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Google keeps a real spam email on its own help page for site owners. It starts: “Dear google.com, I visited your website and noticed that you are not listed in most of the major search engines and directories…” Right next to it, Google tells owners to “be wary of SEO firms and web consultants or agencies that email you out of the blue.”
That’s the email your prospect has learned to delete: generic, unverifiable, sent to everyone. The way through is one fact, something true about their business that they can check in a minute. This guide shows how to choose it, write around it and stay within the law.
Choose one fact
A good fact passes four tests:
- Verifiable: the owner can see it without your tools or your word.
- About them: their site, their booking, their listing or their email, not their industry.
- Current: true today. Websites change, so check again before you send.
- Fixable by you: something you can do, and do well.
| The fact | How the owner checks it |
|---|---|
| The site shows “Not secure” | Open it in Chrome and look at the address bar |
| Booking doesn’t work on a phone | Open the site on a phone and tap Book |
| The hours differ between the site and the listing | Compare the two side by side |
| The homepage title is just “Home” | Search the business’s name and read the result |
| No DMARC record | Look the domain up on a public email check |
| Slow on phones | Run PageSpeed Insights on the Mobile tab |
The website audit checklist covers how to find each of these. Before you quote a speed number, read what a good PageSpeed Insights score is. For email records, see SPF, DKIM and DMARC explained.
Then pick the one that matters most to that kind of business: booking for a salon, a working phone link for a plumber. Only one. A list of six problems reads like an attack, and it’s easy to dismiss.
Before you write: where the address came from
In Canada, CASL needs consent for commercial email. Implied consent can come from an address the business published conspicuously, when it wasn’t accompanied by a statement that the person doesn’t want unsolicited messages and when your email is relevant to their business, role, functions or duties.
In practice: take the address from the business’s own website, prefer a role address such as info@, and note the page and the date. Never guess an address or buy a list. Cold email in Canada covers the rules in detail.
In the United States, CAN-SPAM covers business email too: the FTC says the law “makes no exception for business-to-business email”. Its rules for each message are in the footer section below.
Write it in five parts
Who you are, and why them
Your name, your business, and one line on why you’re writing to them: you work nearby, or you work with businesses like theirs.
The fact
One sentence, in plain words: “Your booking page doesn’t open on a phone.”
How to see it
The one-minute check from the table above. It turns your claim into something they can verify, and shows that you looked.
Why it matters
What a customer sees or can’t do. No figures about lost sales: you don’t know them, and the owner can tell.
One small next step
A ten-minute call, a one-page summary of what you checked, or the fix itself. One ask, easy to say yes to.
Read it back as the owner would. If a sentence could go to any business, cut it.
An honest subject line
The FTC’s rule is simple: “The subject line must accurately reflect the content of the message.” Google’s sender guidelines say the same about Gmail: “Message headers and message content should be accurate, and not misleading or deceptive.”
- Name the business and the topic: “Business: your booking page on phones”.
- No “Re:” or “Fwd:” on a first email. It claims a conversation that never happened.
- No false urgency, and no question the email doesn’t answer.
What to leave out
- Numbers you can’t source. No lost sales, no “most customers…”. If a number would help, say how they can measure it.
- Ranking promises. Google’s own words: “No one can guarantee a #1 ranking on Google.”
- Every other problem. Keep them for the call, where you can explain them.
- Anything you didn’t check yourself, that day.
- Praise that would fit any business. It reads like the template it is.
The footer the law asks for
For email received in Canada, the Government of Canada’s CASL guidance says every message must include:
- Your business name, and the name of anyone you’re sending for
- A current mailing address, plus a phone number, email address or website
- Contact details that stay valid for at least 60 days after you send
- An unsubscribe mechanism. Each request must be actioned within 10 business days, at no cost to the recipient
For email to the United States, the FTC’s CAN-SPAM guide asks for accurate header information, a clear and conspicuous disclosure that the message is an advertisement, your valid physical postal address, a clear explanation of how to opt out, and opt-outs honoured within 10 business days.
Gmail adds its own rules. Every sender needs SPF or DKIM on their domain and a spam rate below 0.3% in Postmaster Tools. Above 5,000 messages a day, senders also need DMARC, and marketing messages need one-click unsubscribe. Google also advises starting with a low volume and increasing it slowly.
Follow up, then stop
A short follow-up is fair. A stream of them isn’t. Reply in the same thread, keep it to two or three lines, add one new detail if you have one, and keep the footer. Stop as soon as they reply or unsubscribe, and add every opt-out to your list in every tool you send from.
Write it with RadiusPilot
Find the fact
Run audit in a business’s profile grades its website from A to F and lists pitch lines built only from what it found. See what the website checks look at.
Keep the source of the address
In the Windows app, a test version, Published contacts shows what a business publishes on its own website, each item with its page, and saves the address you use with the page and the date.
Send with the footer built in
Every email gets your business name, postal address and an unsubscribe line that can’t be switched off. Your opt-out list is blocked, and a daily limit counts people. See the email rules.
Plan the follow-ups
The Cold intro sequence plans an intro email, a call three days later, a follow-up on day 7 and a polite break-up on day 14. Due steps wait for you in Today, and a reply stops the sequence. See sequences.
In the web app, RadiusPilot doesn’t send by itself: Open in Gmail (or Outlook, or your mail app) opens the email ready to send, with its footer. Sending from your own mailbox needs the Windows app.
Sources
- Google Search Central: Do you need an SEO?
- Government of Canada (fightspam): Getting consent to send email
- FTC: CAN-SPAM Act, a compliance guide for business
- Google: Email sender guidelines
Checked against these pages on November 4, 2026. General information, not legal advice.