For a first email to someone who has never heard of you, send plain text with light formatting: short paragraphs, no images, no buttons, at most one link. Save designed HTML templates for people who asked to hear from you, such as newsletter subscribers and customers. A cold email is supposed to look like a note from one person to another, and a banner and a button say "campaign."
This isn't a rule of nature. Some HTML emails land fine and some plain-text ones go to spam. But on a new sender with no history, every extra signal counts against you, and design is the cheapest signal to remove. Below is a copyable template, the places HTML sneaks in without you choosing it, and how to check what you actually sent.
What an HTML template changes
An HTML email is a small web page. It can carry images, colors, buttons and layout. It can also carry tracking pixels, rewritten links and large chunks of code, and all of that gives a filter more to judge. A message with a logo, two buttons and four links has five or six things to check. A message with three short paragraphs has none. Studies from email vendors have found plain text doing better for cold outreach, but the well-known ones are observational comparisons across customers, not controlled experiments, so treat the size of the gap as unknown and the direction as likely.
How each looks to a filter and to a person
| Format | Reads as | Use it for | Skip it for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Plain text | A note from a person | First emails, follow-ups | Nothing in outreach |
| Plain text plus one link | A person pointing at something | A portfolio or booking page, after a reply | The very first email, if you can avoid it |
| Light HTML (bold, a list) | A person who formats | Quotes, replies in a live thread | Cold first touches |
| Designed template | A company mailing | Newsletters, receipts, customer announcements | Anyone who did not opt in |
When a designed template is the right call
When the reader expects it. A newsletter that people signed up for. A booking confirmation or a receipt. An announcement to existing customers that a price or a schedule changed. A re-engagement note to a list of people who bought from you last year. In each case the person knows who you are, so a logo and a button reassure instead of alarm. If your own setup uses both kinds of mail, send them from different addresses so the designed bulk mail doesn't influence how your personal outreach is judged. Whether to use your main domain goes into that split.
A sensible order is plain text for the first three touches, then whatever suits the conversation once the person has replied. Someone who answers "yes, send a quote" has asked for a document, and a clean formatted quote with a table of line items is the right thing to send them. The format follows the relationship, not the other way round.
A plain-text template to copy
Ravi services e-bike fleets for small delivery companies in Denver. This is the whole email, exactly as it should arrive, with nothing hidden behind it:
Subject: your e-bike fleet in Denver
Hi Marguerite,
I saw Foxtail Delivery added a fourth courier route in Capitol Hill this month, which probably means more miles on the same bikes.
I run Ravi's Fleet Cycles. We service fleets of 5 to 40 e-bikes at your depot once a month: brakes, tires, battery check and a written log, $18 a bike.
If you tell me how many bikes you run, I'll reply with an exact number today. Want that?
Ravi Khatri
Ravi's Fleet Cycles, 555-0113
2210 Larimer Row, Denver, CO 80202
Not relevant? Reply "no thanks" and I won't write again.
Seventy-three words in the body. The formatting is blank lines between paragraphs and line breaks in the signature. No bold, no bullets, no link, no image. If you need to show three items, write them in a sentence. If you really want a list, use plain hyphens and keep it to three lines.
Where HTML sneaks in without you choosing it
A message is no longer plain text the moment any of these is present:
- Bold, italics, colors or a font change in the compose window.
- A link written as text (a word that goes somewhere). A bare web address pasted as text counts as a link to most mail apps, but it's a lighter signal than a word with a link behind it.
- A logo or image in the signature, including the social icons your signature tool added.
- An open-tracking pixel, which is an invisible image. If you use a tracking tool, turning it off is the simplest way to send plain text. The argument against open tracking is that it counts mail apps loading images, not people reading.
- Click tracking, which swaps your link for a redirect address.
In Gmail, the compose window defaults to rich text. Open the three-dot menu at the bottom right of the compose window and choose Plain text mode to strip the formatting before you send.
Check what you actually sent
Five minutes, once, before a campaign. Send your template to a second address you own, ideally on a different provider such as Outlook.com. Open it on your phone and a computer. In Gmail, open the message, click the three dots and choose Show original. Look for the line that says Content-Type. If it says text/plain, you sent plain text. If it says multipart/alternative with a text/html part, something added HTML. Check that the opt-out line, the signature and the line breaks survived. Then send 20 real emails before you send 200. If you want more on what else to look for, our guide to cold email signatures covers the signature, and cold email with an attachment covers the other thing people add by habit.
Light formatting rules
Keep paragraphs to one to three lines. Leave one blank line between them. Put the question on its own line near the end. Write the opt-out as a sentence. Don't use all caps or more than one exclamation mark. When you are unsure, read it on your phone. If it looks like a message a colleague would send, it will do. The ending matters too: see how to end a cold email. The words matter more than the wrapper, and how to write a cold email that gets replies is where to put your effort once the format is settled.
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