Emojis in cold email are polarizing. Some reps swear by them. Others treat them like a deliverability grenade.

We analyzed millions of cold emails sent through lemlist to settle the debate with actual data. The results surprised us. Emojis do hurt reply rates on average, but the “on average” part hides a more useful story.

In this post, I’ll show you exactly when emojis help, when they hurt, and how to A/B test them in your own campaigns so you stop guessing.

The core data in this article comes from our 2023 analysis of lemlist campaign data, covering millions of cold emails sent across industries. We measured two primary metrics: reply rate (the percentage of recipients who responded to an email) and booking rate (the percentage of recipients who booked a meeting or call). We segmented results by the number of emojis in the email body and whether emojis appeared in the subject line. The sample included roughly 2 million emails without subject-line emojis and approximately 20,000 with them.

We’re currently re-pulling this data against our latest send volume. Until that refresh is complete, treat the specific percentages below as directional benchmarks, not live figures.

→ Emails with emojis get 13% fewer replies on average, but emails with just 1–2 emojis perform nearly the same as emoji-free emails.

→ Emojis in subject lines can lower open rates by about 6%, though the sample skews heavily toward no-emoji sends.

→ Booking rates stay flat at 1–2 emojis, then drop fast at 3+.

→ The right emoji for the right audience can still outperform plain text. A/B test before you commit.

→ Overloading emojis (especially 🚨💰⚠️💥) can trip spam filters and hurt deliverability with unknown senders.

It is fine to use emojis in business and cold emails, as long as they’re tailored to your subject and target audience.

When used right, emojis boost engagement with your message. When used incorrectly, you come off as overly familiar or unprofessional.

Let’s jump into whether using emojis is the right outreach technique for you.

Out of the millions of lemlist cold email campaigns we analyzed, emails with emojis get 13% fewer replies than emails without them (based on our 2023 analysis of lemlist campaign data).

But that doesn’t mean you should give up on emojis altogether.

The “with emoji” column in the data above includes emails sent with any number of emojis, from 1 to 30+.

You can imagine that an email with more than 10 emojis is going to have a different success rate than an email with only one or two.

If you take a closer look at the breakdown of booking rates per number of emojis, you’ll get a clearer idea of where the problem is:

Emails with 1 or 2 emojis have a small dip in booking rates compared to emails without them, but not a significant amount.

On average, booking rates with 1 or 2 emojis per email are comparable with emails that don’t have any.

Depending on the circumstances, you won’t necessarily ruin your chances of a reply with an emoji or two.

The rates really start to dip when you add 3 or more emojis to the body of your emails. This is where you increase the risk of prospects thinking it’s spammy or inappropriate.

As a rule of thumb: when adding emojis to cold emails, the fewer the better.

Similar to using emojis in the body of your emails, adding emojis to your cold email subject lines can go both ways. Either they draw a prospect’s eye and add personality, or they make you look like spam.

It’s all about how you use them.

Here’s what the data says about it:

Adding emojis to your subject line can result in about 6% lower open rates (based on our 2023 analysis):

But once again, there’s more nuance to the data than a simple yes or no.

In our analysis, we gathered nearly 2 million emails with no emojis in the subject line and only about 20,000 with emojis. With numbers like that, the overall average is always going to lean in the direction of emails with no emojis.

So what does that mean for you?

It means you’ll have to decide, based on your own target audience and goals, if emojis will boost your open and reply rates, or drive them down.

But you don’t have to figure that out on your own.

Here is everything you need to consider when deciding if you want to use emojis in your cold outreach:

Should you be using emojis to connect with prospects? Let’s find out.

When using an emoji you want it to represent exactly what you are conveying, to create anticipation and set the tone without even reading the message.

Creating urgency You can use emojis to signify the clock is ticking, or to be quick to catch the offer you have on the table.

