7 Cold Email Tools E-commerce Brands Use to Land Partnerships

As e-commerce continues growing its market share (experts predict nearly 25% of all US purchases will happen online by 2026), the retail experience becomes more complex. Shoppers now check influencer recommendations, compare multiple retailers, and read reviews before making decisions.

This creates real partnership opportunities for e-commerce brands. Collaborating with influencers, complementary brands, and retailers helps you reach new customers and create better shopping experiences. The question is: How do you get in touch with these potential partners?

Cold email is the most logical answer. Why? Because 61% of decision-makers prefer it as their primary communication channel. But manually crafting individual emails doesn't work when you need to reach hundreds of potential partners. Cold email tools help brands secure partnerships by automating personalized outreach, ensuring emails land in primary inboxes, and tracking which prospects are actually interested.

In this article, we'll examine the seven cold email platforms e-commerce brands rely on for landing partnerships and what makes each one valuable for different outreach needs.

1. Instantly

Instantly is an end-to-end cold email tool that handles everything from technical setup to response tracking in a single interface. It's easy to use, has excellent customer support, and is packed with features that support campaign automation and deliverability. One of the platform’s biggest perks is that you can connect unlimited email accounts, making it easy to create scalable campaigns without additional costs.

Key Features:

• Huge B2B Lead Database: Access over 450 million pre-verified contacts to quickly find potential partners. Instead of manually researching potential partners, you can search the database and start reaching out within minutes.
• Instantly Copilot: This AI assistant builds complete outreach campaigns for you, identifies your ideal partnership targets, and analyzes what's working. 
• Smart Reply Agent: Automatically reads and responds to incoming emails within minutes. When a potential partner shows interest, the AI handles initial questions and can even create calendar links for partnership calls while you focus on other tasks.
• Real-Time Deliverability Monitoring: Tracks inbox placement rates and automatically warms up new domains. Your partnership pitches actually reach decision-makers instead of getting filtered out, which directly impacts response rates.

2. GMass

GMass turns your regular Gmail account into a cold email platform through a simple Chrome extension. Instead of learning a new interface, you send partnership outreach directly from your Gmail inbox using Google Sheets to personalize emails at scale. It's a good choice for small e-commerce brands that want to start reaching out to potential partners without investing in expensive enterprise software.

Key Features:

• Google Sheets Mail Merge: Connects to Google Sheets to automatically personalize emails with contact details, company names, or recent news about potential partners. Each email looks individually written, even when you're reaching out to hundreds of prospects.
• Spam Solver Testing: Tests your emails to see if they land in inbox, promotions, or spam folders before you send your actual campaign. This helps ensure that influencers and brand managers actually see your partnership proposals.
• External SMTP Support: Lets you send emails through external servers to bypass Gmail's daily limits. You can scale your partnership outreach beyond what Gmail normally allows while keeping everything in your familiar inbox.

3. Saleshandy

Saleshandy is an email outreach platform with a four-step workflow: create sequences, add prospects, connect email accounts, and launch campaigns. It includes email verification tools and an analytics dashboard to track campaign performance, plus API and Zapier integration for connecting with other business tools. 

Key Features:

• Real-Time Email Scoring: Grades your emails as you type and suggests ways to improve response rates. The AI can also rewrite your partnership pitches in different styles, though you'll need to tweak them to sound like your brand.
• AI Lead Search: Find prospects by simply describing who you want to reach instead of filling out complicated search forms. Tell it you need "influencers for eco-friendly products" and it finds matching contacts automatically.
• Unlimited Email Accounts: Connect as many email accounts as you want on any paid plan. Most platforms charge extra for additional senders, but SalesHandy lets you scale up without surprise fees.

4. Mixmax

Mixmax integrates directly with Gmail and Outlook to add email automation, sequencing, and tracking capabilities to your existing inbox. The platform offers AI-powered email writing assistance and automated workflows, plus features like meeting scheduling and task management that help coordinate partnership outreach across teams.

Key Features:

• Pre-Built Email Templates: Access templates designed for different business scenarios that you can customize for partnership outreach. Instead of starting from scratch, you can adapt proven email structures for reaching out to potential brand collaborators.
• Real-Time Engagement Tracking: Monitor when prospects open emails, click links, or download attachments as it happens. This immediate feedback helps you time follow-ups perfectly when potential partners show interest in your proposals.
• Cross-Team Coordination: Share templates, assign tasks, and maintain team conversations about specific prospects. Multiple team members can collaborate on partnership development without losing track of who contacted which prospects or what the next steps should be.

5. Artisan

Artisan automates 80% of your partnership outreach by finding leads, researching them, and writing personalized messages without manual setup. The AI pulls data from company websites, social media, and press releases to craft relevant emails and LinkedIn messages. You can chat with the platform's AI assistant, Ava, in natural language to build campaigns or make adjustments.

