email

Can you do a step‑by‑step for somebody looking to do their first cold email campaign at a small scale? How would you structure a campaign on Instantly?

I already recorded a video that does all this called "Watch Me Start and Sell an AI Service in 10 Hours" where I go through the process of finding a need, picking niches, finding needs via Reddit, converting them into offers, putting offers into Instantly, scraping and uploading lead lists, reaching out, and I usually get about 10 interested people who want to book calls within an hour and a half of work.

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youtube ↗Cold Email

How should I run cold‑email tests? What sending volume should I aim for each week, how many mailboxes do I need, and which metric should I use to judge the results?

For a weekly test of one variable, aim for about 2,000 emails per week – roughly 300 per day. That means you’ll need the capacity to send 600‑900 emails daily, which translates to 20‑30 mailboxes. Test on reply rate rather than positive‑reply rate because you’ll get more data points; positive replies are too rare to be reliable at typical volumes. Ideally you want a reply‑rate multiplier of 2‑3× to feel confident. I usually wait until the end of the week before declaring a winner. The highest‑leverage variables to test are subject line, preview text, and icebreaker – those are the top‑ROI elements you see in Gmail’s layout. Optimising those first gives you the biggest impact.

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youtube ↗Cold Email

I have an automated cold‑email stack targeting small US businesses from Seoul; what advice do you have for getting my first client and how should I price my service?

I praised the stack and said the key is to treat outreach as a lever. Early months will have a low input‑to‑output ratio, but as you refine your process you’ll see massive leverage gains. I advised starting with Upwork to build credibility and earnings, then add cold‑email outreach in parallel. Don’t abandon the core lever (Upwork) while you experiment with outbound. Focus on improving average revenue per user—if you can tie your emails to an upsell or higher‑value service, you can justify higher pricing. Start with a modest package to get the first client, then increase rates as you accumulate case studies and results.

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