How To Write Cold Email Campaigns That Get Results

As more and more businesses turn to cold email outreach to generate leads and sales, marketers have to understand what benchmarks they should be aiming for to make improve campaigns over time for better results.

The most important metrics are open rates, click-through rates, response rates, and conversion rates. Today, we review why they’re important, typical metrics for each benchmark, and tips to improve them.

Open Rate for Cold Emails

One of the most important metrics for measuring the success of a cold email campaign is the open rate. This refers to the percentage of emails that are opened by the recipients.

Higher open rates means more people are reading your messages, increasing the chances of generating leads.

What does a really high open rate look like?

A Woodpecker.co study shows that rates above 40% are considered high for cold email campaigns. Achieving a comparable open rate indicates that your subject line and sender name are extremely compelling and relevant to your target audience.

Note that a high open rate alone doesn’t guarantee success. Focusing on other metrics such as response rates and CTR plays a large part in the overall effectiveness of your campaign.

What is a Typical Open Rate?

A typical open rate for cold emails is around 20-30%. This means that roughly 1 out of every 3-5 people who receive your email will open it. If you’re achieving an open rate within this range, it’s a good sign that your subject line and sender name are resonating with your target audience, but could benefit from further optimization.

What is a Bad Open Rate?

A bad open rate for cold emails is anything below 10%. If your open rate falls below this number, it’s a sign that your subject line or sender name isn’t compelling enough to convince people to open your email. In this case, you may need to personalize your subject line or use a less generic sending address to improve your open rates.

Response Rates for Cold Email Campaigns

Response rates measure the percentage of recipients who respond to messages from your cold email sequences. The response rate shows how engaging your email is and whether appealing recipients find your offer appealing.

How are response rates calculated for cold email?

A response rate is the percentage of people who respond to your cold email. Calculate it by dividing the number of emails that receive responses by the total number of emails sent. For example, if you send out 100 cold emails and 10 people respond, your response rate is 10%.

What is a good response rate for a cold email campaign?

A good response rate for a cold email campaign can vary depending on your industry and your specific campaign goals, but a response rate of 10-20% is generally considered strong for cold emails.

What is an average response rate for a cold email campaign?

Research shows that the average response rate for cold emails is around 8-10%. However, this can vary depending on a number of factors, such as the quality of your email content, your target audience, and the type of offer you’re making.

What is a bad response rate for a cold email campaign?

A bad response rate for a cold email campaign is generally accepted as anything below 5%. If your response rate is consistently lower than this, it may be time to re-evaluate your email strategy and make changes to your sequence.

What factors affect response rates for cold email?

There are several factors that can affect the response rate for your cold email campaign. These include:

• Email subject line: The subject line is the first thing your recipient will see, so it’s important to make it attention-grabbing and relevant to your offer.
• Personalization: Personalizing your email with information specific to each contact can make it feel more human and increase the chances of a response.
• Timing: The timing of when your email is sent also affects the response rate. You want to send your email at an hour when your recipient is likely to be checking their inbox.
• Value proposition: Your email should clearly communicate the value of your offer and why the recipient should respond.

Click-Through Rates for Cold Email Campaigns

Another important metric to consider when evaluating the success of your cold email campaigns is the click-through rate (CTR).

The CTR measures the percentage of recipients who clicked on a link within your email, which is usually a call-to-action (CTA) button or a link to a landing page.

What is a high click-through rate for a cold email campaign?

A great CTR for a cold email campaign is typically considered to be around 4-10%, although this can vary depending on the industry and the quality of your contact list.

An analysis of data on GetResponse.com shows that the top 25% of performers had an average CTR of 4.67%. A CTR above 7% is exceptional and shows you’ve tapped a highly engaged audience.

What is the average click-through rate for a cold email campaign?

According to a study by Mailchimp, the average CTR for cold emails is 2.43%. However, the CTR can vary widely depending on several factors, including industry, target audience, email content, and sender reputation.

What is a bad click-through rate for a cold email campaign?

A CTR of less than 1% is considered poor for a cold email campaign. However, it’s important to keep in mind that we can’t measure the success of a campaign solely based on CTR, since open rates, response rates, and CTR all work together to influence overall conversion rates.

What Factors Affect Click-Through Rates for Cold Email?

Several factors can influence the CTR of your cold email campaigns, including:

• The quality of your email list determines the likelihood of prospects clicking on links.
• The relevance and clarity of your subject line and email content can show prospects value, convincing them to investigate further.
• CTA placement and design as well as language used often affects whether or not prospects interact with links in your emails.
  The timing of your email and sending frequency can affect whether or not people are willing to click links.
• Personalization within your email content shows that you’ve taken time to reach out to prospects personally, making them more likely to click.
• Your business’s overall reputation helps earn more clicks the stronger it is.

If you’re experiencing low click-through rates for your campaigns, optimizing the areas above will help you improve your metrics.

What Determines Conversion Rates For Cold Email?

The conversion rate for cold emails is the percentage of recipients who take the desired action, such as clicking a link or scheduling a sales call, after receiving the email.

This metric is arguably the most important for cold email campaigns. It measures the effectiveness of a campaign in terms of the actual results achieved. But it’s important to keep in mind that companies measure conversion rates using different actions, meaning benchmarks metrics can vary wildly based on the goal of your cold email campaign.