Key Features:

• Deep Prospect Research: Analyzes thousands of data sources to find relevant details about potential partners, from recent company news to decision-maker backgrounds. This helps create cold email templates that actually get responses because each message feels personally researched rather than generic.
• Multi-Channel Automation: Coordinates email and LinkedIn outreach in unified sequences that work together. The platform manages timing and follow-ups across both channels so you don't accidentally spam prospects or miss opportunities.
• Self-Optimizing Campaigns: Automatically adjusts send times, volumes, and message styles based on response data. The system runs A/B tests and refines your outreach strategy without manual campaign management.

6. Apollo

Apollo combines lead generation, email outreach, and CRM tools in one platform built for larger teams. It has become popular for its massive B2B contact database and comprehensive sales pipeline management features. The platform provides advanced search filters, automated email sequencing, and real-time insights that help improve cold email marketing results.

Key Features:

• Massive Contact Database: Search through millions of B2B contacts to find brand managers and potential partners. The Chrome extension also grabs contact details directly from LinkedIn profiles and company websites while you browse.
• Automatic Email Warming: Gradually increases your email sending volume to build a good sender reputation with email providers. This helps your partnership pitches land in inboxes instead of spam folders, especially important when reaching out to busy decision-makers.
• AI Sequence Creation: Builds complete email sequences using AI, though you need to provide detailed information about your target audience first. The platform also offers pre-written templates for different types of outreach campaigns.

7. Outreach

Outreach handles email, phone calls, and social media outreach through automated sequences that work together. It uses AI to write emails, research prospects, and track conversations across different channels. The platform is highly customizable, letting you tailor workflows, templates, and reports to match your team's specific partnership goals.

Key Features:

• AI Prospecting Agent: Does the research work for you by finding potential partners and writing initial outreach messages. When you're looking for brand collaborators, it identifies good matches and drafts the first email automatically.
• Smart Email Assist: Writes personalized emails based on your previous conversations and what it knows about each prospect. The AI remembers past interactions to create relevant partnership pitches instead of generic templates.
• Conversation Intelligence: Records partnership calls and automatically creates follow-up emails with action items. After discussing a potential collaboration, the platform turns your conversation into trackable next steps.

Final Thoughts

The right cold email platform makes partnership outreach more effective and protects your email deliverability. When you're reaching out to potential retail partners and brand collaborators, these tools help you scale your efforts without damaging your sender reputation.

Regardless of which tool you choose, three principles will make your partnership outreach more effective:

1. Offer value upfront: Exclusive products, co-marketing opportunities, or revenue sharing get better responses from busy decision-makers than generic partnership requests.
2. Target carefully: Most professionals welcome relevant business emails, but response rates drop when messages don't match their specific needs or industry.
3. Handle unsubscribes quickly: Fast opt-out processing keeps your emails landing in inboxes instead of spam folders.

So, which tool works best for e-commerce partnership outreach?

If you're looking for a comprehensive platform that handles everything from lead research to automated responses, we recommend Instantly. The unlimited email accounts, AI-powered personalization, and built-in deliverability features make it ideal for brands serious about scaling their partnership development. Start your free trial with Instantly to begin building partnerships today.

FAQs for 7 Cold Email Tools E-commerce Brands Use to Land Partnerships

Why should my e-commerce brand use a cold email tool?

Using a dedicated tool helps you contact hundreds of potential partners without writing each email by hand. These platforms automate personalised outreach, track who is interested, and include features to help your emails land in the main inbox instead of the spam folder, which increases your chances of getting a response.

What is email warming and why is it important for partnerships?

Email warming is the process of gradually increasing the number of emails you send from a new account. This builds a positive sender reputation with providers like Google and Microsoft. Tools that offer automatic warming help ensure your important partnership proposals are delivered to decision-makers' inboxes.

Can these tools help me find influencers to partner with?

Yes, several platforms can help you find influencers and brand managers. Tools like Instantly and Apollo include large, searchable B2B contact databases where you can filter for specific industries, roles, or company types to build a list of potential partners.

What's the difference between a simple tool like GMass and a full platform like Instantly?

A tool like GMass works inside your existing Gmail account, which is great for simplicity and smaller campaigns. A full platform like Instantly is a standalone application with more advanced features, such as a built-in lead database, AI campaign creation, and the ability to connect unlimited email accounts for larger-scale outreach.

How can I make my partnership emails more effective?

To improve your response rates, focus on offering clear value upfront, such as a co-marketing opportunity or an exclusive product collaboration. Also, be sure to target your outreach carefully to ensure your proposal is relevant to the potential partner's brand and audience.