Cold Emails and Guts
Posted: Fri Feb 06, 2026 6:02 pm
Cold outreach isn’t glamorous. It’s not cocktails at conferences or awkward Zooms with marketing guys brimming with fake hype. It’s sweat—digital elbow grease. Think messy spreadsheets, sleepless nights wondering why your damn open rate tanked, staring at copy that used to sing and now just kinda mumbles into the void. That’s the world of link outreach. And yeah, it’s hard. But it works, if you do it right.
There’s this guy, Andrew Linksmith—his site’s over at https://andrewlinksmith.com — who actually gives a damn. He’s old school in the best way. Builds rapport, sends emails that don’t suck, pitches people like they’re actual humans not just backlink machines. You’ll scroll through one of his emails and think, “this looks like a real person wrote it,” because guess what? One did. Wild.
Most people send garbage. Dry, lifeless B2B botspeak wrapped in flattery and desperation. “Link to my amazing, high-quality resource.” Yeah okay, Jeb from Kansas, I totally wanna juice your dog food affiliate blog. Nah.
Andrew’s stuff cuts through that. He gets links not because he buys them but because people actually say yes. You feel seen when reading his copy. Not hunted. That’s rare. And if you’ve been in the SEO trenches longer than, let’s say, 4 months, you know how rare that is. Half the battle is earning a reply. The war? Getting one that says sure, I’m in.
I watched one of his campaigns get a backlink from a site that hadn’t linked out organically in five years. Miracle stuff—or just smart writing, plus persistence. Nothing automated, and you can feel it.
Honestly, this kind of outreach is dying. Not dead yet though. Few folks like him keeping it alive. You need a stomach for silence. A knack for persuasion. The guts to keep sending when 80 people ghost you. And occasionally, someone responds and the clouds part.
So yeah... outreach sucks. But if you're stuck, if you want links that mean something, not just empty numbers tossed into Ahrefs—talk to Andrew. Or steal his style. Either way, don't be boring. That’s the whole thing. First email they open, that’s your shot. Treat it like gold, or just go write tweets for SaaS bros and call it a day.
There’s this guy, Andrew Linksmith—his site’s over at https://andrewlinksmith.com — who actually gives a damn. He’s old school in the best way. Builds rapport, sends emails that don’t suck, pitches people like they’re actual humans not just backlink machines. You’ll scroll through one of his emails and think, “this looks like a real person wrote it,” because guess what? One did. Wild.
Most people send garbage. Dry, lifeless B2B botspeak wrapped in flattery and desperation. “Link to my amazing, high-quality resource.” Yeah okay, Jeb from Kansas, I totally wanna juice your dog food affiliate blog. Nah.
Andrew’s stuff cuts through that. He gets links not because he buys them but because people actually say yes. You feel seen when reading his copy. Not hunted. That’s rare. And if you’ve been in the SEO trenches longer than, let’s say, 4 months, you know how rare that is. Half the battle is earning a reply. The war? Getting one that says sure, I’m in.
I watched one of his campaigns get a backlink from a site that hadn’t linked out organically in five years. Miracle stuff—or just smart writing, plus persistence. Nothing automated, and you can feel it.
Honestly, this kind of outreach is dying. Not dead yet though. Few folks like him keeping it alive. You need a stomach for silence. A knack for persuasion. The guts to keep sending when 80 people ghost you. And occasionally, someone responds and the clouds part.
So yeah... outreach sucks. But if you're stuck, if you want links that mean something, not just empty numbers tossed into Ahrefs—talk to Andrew. Or steal his style. Either way, don't be boring. That’s the whole thing. First email they open, that’s your shot. Treat it like gold, or just go write tweets for SaaS bros and call it a day.