Why Perfect Emails Fail Without the Right Audience

After sending over a billion emails for 600+ brands… here are my 7 top tips for selecting the right audience. You can have the best email creative in the world — but if it lands in the wrong inbox, it won’t convert. Audience is everything. Here’s what we’ve learned at esbconnect after years of powering customer acquisition for brands like Tails.com | B Corp , AA Insurance and ASOS.com : 1. Target by behaviour, not just demographics Look for people who open, click, and act. Intent beats age and gender every time. 2. But… don’t always go for the obvious behaviour When Tails.com wanted to reach new pet owners, you'd assume targeting people engaging with pet brands would outperform, right? Wrong. They were being over-targeted. Instead, we found higher conversion by targeting segments engaging with health, home and subscription offers — less crowded and more curious. 3. Test broad, then narrow Start wide to understand what actually performs — then double down. Too niche too soon and you lose scale and surprise wins. 4. Layer in recency Someone who interacted with an email yesterday is more likely to convert than someone who did 3 weeks ago. Recency = relevance. 5. Don’t ignore ‘non-buyers’ Sometimes your best audience is one that’s never bought from the category — yet. Think curious, not converted. 6. Think beyond income — target by contextual wealth We’ve seen clients waste budget by targeting £100k+ earners assuming they’re affluent. But some of the wealthiest people are those on modest incomes with low outgoings — think high equity, long-term property owners with few financial ties. 7. Make it locally relevant A £1m house in London doesn’t signal the same wealth as it does in Scotland or Wales. Tailor your audience selection to geography and cost of living — precision wins. Audience strategy isn’t guesswork. It’s data, nuance, and constant testing. Want help finding your best segments? We’ve got 17 million opted-in UK profiles and years of experience to test with.

"I saw you liked Lenny's last post" isn't relevance. It's desperate. "I see you are passionate about B2B marketing" isn't rapport. It's stalking. "I am building a network of like-minded professionals" isn't networking. It's a lie. You think you are building a relationship, but you are just making noise. The team at Cannonball GTM calls this Email Cosplay. Most outbound emails fail for one reason. You think you are the main character. You think the prospect cares about your features, your impressive slide of logos, or that you went to the same college as them. They don't. They didn't wake up thinking about you. They woke up in a specific, painful situation. If you want to earn a reply in 2026, you need to follow the Cannonball Principles: 1/ 𝐒𝐭𝐨𝐩 𝐏𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐨𝐧𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐳𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐨 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐏𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐨𝐧  Don't target people. Target conditions. Real personalization is: "We have seen this exact constraint in teams like yours, and it creates this predictable failure mode." 2/ 𝐒𝐭𝐨𝐩 𝐋𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐂𝐚𝐬𝐞 𝐒𝐭𝐮𝐝𝐢𝐞𝐬  No one cares about your logos. They care about peers who are in their exact same mess. Social proof isn't about brands they know. It's about problems they recognize. 3/ 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝟑-𝐋𝐢𝐧𝐞 𝐑𝐮𝐥𝐞 If you need paragraphs, you don't understand the situation. Cut it down with a machete. Structure: Situation → Insight → Inquisition. 4/ 𝐓𝐡𝐞 "𝐈𝐧𝐪𝐮𝐢𝐬𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧" 𝐂𝐓𝐀 Stop asking for "15 minutes." Ask for the truth. "Am I close?" or "Is it different on your side?" beats "Can we chat?" every time. Here is the only template you need (steal this): Subject: 2-5 words max (to the point) You are probably dealing with [Specific Situation] right now. Most teams get stuck because [Constraint / Tradeoff]. Am I close, or is it different on your side? That’s it. If you can’t say it that clearly, you don’t know their problem yet. Earn the reply. Then earn the revenue.

A few months ago, I spent hours crafting what I thought was the perfect cold email campaign. Clean copy. Concise subject lines. A/B tested CTAs. And then… silence. Barely any replies. I went back to the drawing board and asked myself: "If I were on the receiving end of this, would I care?" Turns out, I had made the classic mistake. The emails didn’t really address a problem my audience was facing. They were technically sound, but not relevant. After analyzing over 11 million emails, the conclusion is clear (read the report below): 71% of people ignore cold emails because they don’t address a relevant problem. That stat hit home. Now, every campaign I write starts with a single question: "What specific problem am I solving for this person?" And it’s made all the difference. If your emails are being ignored, don’t start by tweaking your subject lines or switching tools. Start with relevance. #coldemail

