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How many tools for cold email?
Do we need 1,000 tools to do cold email right in 2025?
Joe Petruzzi
January 06, 2025
2024 was a year of more and more sales tools all promising big claims. One of my favorite companies following this market is ColdIQ, they’ve got an entire page dedicated to sales tools ranked for our benefit.
But the question needs to be asked…do we need all of this? Does the average sales team or outbound motion require all of these specialized tools? I’m an absolute software nerd, using software is in my blood. Even I get this feeling sometimes…when do I just say enough is enough? How many tabs do I need to have open?
In this post I wanted to go over a few different tech-stack setups for different outbound motions to help simplify this market trend of “over-tooling.”
“The SaaS Startup”
Goal: More with less. Maximum output for less cost
Need | Tool | Reasoning |
|---|---|---|
Data | Apollo / Clay | Can run these for cheap and get a ton of data with a little enriching |
Email Sending | Smartlead / Lemlist | Both are focused on deliverability and have simple UI |
CRM | Attio | Free, UI is amazing, very simple to use |
Email Infrastructure | OrganicOutreach | Max opportunity for hitting inbox, fractional tier is more affordable |
Why this works
Out of the box, I like this stack for it’s simplicity. OrganicOutreach sets up the infra and handles it for you, You load up your campaign in Smartlead, import your apollo list, and then you can zap over your leads via webhook over to Attio (which automatically enriches accounts if you’re on a paid plan).
“The Outbound Agency”
Goal: Operational Efficiency at Scale. Not necessarily objectively cheap, but the most things are done consistently without oversight.
Need | Tool | Reasoning |
|---|---|---|
Data | Clay | You’re going to need to ability to connect to everything to help a diverse client base |
Email Sending | Smartlead | Built for agencies, and low volume clients will keep you from spending too much |
CRM | Hubspot | A good middle road from Attio to Salesforce, allows a nice integration from SL as well (Ninja move: check out outbound sync) |
Email Infrastructure | OrganicOutreach | The infra plan gives daily QA and free-swap outs, so when clients are in a pinch, you don’t bottleneck your operation creating mailboxes and reconnecting accounts |
Why this works
For the outbound agency owner, you need speed and efficiency as you scale. All of these options allow fast onboarding for clients, great uptime, and the ability to really integrate tools to make the machine well oiled.
“The Boring Company”
Goal: Simple and Repeatable. Uncle Jim should be able to pop into the chair and run this thing no problemo
Need | Tool | Reasoning |
|---|---|---|
Data | Zoominfo / Apollo / Broker | Either using a popular lead database with filters, or just telling someone on Upwork to get you a verified list is easy peasy |
Email Sending | OrganicOutreach | Managed sending plans, OO will send the emails for you, removing admin bottlenecks of creating and setting up campaigns |
Email Infrastructure | OrganicOutreach | Dedicated servers are best chance to land in the inbox, and Jimbo doesn’t wanna have to touch anything IT with a 10-foot pole |
CRM | Hubspot | Good CRM and has integration |
Integration | OutboundSync | Integrate OrganicOutreach campaigns into Hubspot, Jimbo never has to leave |
Why this works
This is a great “set and forget” setup. You simply hand over your lead list and copy to Organicoutreach, and everything runs for you. You can respond to leads, look at campaign data, and see all of your lead activity directly in Hubspot (you can even report on it!)
Whenever You Are Ready, There Are 2 Ways I Can Help You…
Managed Sending & Deliverability
Our email sending & deliverability service is great for sales teams who want to send cold email without any of the tedious technical roadblocks. Give us your list and copy and we'll do the rest.
High-volume email
Private IPs
Technical setup
Daily QA monitoring
Free back-ups
All other email deliverability tasks
Managed Infrastructure
This service is great for agencies with multiple clients, or in-house teams sending low volume cold email. We setup and manage your email infrastructure, you do the sending and campaign settings yourself.