Email Marketing Isn’t Dead: How to leverage Intent Signals to Drive Revenue Growth

Despite the high frequency of these emails, most cold outreach messages go unread or end up in the spam folder. A Gartner study revealed that only 23.9% of sales emails are opened, meaning more than three-quarters of recipients may never see the content.

With low open rates, minimal engagement, and poor response rates, many businesses consider cold email marketing outdated and ineffective.

We asked growth expert Melike Abacioglu about her experiences in email marketing and how she leveraged email marketing as a key channel in account-based marketing execution.

By leveraging technology and data—specifically intent and pain signals—Melike has crafted personalized campaigns that drive revenue growth. Her work proves that email marketing can evolve and remain a powerful tool in today’s digital landscape.

Reviving Cold Email Marketing

Email marketing is often considered outdated, especially with the high volume of unsolicited emails that go unread. Yet, Melike’s approach proves that it doesn’t have to be that way. Melike has consistently achieved double-digit pipeline growth by crafting hyper-targeted email campaigns that were tailored based on intent signals like job changes, funding rounds, and hiring activity.

Her ability to create personalized and automated email sequences using data-enrichment tools like Apollo and Clay allowed her to reach prospects at the right time—making the emails feel less like cold outreach and more like a relevant conversation. This data-driven methodology has enabled her teams to scale their growth efforts efficiently.

Melike’s experiences at Rippling, a leading global workforce management software, and Mixpanel, a leading global product analytics software, and previously in her own B2B SaaS startup she founded, highlights how cold email marketing can be effectively modernized. By targeting the right audience with the right message at the right time, she reshaped email marketing into a strategy that’s not only about cold outreach but about starting meaningful, personalized conversations with prospects who need your solution.

The Power of Targeting, Timing and Tailoring

One of the defining aspects of Melike’s success lies in her focus on what she calls the 3Ts of growth marketing: Targeting, Timing, and Tailoring. By fine-tuning these three principles, she has helped companies like Rippling and Mixpanel achieve substantial growth. Through her leadership, Mixpanel grew its sales pipeline by leveraging data-driven targeting to focus on accounts with the highest likelihood to convert. Instead of sending generic emails, her team focused on personalizing each message and ensuring they reached prospects at the perfect time—when they were most likely to engage. This data-backed approach made cold emails feel relevant, prompting higher engagement and more meaningful conversations.

Melike advises marketing teams to work with data science teams closely and use the latest technology in delivering timely campaigns to the audience members who have shown intent or a potential pain your solution can solve. She recommends marketing and operations leaders to assess tools in the market that allow marketers to consolidate multiple intent signals, helping prioritize which accounts to engage first. These tools include many startups such as Common Room and even some newcomers such as Bluebirds.ai.

Melike advises intent-based email marketing to be a part of your larger multichannel campaign stack. Layering an outbound call on top of your intent-based campaigns can in fact, increase conversion by 30% in her experience. Email marketing allows you to drive awareness with your audience in a personalized fashion. As part of your email campaigns, you can include relevant educational materials such as case studies relevant to the industry and the pain point of the recipient. So when the SDR team (sales development representatives) reaches out and gives a cold call to the prospect, the call does not feel as cold anymore.

She also advises growth and marketing teams to use digital analytics software such as Mixpanel to understand the user journeys better. She is proud to be working for Mixpanel, evangelizing agile and self-serve analytics to democratize access to data-driven insights for everyone - product, marketing, and customer success teams.

Innovating in B2B SaaS Marketing: Making Data Work

Melike has shown time and again that Marketing success comes from understanding your audience and using the right tools to engage them—meeting customers where they are. During her time at Rippling and Mixpanel, she also implemented product-led growth strategies, including free trials and usage-based upgrades, which improved sales funnel metrics. By working with data science teams to develop propensity models, Melike ensured that the company’s outreach was targeted, data-driven, and effective.

Mentoring the Next Generation and the Future of Email Marketing

Beyond her achievements in growth marketing and operations, Melike has built a career that inspires many.

From founding a Y Combinator-backed startup to owning P&L as a General Manager at Alto Pharmacy and driving growth at Rippling and Mixpanel, she has continuously demonstrated her ability to adapt, innovate, and deliver results. Her blend of technical expertise, strategic thinking, and creative problem-solving makes her a standout leader in the tech industry.

As she continues to innovate, Melike is passionate about mentoring the next generation of entrepreneurs and marketers. She wants to share her insights and help others navigate marketing challenges, even in the most difficult channels.

From her early days in consulting to her journey growing B2B startups, Melike has consistently demonstrated a dedication to listening to customer needs to deliver solutions that matter to them. When businesses truly understand their audiences, they know who to target, when and where. With that they can forge genuine connections, deliver value, and remain resilient in an ever-changing landscape.

For Melike Abacioglu, email marketing isn’t dead—it’s alive and waiting for the next wave of innovators to unlock its full potential.