Some of the more appropriate choices include: ⏰ ⏳ 🔔 ⚡ 🚀

Showing excitement/happiness Emojis can also be used to show that you are excited/happy to be in contact with that particular person, or that your offer may produce some smiles.

Some of the more appropriate choices include: 😊 🎉 😃 🙌

Celebration You can “celebrate” one of your prospect’s most recent successes, or the possibility of closing a deal.

Some of the more appropriate choices include: 🎊 🏆 🥂 👏

Creating checklists You may want to create a checklist, or use emojis to make your point stand out more.

Some of the more appropriate choices include: ✅ ❌ ⭕ ⬆️

For special occasions Maybe you’re launching a special offer based on a special occasion, or maybe your emails just happen to come around the holidays.

Some of the more appropriate choices include: 🎄 🎃 🐣 ☀️ ⛵ 🎆

Although using a couple of emojis may increase your chances of getting a reply, some options should be off-limits as they’ll make you seem unprofessional. Of course, the appropriateness may vary depending on the context of your email.

Avoid these in cold outreach: 💋 😘 😜 🍑 💩 🤡. And steer clear of misleading or overly promotional emojis like 🚨 💰 ⚠️ 💥, which can also trigger spam filters.

Not every visual character in an email is an emoji. Checkmarks (✓), arrows (→), and bullet-style symbols (●) are Unicode characters that render consistently across email clients and don’t carry the same “casual” connotation. You can use these freely in cold emails for structure and readability without worrying about the perception issues true emojis bring.

For email signatures specifically: a single, on-brand emoji (like a ☕ for a coffee company) can add personality. But stacking emojis in your signature reads as unprofessional in most B2B contexts. Keep it to one, or stick with Unicode symbols.

YES.

Each channel carries its own expectations. Reaching out via email is typically the most formal approach (depending on your industry and context), so using emojis in cold email requires more caution.

However, if you reach out via LinkedIn, you generally have more freedom. LinkedIn messages already feel more conversational, and a well-placed emoji in a connection request or DM won’t raise eyebrows the way it might in a cold email subject line.

For channels like WhatsApp and SMS, emojis are practically native to the format. These channels are inherently informal, so a message without any emoji might actually feel stiff.

The takeaway: match your emoji usage to the channel’s norms. If you’re running multichannel prospecting across email, LinkedIn, WhatsApp, and calls, tailor your emoji strategy per step rather than applying one rule everywhere.

As seen in the data above, adding emojis to your cold emails can cause 13% lower reply rates if used in the body text and about 6% lower open rates in the subject (based on our 2023 analysis).

Plus, a study by the Nielsen Norman Group showed that emojis in emails increased negative sentiment by 26%. Emoji emails were seen as less valuable than no-emoji ones. (Emojis in Email Subject Lines: Advantage or Impediment? - NN/G) Worth noting: they only used e-commerce marketing emails (Emojis in Email Subject Lines: Advantage or Impediment? - NN/G) in that study, which already come off as spammy to most prospects.

Source: Nielsen Norman Group

And even that study mentioned that emojis could be worthwhile “where they truly add value.”

Beyond perception, there’s a technical risk. Excessive punctuation, ALL CAPS, or too many emojis in subject lines can raise suspicion, and inbox providers are trained to associate these patterns with spam. (Mastering Email Deliverability: The Ultimate 2026 Guide | Mailmunch) While emojis themselves don’t automatically trigger spam filters, how you use them matters: 3+ emojis in a subject line looks spammy and may be flagged. (Use Emojis in Emails | Omnisend Help Center) Spam filters see multiple emojis (🚀🔥💰) as attention-seeking tactics used in scam emails. (349+ Spam Words to Avoid in Emails (2026 Guide))

This is especially true for unknown senders, which is exactly what you are in cold outreach. If you’re already worried about inbox placement, the safest move is to protect your sender reputation with lemwarm and keep emojis to one per subject line (or zero).

