How to send personalized mass emails in Gmail [Guide]

I rest assure you, this guide on how to send personalized mass emails in Gmail will be one of a kind.

Because I researched on the internet before writing this guide as I need to give a piece of precise information on how to send personalized mass emails in Gmail.

Do you know how many guides I found?

ZERO!

Yeah, ZERO guides were found that are closer to what I’m going to explain this highly detailed guide on how to send personalized mass emails in Gmail.

Let’s get back to it!

Need for mass emails as a freelancer

If you are a freelancer or running an online business, I don’t have to remind you that how hard and how important it is to take your message to potential clients. Especially if you are running a cold email campaign, it is even harder.

But, this Neat Gmail trick helped me get clients and scale my Instagram business. If you don’t have an opt-in list of emails, sending emails to the prospect’s inbox is the hardest. A lot of such emails will end up in the spam folder.

If you don’t do it right, then you are destined to lose money and time.

Because your mailing campaign won’t get you any good at all. As I slowly scaled up my freelance game, I needed to expand my services.

I needed to reach out to clients with my ‘Instagram Management service.’

But, I never had a list of opt-in emails, and this is where I struggled the most. This is where I needed to find a reliable and successful method to work with cold emails.

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In this detail-rich guide on how to send personalized mass emails in Gmail, I will explain everything I learned. And most importantly, I will show you my exact work-flow on how to send personalized mass emails in Gmail with a higher inbox rate.

Are you ready?

Is cold-emails legal?

I know you might have had goosebumps as I mentioned ‘cold emails’.

There’s a lot of grey areas in between legal and illegal boundaries of cold emailing. But, overall, it is not illegal to stay in contact with business prospects.

As long as you are precise with how you found the email and why you are contacting the person via email, you should be good.

And you MUST make sure to provide a link for unsubscription.

This way, your prospects can opt-out from your mailing list (even though they didn’t opt-in in the first place), and you are ought not to contact them in the future.

Here’s a detailed overview of cold emailing and its legal aspects.

In my opinion, it is okay to reach out to someone you don’t know, you never did any business with.

But, you always have to follow best practices and be honest.

If not, you better not try cold emailing at all.

Quick Summary: How to send personalized mass emails in Gmail

This guide is going to be a long, descriptive one with lots of screenshots to clear the path for you.

This complete guide will teach you a few things apart from How to send personalized mass emails from Gmail.

Here’s what you’ll learn after following this complete guide.

1. How to create an email on your cPanel
2. How to forward a cPanel email to Gmail (or any other email you prefer. The process is the same)
3. How to send emails from a different address or alias in Gmail
4. How to configure Yet Another Mail Merge with Gmail account
5. What is ‘Spintax’ and how to implement spintax on Google sheets
6. How to spin an email with the help of spintax
7. How to increase inbox rate of your mass email campaign

So, read on.

A lot of good things are lined up for you.

How I started my first mass emailing campaign.

If you wonder, my first mass email campaign was a total failure.

Yeah, I mean it.

We should learn from our mistakes as they are the best lessons we are going to have.

I started sending mass emails using Elastic Email’s SMTP servers and Atomic Email Sender as my mailing client.

This set up cost me no less than $100. (It was one-time payment for Atomic Email sender and monthly recurring $10 for Elastic Email)

For a few days, it worked really well.

All of a sudden Elastic Email suspended my subscription.

And I investigated the reasons for such a ban.

What I found are the usual suspects.

1. Lots of Spams
2. Aggressive usage of the SMTP relay. (Simply I was sending too many emails per day at a higher rate)

Even though I tried all the recommended practices to keep my emails from ending up in the spam folder, most of my emails ended up in the spam.

Even though my first mass emailing campaign failed, it helped me to refine the way I do my personalized mass emailing.

My current flow of sending personalized mass emails in Gmail

My current set up is almost free of charge.

If you are on a budget, of course, you can get this set up ready for absolutely FREE!

Like I mentioned earlier, my set is almost free.

