# Cold email

URL: /workflows/plays/cold-email · Id: `play:cold-email`

> Cold email sends short Sequences to Prospects chosen by a dated signal, from secondary Domains, and pauses when complaints pass 0.1 percent.

Cold email sends short [Sequences](/business/nouns/sequence) to [Prospects](/business/nouns/prospect) chosen by a dated signal, such as a new hire or a funding round. It is the fastest [Play](/business/nouns/play) to a first meeting, and it pauses when complaints pass 0.1 percent.

## Ratings
| Dimension | Rating | Reads |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Scalability | 3 of 5 | medium: higher grows further with spend or automation |
| Cost | 2 of 5 | low: lower costs less per Customer |
| Latency | 1 of 5 | very low: lower answers sooner |

## Budget
| Property | Value |
| --- | --- |
| Tier | $100 |
| Minimum effective budget | $75 a month |

| Monthly spend | Yields |
| --- | --- |
| $75 | Three sending Domains, three to six warmed Mailboxes and up to 2,000 verified Prospects. |
| $150 | Six Mailboxes at about 30 sends a day each, in micro-cohorts under 50. |
| $1,000 | Deeper research per Prospect where expected value is highest. |

## How it runs
Each fresh signal compiles into one enrollment whose first line names that signal. Stale signals are dropped before research spends anything.

Mail goes from secondary [Domains](/business/nouns/domain) and warmed [Mailboxes](/business/nouns/mailbox), about 30 sends a day each. The first send to a new list waits its delay window, and a [Suppression](/business/nouns/suppression) binds every sibling within the hour.

## Processes
Runs as [Outbound](/workflows/processes/outbound), accountable to the [Marketing Team](/agents/marketing).

Also sold as a Service: [Demand generation](/systems/integrations/upstreams#demand-generation).

## Fits
| Fits | Value |
| --- | --- |
| Family | demand |
| Shelf | Seed: finds the first Customers (Launch) |
| Moves | [Play-sourced Customers](/agents/marketing#play-sourced-customers) |
| Motions | [b2b](/business/motions/b2b) |
| Venues | [Gmail](/workflows/plays#gmail), [Outlook](/workflows/plays#outlook), [Yahoo Mail](/workflows/plays#yahoo-mail) |
| States | [Live](/business/lifecycle/states/live), [Repeatable](/business/lifecycle/states/repeatable), [Scale](/business/lifecycle/states/scale) |

## Loop
| Step | Value |
| --- | --- |
| Hypothesis | Sequences triggered by a dated signal win more Customers per thousand sends than sends by fit alone, under 0.1 percent complaints. |
| Measure | [Play-sourced Customers](/agents/marketing#play-sourced-customers) over 30d, at least 500 observations |
| Learn | The learn step reads the Readout, records Evidence and a Decision, and drafts the next Variant. |

## Example
A [Startup](/business/nouns/startup) selling security-audit readiness as a managed service watches for companies posting their first security-engineer job. Each opener names the posting and one fact about audit timelines. Four hundred sends book 11 meetings.