According to SendPulse’s analysis of Experian’s newsletter test, picking the right emoji increased open rates by 56%. In particular, the sun ☀️ emoji increased open rates by 15%, and the umbrella ☂️ emoji by 50%.

A 2017 Return Path report (the company was later acquired by Validity) studied themed emojis used around holidays. The company tested email campaigns throughout the year that used emojis to match holidays or seasonal events, such as the “lips” symbol for Valentine’s Day or the “gift box” icon for Mother’s Day. (Study: Certain emojis in email subject lines boost read rates | Marketing Dive) As covered by Marketing Dive, the test used data from over 17,000 commercial senders and 5.4 billion commercial emails. (6 Tips for Using Emojis in Subject Lines for Email Marketing (+ Data) - MailPoet) Results varied wildly by emoji choice: a campaign for Halloween costumes got a 23% open rate with the “spider” emoji in the subject line, but only 14% when the “skull” icon was used. (Study: Certain emojis in email subject lines boost read rates | Marketing Dive)

The pattern is clear. Emoji choice matters more than emoji presence. And the only way to know what works for your audience is testing.

So if you want to test out emojis in your emails, make sure they’re:

Here’s an example of one of our users who added emojis to his cold email campaign, with an 82% open rate and a 53% reply rate.

In this case, the emojis worked because the target audience is content creators and influencers who are used to seeing emojis in their work, the tone of the email is casual and friendly, the emojis have a thematic fit with the message (wine and cheese), and the sender was already part of a community the prospects recognized.

Now contrast that with a B2B SaaS outreach to VP-level prospects in financial services. In that context, even a single 🚀 in the subject line reads as a red flag. The audience expects buttoned-up communication, and emoji use signals that you might not understand their world.

If you’re selling into enterprise, legal, or finance, default to zero emojis and let your personalized messaging do the heavy lifting instead. You can always A/B test a version with one subtle emoji (like ✅ or →) against plain text, but go in expecting the plain version to win.

If you’re curious about whether using emojis is going to boost your reply and booking rates, find out by A/B testing your campaigns.

An easy way to do this is with lemlist (if you don’t have an account, sign up here for free).

Once you’ve added your leads and your campaign settings, you can choose to A/B test your content in the “sequences” tab.

Once that’s done, set up one sequence with emojis, and one without them.

Don’t change anything else about your sequence, to ensure you’re only testing the emojis.

lemlist will automatically split your audience into 2 groups and send emails accordingly.

Make sure you have at least 100 prospects on your list to see if the results are definitive.

As the campaign runs, you’ll see comparisons of the two sequences in your analytics. It’ll look like this:

From here, you can use the data to find out if emojis are the best outreach tool for you and your target audience. If you want to go deeper on finding and verifying the right contacts to test with, check out lemlist’s Email Finder & Verifier.

Emojis in cold email are a tool, not a strategy. The 13% reply-rate drop in our data is real, but it’s driven almost entirely by people overusing them. At 1–2 emojis, the difference is negligible.

Here’s how I think about it: if your ICP is in creative industries, media, or consumer brands, emojis can make your message feel more human. If you’re selling into finance, legal, or enterprise IT, skip them. The risk-to-reward ratio isn’t there.

The biggest mistake I see is treating emojis as a shortcut to personality. They’re not. A lazy email with a 🔥 emoji is still a lazy email. Get the copy right first. Then, if an emoji genuinely reinforces your message, test it.

One more thing: emoji norms shift by channel. An emoji that feels forced in a cold email might feel perfectly natural in a LinkedIn DM or WhatsApp message. If you’re running multichannel sequences, think per-step, not per-campaign.

Start a 14-day free trial (no credit card required) and A/B test emojis in your own campaigns. lemlist has been rated 4.6 stars by 1,424 verified reviews on G2. (lemlist Products | Read 1424 Reviews on G2) Join the sales teams who already trust it for multichannel prospecting, deliverability, and personalized outreach at scale.