You’ll see why!

Since I need to send at least 200 cold emails per day, I needed to spend some money on my set up and trust me it worth the money.

My mass email set up consists of the following tools. (Free and Paid tools)

Before even starting mass emailing with Gmail, I asked myself, is it even doable?

As I have been using Gmail for several years, I never knew that it could be used as a mass emailing powerhouse.

This comprehensive guide on how to send personalized mass emails in Gmail will reveal everything I did, everything I know how to make your Gmail a mass emailing tool on the fly.

Let’s start it right here!

A Gmail Account

Since Gmail is a free service, you can simply jump in and get a brand new Gmail for you in a matter of minutes.

Need to know how to create a Gmail and secure it? Here’s a guide a wrote on that topic.

But, I highly recommend you for this process, you better find an ‘aged Gmail’ account.

Because it looks lot spammy if you start to send lots of emails using a Gmail just created.

And not to use your personal Gmail for this.

It is always better to keep your personal email away from this.

Yet Another Mail Merge (aka YAMM)

YAMM is a free Google Spreadsheet add-on.

You can find it in the G-Suite marketplace.

With a free YAMM plan, you can send 50 emails per day.

If you are just starting your freelance journey and on a budget, you can use YAMM free plan with a free Gmail account.

It is forever FREE!

Continue to read if you can spare $30/year.

Private Email Hosting

This is to give your email a much professional approach. With private email hosting, you can have a domain-based professional email.

I don’t have to tell you that an email something like [email protected] is looking way better than [email protected]

So to have a professional look, you need a private email hosting service. I recommend Namecheap.

Their Private Email Hosting is the cheapest you could find in the market. And Namecheap is well-known for its top-notch customer service. Whenever you are in need to help, Namecheap customer agents are there for you.

If you still don’t sure what it takes, Namecheap offers their private email hosting for absolutely free for 2 months.

A Grammarly Account

Since I’m not a native speaker, I’m always having difficulties in writing ‘business level’ English. Or ‘correct English’.

This is where Grammarly comes in handy! It is free and you can try Grammarly here and Thank me later!

Also, I have written a comprehensive guide to this amazing tool. If you need to learn more about Grammarly and How to use it properly, check the guide here

My work-flow on how to send personalized mass emails in Gmail-simplified

Okay then, let me walk you through the process. This is precisely I configure my Bulk emailing campaign using Gmail and YAMM.

This step only applies if you are using a professional email.

Create a Professional email from your domain

The first thing you should do is create a professional email using your domain name. To do so, you will have to log into the cPanel of your Private email hosting provider/Web host.

Then navigate to the Emails section.

There you can find all the emails you created (If you have already).

If you haven’t set up any email accounts yet, just click on create.

Once you click on create, it will take you to a new window, where you will have to enter details necessary for creating a new mailbox for you.

1. Choose your domain. If you have multiple domains hosted in the same account, this will be a dropdown. Select the domain from the dropdown.
2. Give your email a unique looking username. (i.e., my username is ‘nimesh’, and my professional email would be [email protected])
3. Give it a strong password for the sake of security.

Once all the things required in place, click on the create button in the bottom left.

It will create a new email account for you.

Forward emails to your Gmail account

After the process completed, find the created email account and click on the Check email.

It will take you to a new window where you can configure this newly created mailbox.

Now we need to forward all the emails that are coming to this mailbox to Gmail.

Let’s do this.

First, you should click on ‘Forwarders’, as shown in the above screenshot.

Then you will be taken to a new window to configure your mail forwarding.

Click on Add Forwarder

Then you can configure where to forward all the incoming mails.

As you can see, it will show your newly created email ([email protected]), and you can add your Gmaidown below (No: 2).

Once all set, click on ‘Add Forwarder’.

If you have done everything right, you will see the success message.

From this point onwards, all the email that comes to my email ([email protected]) will be forwarded to my Gmail, just like that.

So I will never have to log into this mailbox to check my emails.

