Show the Partnership Instead of Describing It
Every retail buyer and creator your brand emails has read a hundred pitches that describe a partnership. Almost none have received one that shows it. That's the specific gap Lemlist closes for an ecommerce brand: its personalized images let you mock your product into the buyer's own shelf set, or render a co-branded visual with a creator's actual handle on it — generated per prospect, at sequence scale. The email stops being a pitch and becomes a preview of the outcome.
Lemlist is where that visual layer lives — the image templates, the liquid syntax variables that fill them, the per-prospect landing pages, the multichannel sequences. ColdRelay is the infrastructure underneath: the secondary domains, mailboxes, and dedicated IPs that Lemlist actually sends from, kept entirely separate from the store domain your customer email depends on. This guide covers how ecommerce teams wire the two together and run outreach where the first impression is something the prospect can see.
Why Run Lemlist on ColdRelay Infrastructure
Visual-proof outreach raises the stakes on deliverability in a way text outreach doesn't. A personalized image only converts if it renders in the inbox — a shelf mockup that lands in spam, or arrives with images stripped by a suspicious mail gateway, is worse than a plain-text email that lands clean. Lemlist generates the visuals and runs the sequences, but it sends from whatever mailboxes you connect to it; it doesn't provision domains or own the reputation those images ride on. That's the infrastructure layer's job.
ColdRelay fills that slot. You provision outreach mailboxes on isolated Azure tenants with dedicated IPs, with SPF, DKIM, and DMARC pre-configured, ready in about an hour — and there's no warmup waiting period before your first campaign, because warmup runs continuously as part of each mailbox's 4 sends/day budget (2 outbound + 2 warmup). With 95%+ inbox placement, the image you spent real effort designing actually gets seen. ColdRelay supports 100-150 mailboxes per domain, so even an ambitious visual campaign rarely needs more than one or two domains.
The pairing is additive, not competitive: ColdRelay is the infrastructure, Lemlist is the sending and personalization layer on top. You keep Lemlist's image engine, liquid variables, landing pages, and LinkedIn steps — you just give the visuals a delivery path built to land.
Visit Lemlist →Connecting ColdRelay Mailboxes to Lemlist
Provision a mailbox pool on ColdRelay
Register secondary domains that read like the partnership side of the brand — brand-collabs.com or brandretail.com — never your storefront domain. Visual-proof outreach is a quality motion against curated lists, so most brands start with 15-40 mailboxes on a single domain (ColdRelay fits 100-150 per domain). Everything provisions on isolated Azure tenants with dedicated IPs in about an hour, with SPF, DKIM, and DMARC already configured.
Connect the mailboxes in Lemlist and skip lemwarm
In Lemlist, add each ColdRelay mailbox as a sending account using the SMTP/IMAP credentials from your ColdRelay dashboard export. One deliberate omission: don't enable lemwarm on these accounts. ColdRelay's warmup already runs continuously as part of each mailbox's 4 sends/day budget (2 outbound + 2 warmup), and double-warming the same mailbox from two networks muddies the sending pattern instead of strengthening it.
Cap each mailbox at 2 outbound sends per day
Set Lemlist's per-account daily sending limit to 2 outbound emails, mirroring the ColdRelay budget — 4 emails/day total per mailbox, split 2 outbound + 2 warmup. Low per-mailbox volume suits this motion anyway: every send carries a custom visual, so you want Lemlist rotating a modest number of high-effort emails across the pool, not blasting.
Build the image templates and map liquid variables
In Lemlist's image personalization editor, design one template per motion: a retail shelf mockup with a slot for the buyer's banner and {{companyName}}, and a co-branded collab visual with a slot for {{instagramHandle}}. Then upload your prospect CSV with those custom columns filled — handle, store name, category, logo URL — and use liquid syntax to handle gaps, so a missing variable renders a clean fallback instead of a broken image caption. The template is built once; Lemlist renders it per prospect automatically.
Add LinkedIn steps, attach landing pages, and launch
Build the sequence as multichannel: a LinkedIn profile visit on day 1, the visual email on day 2, a LinkedIn connection or comment on day 4, and a follow-up email on day 7 that links a per-prospect Lemlist landing page — a lightweight line-sheet or collab page with the prospect's name and the same visual on it. Then watch Lemlist's campaign reports for image-email reply rates versus your old text campaigns; that delta is the whole argument for this motion.
The Ecommerce Lemlist Playbook
Make the first email a preview of the outcome
Don't tell a category buyer your product would look great in their stores — render it there. Photograph your packaging against a neutral shelf, build a Lemlist image template around it, and drop in each retailer's name and brand colors via liquid variables. For creators, flip the same trick: a co-branded visual with @{{instagramHandle}} printed on the asset, as if the collab already shipped. The prospect's first reaction shifts from evaluating a pitch to reacting to a finished thing — and people reply to finished things.
