Cold email reply rate
Definition
Cold email reply rate is the percentage of recipients who reply to a cold email. Positive reply rate counts only replies that express interest, and it should be measured per lead contacted, not per email sent.
Cold email reply rate is the percentage of recipients who reply to a cold email. Positive reply rate counts only replies that express interest, and it should be measured per lead contacted, not per email sent.
Two things make this number easy to inflate.
The first is counting all replies. "Unsubscribe," "not interested," and "who is this" are replies. A 12 percent reply rate that's 10 percent negative is a 2 percent program. Ask for positive reply rate.
The second is dividing by sends instead of leads. A three-email sequence to 100 people is 300 sends. Twelve positive replies is 4 percent of sends and 12 percent of leads. Per lead is the honest denominator, because a lead only replies once no matter how many emails they got.
An example
A program emails 400 companies over a month, three emails each. Sixty reply. Eighteen of those say some version of "yes, let's talk." The positive reply rate per lead is 18 divided by 400, or 4.5 percent. An agency reporting the same program could truthfully say "15 percent reply rate" (60 of 400) or "5 percent reply rate" (60 of 1,200 sends). Neither number tells you there were 18 conversations.
What's a good number
It depends on the list far more than the copy. A title-based list gets a lower positive rate than a signal-based list with the same email, because fewer people on it have a reason to answer. Rather than a benchmark, ask any agency for positive replies per lead and ask to see the replies.
Related terms
Cold email open rate · Positive reply · Cold email · Email deliverability
If you want this run for you, see our cold email agency.
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