Since all the emails will be forwarded to my Gmail, I can reply to those emails and take necessary actions from right within my Gmail.

That’s a time-saver. Isn’t it?

Configure Gmail to send emails from a different address or alias

It is not as hard as it sounds. Trust me. What that really means is, configure Gmail to send emails, as the email comes from your professional email.

Still not clear?

No worries, read on. It is almost self-explanatory. You’ll get the idea.

First, log in to your Gmail and go to Settings>Accounts and Import>Send mail as: There click on Add another email address

What this means is, if you have linked multiple email accounts to your Gmail, you will get various emails to the same mailbox.

Since you have forwarded multiple addresses to the same mailbox, it is essential to reply to those emails from the emails they being sent to.

To make sure this happens, you must tick the option Reply from the same address to which the message was sent.

Otherwise, all emails will be replied from your default email address.

As you can see in the above screenshot, my personal Gmail has been linked with 4 other email addresses. If I haven’t ticked that option, all emails will be replied from my default email [email protected]

Which is not what I need. I just don’t want to confuse my clients and coworkers. You should too.

Let’s get back to it.

Once you click on add another email address, a new window will popup. Just enter the details as appropriate.

Enter your professional email address as above.

Then click on the next step.

Well, this step might be a little ‘geeky’ as it looks. But don’t worry. It is easier than it looks.

Where to find these?

Well, I’m sure you have missed these already.

Just log into your professional email, the one you created using your domain.

Whenever you set up a new email, you’ll get an email with instructions.

It contains all the pieces of information that you need to complete the above step.

As per the manual settings, these are the info you need to complete the setup process.

<

• SMTP Server: iwannabeafreelancer.com (Yours, it will be your domain name)
• SMTP Port: 465
• Username: [email protected] (Email you created)
• Password: the one you defined when setting up the account

NOTE: These configuration settings are almost similar in almost all the hosting providers.

But, if you see any differences, you may have to contact your hosting provider.

Now we have all the information we need, and let’s head back to Gmail and finalize the process.

Now click on ‘Add Account.’

Then you’ll get this window.

What it means that the configuration is successful.

But, you will have to do one last thing to make the process complete. Which is, input the code that Gmail sent to your professional email (The one you set up on your cPanel)

Since you have already forwarded that email to your Gmail, that verification should come to your Gmail. You don’t have to log into your cPanel email again.

Here it is, right in your Gmail, as mentioned!

Take the code and place it in the box.

After that, click on verify.

Congratulations!

You just added your cPanel email to Gmail. What it means, you can send and receive emails from your cPanel email or Professional email, right within your Gmail.

You don’t have to log into your cPanel email, ever again!

Cool, right?

Make your newly added email as the Default email

Yup, you hear it right.

Make your newly added email as the default email in the Gmail account.

After you make it Default, whenever you compose an email from your Gmail, your default email would be your professional email.

Okay then, just go to

Gmail>Settings> Accounts and Import> Send mail as:

and click on ‘make default’ on the email you want to make default.

Since I made it default, this is how my default mail composing window looks.

The first email is my default one, and if I click on the little arrow, it will get me a dropdown with all the linked email addresses.

So I can pick which email I should use to send an email.

So now, we have created a professional email address, forwarded it to our Gmail, and added it as a Gmail alias.

Now we move on with configuring YAMM.

Configuring Yet Another Mail Merge with Google Sheets

This step is super easy.

All you have to do, go to Google Drive and Open a Google Sheet.

Then click on

Add-ones>Get add-ons

This will open up the Google Sheet Add-ons library.

There will find plenty of useful add-ons that can use with Google Sheets, Google docs.

We need Yet Another Mail Merge.

Type it on the search box.

Then click on YAMM and install it on Google sheet.

See, it is super easy and straightforward. With just a few clicks, you can Install YAMM on Google sheets.

That completes the initial steps of sending personalized mass emails in Gmail.

But, we are not done yet.

Let’s draft an email

Yup, the next thing we need is a draft of an email.

