This is the cold email plan we'd run for a link building agency that serves one industry. It leans on one simple fact. A company's links and its competitors' links are public and you can compare them in a minute.
Your market is every company in your industry where rankings decide who gets the client and where good content already exists. Links help a good page rank. They do very little for a site with nothing worth linking to.
Narrow the list to companies with decent content and weak authority. Those are the ones where links make the clearest difference. These are the signals worth looking for.
Ahrefs or Semrush shows how many sites link to a company and to its competitors. A company with a fraction of its rival's links and similar content has a clear gap.
Pages with solid content that sit between position 11 and 20 are often short on authority. Ahrefs lists them by keyword.
Ahrefs shows new links by month. A competitor adding links month after month while this company stands still is a race worth pointing out.
Ahrefs lists links from other sites that point to pages which no longer exist. Those links are wasted until someone adds a redirect.
News articles and industry sites sometimes mention the company by name and never link. Search their name in quotes and check the results.
A company that publishes a survey or a report has something reporters and bloggers want to cite. A report with few links pointing at it was never promoted.
At small companies the founder or the head of marketing decides. At bigger ones it is the head of search or content.
Twenty-five sites that link to their two closest competitors and not to them. Ahrefs builds it with its link intersect report in a few minutes a company.
It works because it is a ready target list with their rivals already on it.
Go through it on a 15 minute call. Some of those sites will be partners or customers they already know and those links come fastest. The rest is the work you do.
The links pointing at broken pages on their site with the redirect that recovers each one.
It works because it gives them something back right away.
Show it on a screen share with their developer if possible. The fix takes an afternoon once someone explains which redirects matter and the conversation turns to what else is being missed.
Pick a handful of sites from the gap list and earn the first links at no charge. Share the live links as they land.
It works because it is the same work the retainer pays for and live links are proof they can click.
It starts with a 20 minute call to agree the target pages and the angle for each pitch. Set a clear window like 30 days after that call so both sides know when to judge it.
Each segment gets its own email because a specific email gets more replies than a general one. Split each segment by sub-industry too so the examples in the email fit the reader.
Keep each email under 100 words with one reason for writing and one line of proof and one offer and one question. The proof lines are examples of the kind of result to use. Swap in real results of your own before anything goes out.
Lead with the two link counts side by side and offer the gap list.
Hi {{first_name}},
{{competitor}} has links from {{competitor_domains}} sites. {{company}} has {{company_domains}}.
Pulled the 25 sites that link to them and not to you. A few of them cover {{industry}} every week.
A company we work with closed a gap like this in five months and moved into the top three for its main search.
Want me to walk you through the list?
{{sender_first_name}}
Lead with the number of broken links and one example from a site they'd recognize. Offer the report.
Hi {{first_name}},
{{broken_count}} sites link to pages on {{company}}'s site that no longer load. One of them is {{example_site}}.
Those links do nothing until the old pages are redirected. Mapped each one to the right page.
Recovering 40 links like this lifted one client's main product page from 9th to 4th in six weeks.
Should I show you which ones matter?
{{sender_first_name}}
They published a report nobody links to. Lead with the report and offer the first links free.
Hi {{first_name}},
Read {{company}}'s {{report_name}}. It's the kind of data writers in {{industry}} cite and only {{report_links}} sites link to it.
Happy to pitch it to a handful of those sites free and share the links as they land.
We did this with a similar report last year and it earned 31 links in its first two months.
Interested?
{{sender_first_name}}
Lead with the one page closest to page one and ask for a call directly.
Hi {{first_name}},
{{company}}'s page for "{{keyword}}" sits at number {{position}} on Google. The pages above it have more sites linking to them and not better content.
We earn links for {{industry}} companies from sites their buyers read. Eight good links took a client's page from 13th to 5th in ten weeks.
Worth 15 minutes to see what that page needs?
{{sender_first_name}}
Send two follow ups in the same thread three to five days apart.
Each reply should end in a booked meeting that actually happens. The lead magnet and the offer get delivered on that call and never go out as a file to read later.
The replies below cover the three ways people say yes.
They asked for the gap list. The call sorts it into the fast wins and the slow ones.
Hi {{first_name}},
Happy to. Some of the 25 sites are probably partners or customers you already know and those links come fastest. Fifteen minutes is enough to sort the list together and pick where to start.
Does Tuesday at 10am or Wednesday at 2pm work?
{{sender_first_name}}
They want the first links free. The call agrees the pages and the pitch.
Hi {{first_name}},
Great. Before pitching anything I need 20 minutes with you to agree which pages the links should point at and what you're comfortable saying about the report.
Pitches go out the week after that call. Does Thursday at 11am or Friday at 3pm work?
{{sender_first_name}}
They said yes to a call. Tell them what they'll leave with so they show up.
Hi {{first_name}},
Perfect. I'll bring the sites linking to the pages above yours and the ones most likely to link to {{company}}. You'll leave knowing exactly what that page needs.
Does Monday at 1pm or Tuesday at 9am work?
{{sender_first_name}}
Results aren't guaranteed and nobody honest can promise a number before the first emails go out. A few things decide how a campaign does.
The first few weeks show how the market responds. The list and the copy and the offer get sharper from there.
We build and run this campaign for one agency per industry.
This page is a starting point and a strategy we'd happily test ourselves. Working together gives us more context on your agency. That context lets us add better strategies and build better lists and offers and automations for you.
Thirty minutes on your market and how we'd reach it.