Does cold email even work any more? Here's what the data says

This article is part of a special Gong x 30 Minutes to President's Club x Outbound Squad cold email series as a sneak peek of our Cold Email Course: The Reply Method for Double Digit Replies. To read the rest of the series, and get all of our upcoming research, subscribe here.

The average rep has to send 344 cold emails to land one meeting. To put that into perspective, you have better odds of getting into Harvard.

Cold email doesn’t have an easy button anymore.

Many reps either spend hours personalizing emails (because LinkedIn influencers told them to) and get little to nothing in return, or mass blast, cross their fingers, and hope for the best.

So, does cold email even work anymore? Let’s pretend two reps send 1000 cold emails…

We analyzed 28M+ cold emails with Gong to figure out what would happen.

This article will break down benchmarks and exactly how top reps are winning in cold email step-by-step:

• Meeting Rates (and what to say to get a positive reply)
• Reply Rates (and how to make your emails easy to reply to)
• Open Rates (and what to put in your subject line)

Let’s dig in.

Top performers book 8.1x more meetings than average performers. The delta between top vs. average performers was much larger than we expected.

This proves that cold email isn’t dead, but can certainly feel like it if you’re an average seller.

But the payoff is huge if you can move from the top quartile to the upper 10%.

Outbound Squad has trained over 10,000 reps in the last 8 years. Most reps know they should talk less about their solution, and more about problems they solve.

Unfortunately, this is rarely is this reflected in the copy of their cold emails.

The data is conclusive. Pitching reduces reply rates by as much as 57%.

• Avoid industry buzzwords. TCO and MTTR sound really cool, but you’re not fooling anyone. Keep the language simple.
• Do not talk about AI. It’s the topic everyone’s talking about right now. But you and all your competitors are saying the same thing.
• Don’t pitch the platform. Or anything else that sounds like “all-in-one” or “single pane of glass.”
• Avoid ROI language. Everyone’s promising a 10x return. Avoid justifying the ROI of your solution.

Instead, you should use your customer’s language.

• Priority-based language. Use specific words and phrases your buyer uses when talking about their goals, priorities, OKRs, problems, etc.
• Social proof. Share relevant, specific logos or industries similar to the prospect’s. The more specific, the better.

Here’s an example of a top-performing email:

In part two of this four-part series, we’ll break down the Reply Method. A data-backed cold email framework for double-digit reply rates.

Top reps get 4.2x more replies than average reps. Honestly, the overall reply rate for top reps was lower than anticipated. 10%+ is the gold standard based on Outbound Squad’s experience working with customers.

This shows how hard it is to get replies right now.

Imagine opening up Netflix. Instead of seeing a curated feed of shows and movies, you see the entire catalogue in alphabetical order.

You’d cancel your membership immediately.

Cognitive load theory states that the easier it is to take action, the more likely you are to take said action.

How does this apply to cold emails?

Shorter emails have a higher reply rate. The ideal word count is 100 words or fewer.

The highest reply rates come from emails with 3-4 sentences.

Let’s look at an example.

This first email isn’t terrible. It’s personalized, speaks to problems/priorities, shares social proof, and has a decent call to action.

But it’s 9 sentences and 250+ words.

WAY too long.

This email clocks in at right around 50 words. And it’s 4 sentences long.

Strong reason at the top, succinct problem statement, great social proof, strong call to action.

Top performers have 2.1x higher open rates than average. reps. Open rates are a controversial metric in cold email right now.

Those opens could be the prospect’s spam filters, but the data shows that top reps are getting significantly more opens.

The same principles of the cold email body apply to subject lines.

Avoid selling in the subject line. There’s no need for it.

• Avoid marketing language. Don’t talk about AI or use industry buzzwords.
• Avoid numbers and questions. “What if you could 10x your pipeline?” sounds like a marketing intern grabbed your keyboard.
• Social proof. This one surprised us. Social proof works great in the body of the email, but not in the subject line.

Here’s what to do instead. Make the subject line priority-based. Use the prospect’s language.

• Industry-wide problems that all prospects are likely to experience
• Industry trends and what everyone’s talking about
• Company-wide initiatives
• Exec leadership quotes
• Shared connections or people on their team
• Short, one-word subject lines designed to pattern interrupt
• Competitor shares

The third part of this series is all about subject lines. we'll explore seven subject line frameworks you can use to drive 50%+ open rates.

You can’t hit “go” on automated emails anymore and expect replies.

The data shows that it pays to be great:

• The top 25% of reps land 4.3x more meetings than average reps.
• The top 10% of reps land 8.1x more meetings than average reps.

Want more? The Ultimate Cold Email Data Report breaks down 20+ data-backed email insights that separate the top reps from the pack.

Download the report for free here.