Here’s something that I used to send to my cold leads.

My main focus was Instagram, and my pitch was directed to convince these cold leads about their Instagram and how I can help them grow their Instagram organically.

Once the draft is prepared, keep it as it is.

Here’s how my simple message looks.

I know it is a simple message, and that really worked for me.

If you wonder why there are some curly brackets in the draft, they are essential to personalize or customize the email that we are going to send out.

Because YAMM is going to replace these curly brackets with respective fields from the Google spreadsheet we use.

Let’s configure Google Sheet

All these columns represent the information that I need to add to my email.

Compare them with the curly brackets in the draft.

Now it should be clear that curly brackets in the draft are representing the columns in the Google sheet.

This is how YAMM gets to know which fields to replace with what.

The sky is never the limit.

You can add as much as headings and information to make your email more appealing and give it a more personalized approach.

That’s it. You can start sending personalized mass emails in Gmail using YAMM now.

Sending your first personalized mass emails in Gmail

As you are all set, all you have to do is start the campaign.

Go to

Add-ons>Yet Another Mail Merge>Start Mail Merge

Customize YAMM

And YAMM allows you to customize the sender’s name, Track emails, add Unsubscribe links, etc

You can configure almost everything.

You can change your sender’s name.

Also, it is crucial to select the right draft to use.

If you have lots of drafts in your Gmail, you’ll have a dropdown like this.

Make sure to select the right draft. Or else, you will be sending a different message to all your cold leads.

If you have a couple of drafts, this is not a big deal.

But, when you have several drafts, you better keep an eye on which draft you select.

And the other important thing is, you should add a link to unsubscribe.

Adding the Unsubscribe link is essential and easy.

And even you can change ‘reply to’ address. If someone responded, their message will come to my pre-defined mailbox.

This is an excellent addition to keep your primary mailbox free from lots of emails.

How to add the Unsubscribe link in YAMM Draft?

I don’t have to remind you that we should give our recipients the ability to opt-out from our mailing list.

Since they have not opt-in, at least we should give them the chance to get rid of us 😀

It is not just giving people a chance to opt-out. It also helps us to keep our mailing list as clean as possible. That’ll ultimately help us to keep a low bounce rate, low spam rate, etc

Take a look at the following video that explains how to add unsubscribe link to YAMM

Once all are set, you can start your cole emailing campaign.

I always do this to make sure email is configured to my preferences. This exact method has worked for me.

But, it went kaboom after a while. The problem with this method was, I have been sending almost the same message over and over again.

So, it has triggered Gmail’s spam filters, and then Gmail started penalizing my message. Then I have to redesign my whole cold emailing campaign.

Re-optimized personalized mass email campaign with YAMM + Spintax

Yes, since I started hitting lots of spams and low inbox rates, I needed to re-optimize my personalized mass emailing flow.

I always wanted to make sure I’m sending unique emails as much as possible. So I needed to add variations to the message I send.

To do so, Spintax was in my mind. This is where I started using Spintax with my cold emails.

What is Spintax?

If you don’t have any idea of what is Spintax is, think like this.

Take a look at the following sentences.

As you can see, both are the same sentence. But, when writing it, the first sentence is different from the second.

In a way, both are unique sentences.

Not just unique, they are both readable and meaningful. With Spintax, we can create many variations of the same text while making all the variations unique from each other.

Importantly, all will be readable and meaningful.

Interestingly, I found that we can implement Spintax on Google Sheets with the help of a JavaScript.

Before writing a Spintax, let’s implement JavaScript on your Google Sheets.

Implementing JavaScript on Google Sheets

Implementing a JavaScript on Google Sheet is super easy.

This is what you have to do.

First, copy the below code as it is.