Factors that influence conversion rates include:

• Relevance: The email must be relevant to the recipient’s interests and needs to improve the chances of conversion.
• Value proposition: The email should clearly convey the value proposition of the product or service being offered.
• Call to action: The email must have a clear and compelling call-to-action that prompts the recipient to take action.
• Timing: The timing of the email can also impact the conversion rate, as sending an email at the right time can increase the chances of conversion.

Ideally, conversion rates should increase with each campaign if you’re using A/B testing to optimize campaigns as you send them. The section below covers methods for increasing conversion rates by focusing on raising the other metrics for your cold email campaign.

How To Improve Metrics For Cold Emails?

Improving open rates, response rates, CTR, and overall conversion rates requires close attention to everything from your sender name to the body content of your sequence. Here are some tips for improving each benchmark.

How can you improve open and response rates for cold email?

To improve your open and response rates, try the following ideas:

• Personalize your emails: Use the recipient’s name and other details in the subject line and body content of your sequence to make emails feel more personalized.
• Craft a compelling subject line: Make sure your subject line is clear, concise, and attention-grabbing. Questions work well, especially when personalized to contacts.
• Keep your email brief: Keep your email short and to the point, and focus on the value proposition. Make content about your customer and how they benefit, not about yourself.
• Test CTAs: Encourage the recipient to take action by including a clear call to action in your email with linked text. Test several to determine which attracts the most attention.
• Follow up: If you don’t receive a response to your initial email, consider following up with a reminder email to increase the chances of a response.

How to improve click-through rates for cold email?

If you’re looking to improve the CTR of your cold email campaigns, consider the following strategies:

• A/B Test different subject lines and email content to see what resonates best with your audience.
• Optimize the design and placement of your CTA button or link.
• Include unique details for each contact in your sequence to send personalized messages to recipients.
• Experiment with different send times and frequencies to find the optimal schedule for your audience.
• Clean your email list> and keep it up-to-date, and that you’re only sending to engaged recipients.
• Build brand awareness and trust through other marketing channels, such as social media or content marketing.

How Can You Improve Conversion Rates from Cold Email?

Using the tactics listed above is a great way to focus on boosting your overall conversion rates, but the most direct route to more conversions is to focus on presenting a clear, convincing offer.

Every line of your email sequence must be valuable to prospects. Cut out extra information about your company and only talk about your product. For better results, keep your messaging centered on the reader. Make them feel like they become heroes after purchasing your product. To do this, focus on addressing pain points through empathy and identifying solutions to address them.

How Long Should A B2B Cold Email Be?

The ideal length for a B2B cold email depends on the complexity of your offering and the needs of your target audience. In general, B2B cold emails are shorter than B2C emails. Business professionals are busy, and don’t have time to read through lengthy messages during work hours.

A good rule of thumb is to aim for an email length of around 150-200 words. This gives you enough space to introduce your value proposition and explain how customers benefit after making a purchase.

When writing a cold email, use the 30/30/50 rule to keep content focused and to-the-point.

What is the 30/30/50 Rule for Cold Emails?

The 30/30/50 rule is a guideline for the ideal length of a cold email. It suggests that your email should be divided into three sections:

• The first 30% should be focused on the subject line, opening sentence, and preview text
• The second 30% should introduce your value proposition and explain why the recipient should care
• The final 50% should include a clear call-to-action and a way for the recipient to take the next step

Following this guideline keeps the content of your cold email concise, effective, and engaging.

What time of day has the highest email open rates?

The best time of day to send cold emails depends on the recipient’s industry, time zone, and schedule.

It’s generally best to send emails during the workweek. This way people are more likely to see the message while in the office.

Research shows the highest email open rates occur from Tuesday to Thursday between 10am and 3pm,depending on the industry. Test different times to determine what works best for your audience.

How Many Emails Do You Need To Send To Get 10 Leads?

This question will greatly depend on what you consider a “Lead.” Is it a response to your email? Is it a booked sales call? The more difficult the action, the lower you can expect your conversion rate to be. For a general starting place, you can use the following formula to come up with an estimation of how many emails you’ll need to send.

The number of emails you need to send can be expressed as follows:

Number of emails = (Number Of Leads / Conversion Rate) ÷ ( CTR / 100)

Find the metrics for your own campaign and plug them into the formula to determine how many emails need to be sent to gain specific numbers of leads from sequences.

Here’s an example. Let’s assume we need 10 leads. Our click through rate is 2.43%, and our conversion rate is 5%. All there is to do is plug in the numbers:

Number of emails = (10 / 2.43) ÷ (0.05 / 100)

Finishing the formula to get the following:

(4.11) / (0.0005) = Number of emails → (4.11) / (0.0005) = 8,220

The completed formula shows that a campaign with a CTR of 2.43% and a conversion rate of 5% would need to send about eight thousand emails to attract 10 leads.

Optimize Cold Email Campaigns For More Leads

Cold email campaigns are an effective (and often underestimated) way to reach potential customers and generate qualified leads for your business. When starting out, it’s important to set realistic benchmarks and continually optimize your campaigns to achieve the results you’re looking for.

By focusing on boosting key metrics such as open rates, response rates, and conversion rates, you gain valuable insights into the effectiveness of your cold email campaigns and make data-driven decisions that generate more leads.

It’s true that writing effective cold email sequences takes time and effort. Remember to personalize your messages, craft compelling subject lines and CTAs, and follow up with recipients to increase your chances of success. Don’t have time to write and optimize your own campaigns? No problem. Contact us to learn how ClearBrand can get you better results from your cold email campaigns.

With these strategies in place, you can create a successful cold email campaign that drives meaningful results for your business.