What Is Email Marketing Automation and How Does It Scale Cold Outreach?

Imagine you had to write, personalize, and send your outreach emails manually…

Apart from the enormous workload, things would get messy fast.

Fortunately, there’s this thing called email marketing automation, and it’s the only way to scale email outreach.

In this post, you’ll learn what email marketing automation is, why you should use it, and the tools you can use to implement it.

What is email marketing automation? Specific examples of how it can help you 🤖

Email marketing automation allows you to set up campaigns and (mostly) forget about them.

Email automation handles timing, personalization, and tracking, so you don’t have to lift a finger.

Once set up, campaigns run on autopilot—you just need to add fresh leads.

That means you can:

• ✅ Set up email sequences: Send your initial emails + (conditional) follow-ups automatically at the intervals you specify
• ✅ Personalize outreach at scale: Including names, company details, job roles, or other variables. Some sales engagement platforms, like lemlist, even let you personalize images.
• ✅ Customize your campaigns based on triggers: Did your lead open your first email? Clicked on a link? Automatically send them a customized email based on these or other actions.
• ✅ Segment leads: You can easily segment leads by industry, company size, or interest level. Automation does the heavy lifting and ensures the right messages go to the right leads.
• ✅ Track your emails’ performance: Email automation tools track important metrics like open, click, and reply rate

Outside cold email, email marketing automation can do some other cool things like:

• 👉 Send welcome emails to new subscribers/customers
• 👉 Send reminders when customers abandon their shopping carts
• 👉 Send follow-up emails after a purchase
• 👉 Send re-engagement emails to inactive subscribers

6 benefits of email marketing automation 🚀

Email marketing automation is essential for every sales team.

Want to scale your cold email outreach without sacrificing quality? Automation is your best friend.

Here are the most important benefits of email marketing automation for cold outreach:

1. Saves you a ton of time and headache ⏳

With email marketing automation, there’s no need to send emails individually.

Automation sends personalized emails to the right leads at the right time.

Best part?

Instead of wasting time on repetitive tasks, sales teams can focus on high-value activities like closing deals.

Khushi Mehta, Partnerships Manager at Secret, used email marketing automation to boost her team’s productivity by 3x.

2. Allows you to scale personalization 📈

You can send hundreds or even thousands of human-like emails with the right automation tools.

And the personalization extends beyond just names.

With lemlist, you can include custom text variables, images, and dynamic landing pages in your campaigns.

Gayle Rogers boosted the revenue of his Atomic Agency by 15% by using advanced personalized.

3. Lets you nurture your leads 🌱

Typically, it takes more than one email to convert a lead.

Automated follow-ups warm up your leads and ensure consistent communication.

You can also set up triggers based on lead behavior to send follow-ups automatically. These timely and relevant messages outperform more generic follow-ups.

4. Makes you reduce human error 🔽

Endless manual work could lead to mistakes.

Automation ensures you don’t have to painstakingly add your leads’ details to each email manually. It makes it less likely that mistakes creep up in your outreach.

5. Helps you make more money 💵

Automated emails create 320% more revenue than non-automated emails

The scalability that automation brings in and of itself will help you generate more revenue. The more quality emails you send, the more money you will make.

Additionally, automation sends the right message at the right time, thereby boosting your conversions.

6. Allows you to send multichannel follow-ups 🌐

Some email marketing automation tools go beyond email.

lemlist, for example, allows to create campaigns that combine email with other channels like cold calls and LinkedIn messages.

Multichannel outreach boosts engagement and, ultimately, your bottom line.

Benjamin Mareschal de Charentenay, the founder of Leads solution, used email marketing automation to boost his cold outreach success. He doubled their revenue by personalizing follow-ups at scale.

Choosing the right email marketing automation tool

Not all email marketing automation tools are designed for cold email. You can also find tools for:

• ➡️ Running email newsletters (Mailchimp, Constant Contact, etc.)
• ➡️ Sending transactional emails like order confirmations, password resets, and shipping updates (Sendgrid, Postmark, etc.)
• ➡️ Combining email automation with CRMs to track leads and sales activities (HubSpot, Salesforce, etc.)
• ➡️ Sending eCommerce-related emails like abandoned carts, post-purchase follow-ups, and product recommendations (Klaviyo, Omnisend, etc.)

But since we’re mostly concerned with cold email here, we’ll limit the set of tools to platforms that include cold emailing.

1. lemlist

Sales engagement platform lemlist is famous for its multichannel and advanced personalization features.

Not only can you reach out through cold emails and cold calls, but you can also send LinkedIn chat and voice messages—all in the same campaign. This multichannel approach can lead to superior engagement and generate more revenue for your business.

lemlist also features a 450M+ leads database so you can quickly send leads to your campaigns and reach out to them.

lemlist offers a 14-day free trial. Its paid plans start at $32/month.

2. Mailshake

Mailshake allows you to manage your email and LinkedIn campaigns in a single place.

This cold email tool is easy to use, but its personalization features are limited to custom text variables.

One of Mailshake’s best features is that you can send up to 250 emails/month on its free plan. If you’re just starting with cold email and only need basic features, this free plan could help you get your feet wet.

Mailshake only offers two paid plans:

1. Email Outreach ($49/month)
2. Sales Engagement ($99/month)

3. Waalaxy

Waalaxy is a tool designed to make LinkedIn your primary prospecting channel.

However, it also boasts a cold emailing feature that allows you to schedule your campaigns in advance.

Waalaxy’s personalization features are limited, but it does offer multichannel outreach. This means you can combine cold emails with LinkedIn messages in the same campaign.

A free plan is available with 25 email finder credits/month.

The prices of Waalaxy’s paid plans are high, especially when paid monthly. Steep discounts are available for yearly plans (see image below)

Key takeaways 🔑

• Email marketing automation allows you to scale your outreach and generate more revenue: Manually personalizing and sending emails is time-consuming. With email marketing automation, you can schedule your email sequences, personalize them at scale, and segment leads easily.
• EMA also reduces human error: Manual email outreach could cause you to make mistakes since you're repeating the same tasks over and over.
• Choosing the right tool for your needs is essential: Different use cases require different tools. For example: If you don’t have any budget, start with Mailshake’s free plan. However, if you need more advanced features for superior results, go with lemlist.