One email. To 1,00,000 people. And then… silence. Why? Because blasting emails is like shouting into a crowd. You’re loud. But not heard. You’re everywhere. But not remembered. Because in a world full of noise, what’s loud isn’t what gets noticed — it’s what feels relevant. 🧠 People don’t read emails. They scan. They judge. And they delete in seconds — unless something clicks. 📬 What clicks? Personalisation. Context. Timing. Not “Hi [First Name]” personal. But “I know where you are in your journey” personal. That’s what stops the scroll. Even in B2B — behind every inbox is a human being. With deadlines, distractions, and decision fatigue. Bulk fails. Target wins. Not because bulk is bad — But because relevance is rare. 🎯 Segment like a strategist: ✅ Cart abandoners – they wanted it. Then life got in the way. Bring them back. ✅ Free trial users – they’ve tested the water. Show them why the full plunge is worth it. ✅ Clickers who didn’t convert – interest was there. Maybe trust wasn’t. Fix that. And that’s not all. Go deeper: ✅ First-time vs. returning visitors ✅ High spenders vs. window shoppers ✅ Geography, device type, time of open Each tells a different story. So tell yours differently to each. Then? 🖊️ Don’t just write to them. Write for them. Make your words mirror their thoughts. Answer their silent objections. Deliver value before asking for action. Because when you stop sending emails to everyone, And start sending the right emails to the right people… That’s when the inbox starts working for you. 💡 Opens go up. 💬 Replies come in. 💰 Conversions follow. Email isn’t dying. Bad email is. #EmailMarketing #Email #Personalization #DigitalMarketing

Stop wasting time on bad InMails — do this instead. Most people do not have an InMail problem. They have a targeting problem. They send the message to the wrong person, at the wrong time, with the wrong angle, and then they blame the copy. But copy is rarely the real issue. A great InMail sent to the wrong prospect will still fail. A simple InMail sent to the right prospect can start a conversation. That changed everything for me. The moment I stopped trying to write “better” messages and started building better lists, the results improved. Here is what I learned: If your InMail is not getting replies, do not rewrite it 20 times. Ask these four questions first: Who exactly am I targeting? What problem are they dealing with right now? Why would they care about this message today? What is the easiest next step for them? If you cannot answer those clearly, your message is probably too broad. The best InMails are not long. They are not clever. They are not full of big words. They are relevant. A strong InMail usually does five things: It opens with something specific. It shows that you understand the person’s context. It mentions one clear pain point. It makes one simple offer. It ends with a low-friction next step. That is it. No essay. No fake urgency. No “just checking in” message that sounds like everyone else. When your targeting is right, your message feels natural. When your targeting is wrong, even your best copy feels like noise. So if you want better replies, start here: Fix the list. Fix the angle. Then fix the message. That is how you stop sending InMails into the void and start having real conversations. Save this before your next outreach session. Because better InMails do not start with writing. They start with precision. LinkedIn for Sales LinkedIn for CEOs

I audited a 150-name outreach list last week. 60% were mistargeted before a single message went out. No subject line fixes that. No opener. No CTA. Your low response rate isn't a messaging problem. It's a targeting problem. You've rewritten your template ten times, but the leak was never there. A great message to the wrong person fails. A plain message to the right person works. Targeting sets the ceiling, copy decides where you land under it. Source by title alone and this is who's on your list: The engineer who doesn't do that work anymore. The right title sitting on the wrong responsibilities. The candidate who's perfect on paper and wrong for the true need. Your personalization won't save any of them. Recruiters with response rates you envy aren't better writers, they're better targeters. Fewer messages, better aimed. Relevance does the persuading, the copy just gets out of the way. So before you rewrite your outreach again, audit your list. When did you last check who was on it, not what you said to them?

My team booked 86 customer workshops in one day. Naturally, everyone wanted the email. It was two sentences long. But the email wasn’t the reason it worked. That is the mistake most people make when they see an extraordinary result. They copy the final visible step. The subject line. The message. The call to action. Then they send it to a random list and wonder why nothing happens. By the time we pressed Send, we had already done the real work. We had: 1. A problem customers actually cared about Not a product announcement disguised as outreach. A real problem affecting their cost, risk, productivity or ability to achieve their mission. 2. An offer worthy of a response We weren’t immediately asking customers to buy something. We were offering access to expertise, an assessment and a practical next step. 3. The right audience The list was large, but it wasn’t random. We had identified the organizations and roles most likely to care about that specific problem. Relevance did the heavy lifting. 4. A message that sounded human No banner. No five-paragraph product description. No wall of corporate language. Just: Why I’m reaching out now. Why this may matter to you. What we can offer. Would this be useful? 5. A system ready for success This was the part almost everyone overlooked. Before the campaign launched, we knew: Who would respond. Who would qualify each request. How scheduling would work. How much capacity our partner had. What would happen after the workshop. How we would turn interest into customer value. Because generating demand is not the same as being prepared to honor it. Eighty-six responses without a system could have become 86 disappointed customers. Instead, that campaign became a repeatable engine. One partner motion generated 86 workshops. Another produced 53. A third produced 12. Later AI-focused plays generated 140+ workshops and 54 follow-up engagements, touching 200,000+ seats and $40M in revenue. The lesson was never: “Send more email.” It was: Build an offer worthy of a response. Find the people who should care. Make the next step ridiculously easy. Prepare the system before demand arrives. The best campaigns often look almost embarrassingly simple from the outside. That’s because the complexity should live in the design. The simplicity should live in the customer experience. The next time a campaign underperforms, don’t immediately rewrite the email. Inspect the offer. Inspect the audience. Inspect the timing. Inspect the follow-up. The message may not be broken. The system around it might be. What is the strongest offer your organization could put into the market right now? For my entire playbook, check out *Moneyball Sales*: 🎧 Audible: https://lnkd.in/gXBtWR_8 📕 Paperback: https://lnkd.in/gt4QGDAJ 📱 Kindle: https://lnkd.in/gD-hsDpk All proceeds go to The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research

