What is legitimate interest for cold email?

Legitimate interest is the most-used lawful basis under UK GDPR for processing a prospect’s email address for cold outreach. To rely on it you document a three-part Legitimate Interests Assessment: a purpose test, a necessity test, and a balancing test.

The balancing test is where the work is — your interest has to not override the individual’s rights. Factors that help: the contact is ICP-matched and researched (not bulk-scraped), the message is relevant and sent in a professional capacity, there is a one-click unsubscribe, and frequency is reasonable.