Use liquid syntax as quality control, not just personalization
A personalized image with a wrong or missing variable is a self-own — 'Dear {{firstName}}' is forgivable in text, but a shelf mockup labeled with a blank where the store name should be kills the illusion the whole email depends on. Write liquid fallbacks for every variable that feeds a visual ({{companyName | default: 'your stores'}}), and segment any rows with incomplete data into a plain-text sequence instead. The image motion only runs on rows that can render perfectly.
Send traffic to a per-prospect page, not a PDF line sheet
Attachments from unknown senders get stripped or ignored; a link to a Lemlist landing page with the prospect's name on it gets clicked. Build one page per motion — a mini line sheet for buyers with the shelf mockup, MOQs, and a sample-request button; a collab one-pager for creators with the co-branded visual and terms. The page extends the show-don't-describe logic past the inbox, and page visits in Lemlist's reports tell you who's seriously evaluating versus politely ignoring.
Warm the name on LinkedIn before the image lands
A striking visual from a total stranger reads as a clever template. The same visual from someone who visited your profile two days ago and commented on your latest drop reads as effort. Use Lemlist's LinkedIn steps — visit, then comment or connect — ahead of the image email, so the prospect has seen your face and brand before the mockup arrives. For creators especially, the comment step doubles as proof you actually consume their content, which is the first thing they check before replying.
Typical Visual-Proof Outreach Benchmarks (Lemlist + ColdRelay)
| Metric | Benchmark | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Inbox placement rate | 95%+ | Dedicated IPs and isolated tenants — non-negotiable when the email's value is an image that must render |
| Reply rate — creator outreach with personalized co-branded visual | 6-12% | Personalized images reliably outperform text-only creator pitches; handle accuracy is everything |
| Reply rate — retail buyers with shelf mockup | 3-6% | Buyers reply to a rendered shelf set faster than to a deck attachment; LinkedIn pre-touch lifts the high end |
| Landing page visit-to-reply conversion | 15-25% | A prospect who opens their personalized page has self-qualified; follow up within 24 hours |
| Outbound capacity per mailbox | 2/day | 4 sends/day total per mailbox — 2 outbound + 2 warmup; a quality motion, not a volume one |
What It Costs: Lemlist + ColdRelay
You pay per mailbox per month for the infrastructure, with volume tiers that drop as you scale (see the table below). DNS, dedicated IPs, and isolated Azure tenants are included — and because visual-proof outreach runs on curated lists rather than volume, most brands sit comfortably in the smaller mailbox counts.
Lemlist is billed separately on its own subscription for sequences, image personalization, landing pages, LinkedIn steps, and campaign reports — priced per its current plans.
Infrastructure cost scales with mailbox count; Lemlist's cost scales with seats and plan features. The two stack cleanly — one bill for sending capacity, one for the personalization and sequencing software — and neither touches your Klaviyo or transactional email spend.
| Mailboxes | ColdRelay price / mailbox / month |
|---|---|
| 1–199 | $1.00 |
| 200–999 | $0.85 |
| 1,000–4,999 | $0.70 |
| 5,000+ | $0.55 |
Each mailbox sends 4 emails per day — 2 outbound to prospects + 2 warmup. ColdRelay provisions mailboxes on isolated Azure tenants with dedicated IPs; Lemlist handles the sending, sequencing, and inbox rotation on top.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does ColdRelay replace Lemlist?
No — they're complementary layers, used together. Lemlist handles sequences, personalized images, liquid variables, per-prospect landing pages, LinkedIn steps, and reporting. ColdRelay provides the underlying secondary domains, mailboxes, and dedicated IPs that Lemlist sends from. Lemlist makes the email worth opening; ColdRelay makes sure it reaches the inbox where it can be opened.
Do personalized images hurt deliverability?
Image-heavy email from a weak domain gets filtered hard — that's why the infrastructure layer matters more for this motion, not less. Sent from ColdRelay mailboxes on isolated Azure tenants with dedicated IPs and pre-configured SPF, DKIM, and DMARC, image emails land at the same 95%+ placement as text. Keep the visual to one image with real text around it, and let the sender reputation carry it past the gateway.
Should we run lemwarm on top of ColdRelay's warmup?
No — pick one warmup network, and with ColdRelay mailboxes that's ColdRelay. Warmup runs continuously as part of each mailbox's 4 sends/day budget (2 outbound + 2 warmup), so there's no waiting period before your first Lemlist campaign and nothing to enable on Lemlist's side. Running lemwarm on the same accounts would double-warm them and distort the sending pattern the budget is designed to keep steady.
How many mailboxes does visual-proof outreach actually need?
Fewer than almost any other ecommerce motion. The constraint here is how many prospects you can render a flawless visual for — clean handle, correct store name, good logo — not raw sending capacity. At 4 emails/day per mailbox (2 outbound + 2 warmup), 20 mailboxes gives you 40 personalized sends a day, roughly 800 a month, which outruns most brands' curated buyer and creator lists. Scale toward 40-50 mailboxes when you add new categories or regions; ColdRelay fits 100-150 mailboxes on a single domain either way.