// @param   -- spintax. Required. String. A string of text marked up with spintax. 
// @example -- run_spintax("{What is|what's} the deal with {airline food|the food they give you on airplanes}?")
function run_spintax(spintax) { 
  // Define a variable to store a REGEX that will match all spintax instances  
  var regex = new RegExp(/{([^{}]+?)}/);
  // Loop through all spintax instances  
  while((to_spin = regex.exec(spintax)) !== null) { 
    // Break the current spintax match from a string into an array split on the pipe character
    opts = to_spin[1].split("|"); 
    // Get a random option from the spintax options
    random = Math.floor(Math.random() * opts.length); 
    // Replace the full spintax string with the chosen option 
    spintax = spintax.replace(to_spin[0], opts[random]); 
  }
  return spintax;
}

Once you copied the above code, go to

Google Sheet> Tools> Script Editor

Once you click on the Script Editor, it will open in a different tab.

Go there and paste the copied code to it and make sure to save it before exiting the script editor.

Great, you have just implemented a JavaScript on Google Sheets, which will allow you to do Spintax.

Let’s re-write our email with Spintax

Now the fun begins.

Let’s re-write what we have already written.

Email Subject

Email Body

Well, for now, it might look weird!

I get it.

There are lots of pipe keys or vertical bars (|) in between almost all the words.

If you still don’t clear what is going to happen, I recommend you to read on.

You will realize the use of those pipe keys and emojis after you see the final output.

I think it is already clear that I have made several changes to our original email.

Let’s breakdown the Spintaxed email

Breaking down the spintaxed email script is only needed to explain to you the process.

Or else, we don’t have to break it down.

As you can see, I’ve divided the message into 4 sections. Each section has its own Spintax—a simple one.

I’m going to name each section. You’ll see why.

Read on!

Let’s write another email draft with Spintax

I know, I know you all are confused. You have trusted me this far.

So, I’m asking you to trust me a little more. Because you are going to witness something entirely new.

I bet you!

This is how my newly written draft looks

As you can see, I have replaced all 4 sections with their assigned names ({{Hey}},{{Instagram}},{{Appreciate}} and {{great}})

Let’s configure Google Spreadsheet again

As now we have 4 different sections, we should add these to the Google Spreadsheet.

Each section represents a new column in the Google Spreadsheet, and each column should be named accordingly.

This is the only way that Google Sheet gets to know where it should spin the written content.

It is super easy.

Just hang in there.

I think it is self-explanatory. Right?

What I did is, I created 4 different columns in Google sheet that represent the 4 sections I created on my email Draft!.

Let’s Spintax your email

Now we have added a JavaScript to Google sheet, Structured the draft as per our requirement.

Now we have to do is check our spintax.

This is what you have to do!

To do so,  you should use the following code

=run_spintax("{Your Spintax Goes here}")

Let me show you.

Let’s try Section 01.

Section 01 is

{Hi|Hello|Hola|Hey there|Hello there|Hey}

So, it should be like this

=run_spintax("{Hi|Hello|Hola|Hey there|Hello there|Hey}")

Section 02

=run_spintax("{Insta|Instagram} {✋|👌|👋|🖐️|😊|😄|😇|🙂}")

Section 03

=run_spintax("{Fantastic|Amazing|Awesome|awesome|Cool 😎|cool😎|Cool|fantastic}")

Section 04

=run_spintax("{GREAT|great|Good|good}")

Now copy and paste the above to their appropriate column in the Google sheet.

As you can see, our spintax works!

So, copy and paste all the sections accordingly.

After you paste everything, all you have to do is drag the cells down.

Like this.

If you have 100 or maybe 1000 emails listed on the spreadsheet, drag it down till the end of 100 or 1000 lines, and you are ready!

Now you can send personalized mass emails in Gmail.

Now it has even more variations to the content than what I had in my first email.

So, this email will have a longer shelflife than the usual email you would send with YAMM.

As much as you make your email content unique and readable, it will give your email a higher inboxing rate.

Higher Inboxing rate with personalized mass emails

No matter how hard we try, we always focus on more inboxing rate.

Some of my campaigns hit over 80% of the Inboxing rate. Didn’t I tell you that YAMM can track those emails?

