The Best Email Outreach Tools for 2022

Even though there are now more social networks, content sharing platforms, and forums than before, email remains one of the best channels for promoting products and businesses. Aside from marketing campaigns, the technology can also help in generating leads, requesting backlinks, and connecting with the right influencers for publicity, commonly known as email outreach.

However, since such work requires sending to multiple recipients, repetitive tasks, and data analysis, using the usual email clients/apps might make the job more tedious and the results less effective. Thankfully, leading email providers are now more capable than ever, and companies can choose from countless dedicated email outreach tools, like the seven best options in this article; please read on. 

7 Best Email Outreach Tools for Cold Emails and More

1. Gmail 

Gmail is the most popular email provider worldwide, and for good reasons: it’s free, easy to use, and can  work for casual users, professionals, or even marketers. In terms of usability for performing email outreach, Gmail should suffice for the fundamental tasks. As such, even in the base plan, it’s possible to send unlimited emails (though with a certain limit per day) to multiple recipients and can range up to 2,000  people per mail for Google Workspace subscribers. Moreover, other features like message automation allow  companies to maintain regular sending schedules or follow specific email delivery timings without the risk  of forgetting. 

As an indirect answer to the lack of built-in analysis features, Gmail supports thousands of 3rd-party plugins  from the Chrome Web Store. Accordingly, this unlocks many possibilities in using the service, including the  ability to track the number of opens and clicks of sent emails through extensions like Gmass. However, if the basic functions of Gmail are enough for an organization, then using a native client for it, like Boxysuite , would be beneficial. Unlike browsers, Boxysuite provides a clutter-free, productive, and focused  environment for Gmail and other Google Apps like Contacts, Calendar, and Keep on macOS.

Pros: 

• Offers an excellent free plan 
• Minimal and easy to use 
• Integrates with Google Contacts for faster email sending 
• Supports 3rd party plugins for more functions

Cons: 

• No built-in data analysis features 

2. NinjaOutreach 

Apart from generating sales leads, many companies also use email outreach to connect with relevant  influencers. Currently, these personalities help businesses promote new products or establish the brand  quickly and effectively. Regardless, for such tasks, NinjaOutreach proves to be the best choice for most  marketers. In detail, it has a massive database of influencers from Instagram and YouTube and allows users  to find the most suitable ones using niche keywords quickly. After that, it will display all necessary  information about the discovered influencers, including names, content backgrounds, and especially email  addresses. 

While the database feature alone is enough reason to get the service, NinjaOutreach’s all-in-one CRM can  help many companies that value organization and ease of operations. As such, its CRM can replace many  tools like Excel or Google Sheets for collecting client details, conversations, and more valuable data. Also, it  offers flexible search, view, and filter functions, so users can easily locate something even from thousands of  entries. Lastly, as a vital feature for email outreach, the service allows tracking sent email clicks, opens, and replies. 

Pros: 

• Easy to find the right influencer 
• Excellent information filter functions 
• Users can export data into CSV files 

Cons:

• Requires a slight learning curve in the beginning 
• No free plan 

3. Reply.io 

Reply is the opposite of Gmail; instead of focusing on the fundamentals, it goes further and offers almost all features of an email outreach tool. As such, besides the already powerful email management functions, it also provides a LinkedIn email locator which discovers the most suitable prospects for a business. Moreover, it integrates with countless external services like Zapier, social media sites, messenger apps, and Google Calendar for quickly reserving events and meetings. 

Despite the already impressive collection of functions, Reply excels most with its AI capabilities, data  analysis, and email improvement features. In detail, its AI can help compose emails, auto-reply to messages, and suggest hot (as per Reply’s term) prospects in the inbox. Next, the data analytics dashboard displays insightful information about emails, meetings, team performance, and much more. Finally, as email outreach is all about securing leads, Reply’s improvement tools can help marketers check email quality, reveal effective messages, and gain insights on sending schedules through Outbox. 

Pros: 

• Recommends potentially good prospects 
• Enables email improvements 
• Offers a limited free LinkedIn email finder extension 

Cons: 

• It can be overwhelming for simple tasks 
• Few reported issues with incorrect email formatting 
• Connecting with 3rd party services can take time

4. Outreach.io 

In the sales and marketing space, Outreach is a brand that many companies, including large corporations like Adobe, DocuSign, and Zoom, trust. Currently, it’s the industry standard when it comes to generating leads, assisting company sellers, and overall managing the sales acquisition side of the business. Outreach Kaia, its seller guidance tool, provides sellers with information about specific clients/prospects quickly and in real time using AI. These data types include conversation histories, notes, bookmarks, and actionable items  (tasks).