We've all been here. 3 hours deep into an email flow. Obsessing over the subject line. Tweaking the delay timing. Debating whether the CTA should say "Shop Now" or "Get Yours." You hit publish. You wait. Your mom opens it. A bot in Latvia clicks the link. And you're left staring out the window wondering where it all went wrong. Let's be real, most email programs aren't underperforming because of bad copy or wrong send times. They're underperforming because nobody is actually seeing them. List quality, deliverability, segmentation, that's the unsexy work that determines whether your email even has a chance. You can write the greatest flow in the history of retention marketing and it means absolutely nothing if it's landing in spam or going to a dead list. Before you spend another 3 hours on the perfect email: - When did you last clean your list? - What's your actual deliverability rate (not open rate), deliverability? - Are you sending to engaged subscribers or just everyone? - Do you know your sender reputation right now? The brands crushing it with email aren't just writing better copy. They're protecting the infrastructure that makes the copy matter. Fix the foundation first. Then obsess over the subject line. Your mom will still open it either way

𝐖𝐡𝐲 𝟗𝟎% 𝐒𝐄𝐎 𝐎𝐮𝐭𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐜𝐡 𝐄𝐦𝐚𝐢𝐥𝐬 𝐆𝐞𝐭 𝐈𝐠𝐧𝐨𝐫𝐞𝐝 — 𝐀𝐧𝐝 𝐇𝐨𝐰 𝐭𝐨 𝐅𝐢𝐱 𝐈𝐭 Most people think their outreach emails fail because they are not “personalized enough.” But the real reason is much simpler — they’re emailing the wrong person. After 6+ years in link building and guest posting, I’ve learned that support@, info@, and contact@ inboxes are not buying backlinks. Those inboxes are managed by: Support teams Customer success reps Billing teams These teams have no SEO goals, no KPI pressure, no authority needs, and no decision-making rights. So your beautifully crafted outreach email gets archived in seconds. And then people say: “Outreach doesn’t work.” “Guest posting is dead.” “No one replies.” But the truth is: Your message is reaching the wrong human. So who actually buys backlinks? These 7 personas: SEO Manager Head of Growth Content Marketing Manager Partnerships Manager Digital PR Manager Founder/CMO (for small SaaS) Agency Owners These people understand: Authority gaps DR/DA metrics Ranking drops Link velocity Competitive SERPs Backlink budgets Quarterly traffic KPIs They feel the pressure. They have the budget. And they reply when you speak their language. What does a high-response email actually look like? Not “Hi, I loved your last blog.” Not “We can publish on 500+ websites.” A real email sounds like this: “Your competitor gained 187 new referring domains on their top pages. That authority gap is why they outrank you for ‘[keyword]’. I can fix that with contextual DR70+ links from relevant publications. Shall I share a short plan?” This speaks directly to their job. It addresses their problem. It connects your offer to their KPI. So why are your outreach emails being ignored? Because: You're sending them to the wrong inbox You’re not talking to the right buyer persona Your email has no authority-gap insight You're not showing relevance You're not addressing their real SEO challenges Fix these, and your reply rate will jump. The golden rule: Outreach isn’t about sending more emails. It’s about reaching the right person with the right insight. Stop emailing support teams. Start solving SEO problems for decision-makers. If your offer creates real ranking impact, they will respond. #SEO #LinkBuilding #DigitalMarketing #GuestPosting #GrowthMarketing #ContentMarketing #SEOStrategy #Backlinks #SaaSMarketing #AffiliateMarketing #MarketingTips

I opened their emails, and one was movement-building, fiery and urgent. The next?  Policy-heavy and serious. No wonder new subscribers disengaged. 😭 A client came to me convinced that their handraisers needed redesigning.  They’d been running handraisers through Meta ads — bold, emotional, galvanising people to act. But their newsletters were serious policy updates written in a completely different voice.  It was like supporters had signed up to hear from one organisation, but received emails from another. When I ran an audit, it became clear: this wasn’t an email problem, it was a silo problem. 🥖 One team owned the handraisers. 🥖 Another owned the newsletter. So we tested something simple: segment their audience, and send newsletters in the same tone and style as the handraisers they’d signed up to. Engagement soared. The “we need a whole new handraiser” story collapsed overnight. Because email doesn’t fail when subject lines flop or tools feel clunky. Email fails when the supporter experience doesn’t line up. 👀 If your handraisers and newsletters feel like they’re from two different organisations, that’s the first leak to fix.