Yeah, you heard it right.

YAMM tracks the inbox rate, bounce rate, open rate, and even unsubscriptions.

The usual mass email open rate is less than 25%.

Some say it is around 14% to 23%.

As you can see in my above screenshot, my open rate was more than 75%.

That is a whopping 3 times higher than the usual open rate.

Can you imagine it?

We are sending our sales pitches to emails we scraped from the internet, and our open rate is way above the average!!

We are literally talking about more money!

Things to keep in mind when sending personalized mass emails in Gmail

I know there are several other ways to send mass emails.

This guide on how to send personalized mass emails in Gmail is specially designed for marketers who are selling stuff.

Some may think this whole guide is useless, as many of us are focusing on sending tens of thousands of mass emails at once.

Yet, this particular method has helped me gain more clients and scale my freelance business.

I can vouch that this method works.

Even though Gmail is not designed to do mass email, it can still leverage to send a limited number of targeted mass emails. That is the whole point of this guide on how to send personalized mass emails in Gmail

If you are planning on sending thousands of emails per day, then this method is not for you. But of course, you can purchase multiple YAMM licenses and do the thing.

It is entirely up to you.

YAMM is a Powerhouse, use it wisely for personalized mass emailing

And with a YAMM license, you can send 400 emails per day. But, I highly recommend you to stay below that limit.

I usually send 200 emails per day. And that is not straight away.

I divide my daily mass emails from Gmail into 4 slots. Every time I send 50 emails, and I do it as slow as possible.

But of course, you can send more emails per day. Maybe you can try 400 emails per day. But, I highly recommend you not to do it. Because it will get you more and more spams.

Ultimately, you will be putting your Gmail in harm’s way!

Warming up your Gmail for personalized mass emails-AKA Best Practices

You may have all the tools and time ready for your Gmail mass emailing campaign.

But, it doesn’t mean that you should skip the best practices.

1. If you don’t have an aged Gmail account, create one. It is Free.
2. Then sign up for several newsletters. It will make your newly created Gmail active and real.
3. And manually send some emails. It is okay to email another Gmail (or any other email) you own.
4. Then start the YAMM campaign.
5. On the first day, send around 10 emails using YAMM.
6. On the second day, increase it by 5 or 10.
7. Within a week, you will be able to send 100 emails per day
8. Continue this, until you warm up your Gmail to send your desired number of emails per day
9. I remind you again, 200 emails per day, spread in 4 batches would be an ideal option for sending mass emails from Gmail

FAQs: how to send personalized mass emails in Gmail

Conclusion: How to send personalized mass emails in Gmail

Gmail is not designed to send mass emails. Yet, with some tools and a little bit of fine-tuning, you can convert your Gmail to become your mass email tool.

If you are thinking of how to send personalized mass emails in Gmail, you should first think about where you find emails to contact. It would be a usual web scrape, directory scrape, etc

No matter what, if you don’t have opted-in emails, then you are going to do mass emailing from Gmail as cold emails.

Many think that cold emails are illegal.

But it’s not.

As long as you tell your recipient, where you found the contact info, the purpose of you reaching out to him/her and provide a clear unsubscribe link with every email, then you are good to go.

But you should never flood their inboxes. Keep it humane. Be a good human being.

Then if you need to give a more professional approach to the mass email you send via Gmail, you should buy Private email hosting from a reputed seller like Namecheap.

Link your professional email with Gmail. Then configure Yet Another Mail Merge with your Gmail account.

Now you can send personalized mass emails from Gmail.

If you need to create and send unique emails, try Spintaxing. This guide has clearly elaborated on how you should prepare your email with the help of spintax. Make your emails as personal as possible and as unique as possible.

It will help you better inbox rate and better response rate as well. Convert your cold-leads to hot-leads with the help of Gmail and Yet Another Mail Merge.

This guide on How to send personalized mass emails in Gmail is all about making you smarter with your mass emailing and get you more sales in the long run.