Apart from that, the service also offers an app it calls Outreach Galaxy, which combines a company’s  multiple external sales services into a unified interface. Furthermore, Outreach boasts about its strengths in four major communication channels, namely email, SMS, call, and social media, providing excellent  features for each and are all accessible in the dashboard. Also, it has an “Opportunities” section where users can easily view emails by different categories according to progress, like “Discovery, Working, Negotiating, and Closed.” 

Pros: 

• Handles different communication channels well 
• Easier to scale data and marketing efforts 

Cons: 

• Automatic sidebar changes can confuse users 
• Some features require additional fees 

5. Prospect.io (Overloop) 

Prospect.io, currently known as Overloop, is a minimal yet powerful and feature-packed CRM and email  outreach tool. Unlike similar services, Overloop makes it easy for companies to manage marketing  campaigns through a highly intuitive interface that enables access to all features right in the sidebar.  Regardless, as the company values conversations more than anything, it provides various tools like two-way Overloop email, which can send and receive messages from and to prospects with a user’s own email address and custom domain. Additionally, the web forms, live chats, contact management, and email finder functions enable easier communication and prospect discovery from any website. Overloop also boasts about  its task automation (workflows), reports/forecasts based on collected data, and visual drag and drop sales and  pipelines board. On top of these things, the company also promises to release two mobile apps soon so that  users can access their CRMs on the go.

Pros: 

• Uncluttered and intuitive interface 
• Accessible on mobile soon 
• Integrates with external services 

Cons: 

• No chat app or social media integration 

6. SmartReach 

SmartReach is another simple yet powerful email outreach tool for businesses. Aside from its own  ProspectDaddy LinkedIn email finder extension, it also supports other tools like Hunter, Clearbit, and  Anymailfinder for more email address discoveries. Moreover, its WarmupHero service prevents emails from ending up in the recipients’ spam folders through campaign warmups, spam test reports, and email  validation. Since it understands that companies use more than one sales tool, it allows importing/exporting to other CRMs and can integrate with over 2,000 external apps using Zapier. Lastly, SmartReach wouldn’t be one of the best email marketing tools if not for its accurate and detailed email reports, which provide insights about clicks, opens, replies, unsubscribes, and bounce rates. 

Pros: 

• External CRM-friendly 
• Easy to use 
• Longer 2-week trial 
• Offers three plans for different business sizes 

Cons: 

• Quite limited contact filters and spam reporting frequency 

7. Yesware 

Unlike other email outreach services, Yesware is a tool that complements Gmail and Microsoft Outlook web clients. As such, instead of opening another app or website, users can directly access its features on top of  the inbox (on Gmail) or at the bottom corner (in Outlook). Besides that, it can also launch Gmail/Outlook  actions like email compose and reply with attached information and custom actions on the input field or  somewhere near the active window. In other words, it makes the connection of an email provider, outreach tool, and even CRM almost frictionless, resulting in faster message responses and data handling.  Additionally, it has an intuitive “Recipient Engagement” dashboard which helps the sales team focus more  on generating leads and not on guessing email response rates. 

Pros: 

• Fast and lightweight 
• Easy to set up 
• Integrates directly to Gmail and Outlook 
• Generous 14-day trial 

Cons: 

• Lack of function and interface customizations 
• Few reported issues with member email forwards counting as email opened by prospects 

Final Words – The Overall Best Email Outreach Tool 

Even though most email outreach tools offer the same fundamental functions, they still vary in terms of  usability, openness for integration with external sales apps, intelligence, accuracy with email reports, and  additional features. Accordingly, companies and marketers can benefit from carefully choosing the right  ones for their needs and business processes.

Nevertheless, based on the list, Gmail should suffice for the  most basic tasks, while Yesmail works best for achieving a seamless connection with an email provider.  However, if an organization wants more flexibility and customizations, then both Reply and NinjaOutreach would be the better choices. Finally, for scaling, superior integration with external services, detailed prospect response analysis, and higher email report accuracy, Outreach, Prospect.io (Overloop), and SmartReach are the best solutions in the industry.