{
  "id": 15108980,
  "title": "99 Cold Emails, 0 Replies — Our Outreach Numbers So Far",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/10/17/99-cold-emails-0-replies-our-outreach-numbers-so-far",
  "topic": "tech",
  "section": "Tech",
  "published": "2026-10-17T03:39:57.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "Dev.to",
    "slug": "dev-to",
    "url": "https://dev.to/lichris/99-cold-emails-0-replies-our-outreach-numbers-so-far-m2d"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "Just over a week ago, our marketing team began sending out cold emails to agencies in an effort to promote our tool. Initially, the emails were straightforward, immediately pitching the tool and offering free credits. However, on Wednesday, we switched tactics. Starting with this change, every email opened with a specific, verifiable search engine results page (SERP) finding that was useful to the recipient's category. This approach aimed to provide genuine value upfront, rather than diving straight into a sales pitch.\n\nAs of now, the results are clear: out of 99 emails sent, not a single one has received a human reply. Two auto-acknowledgments were received, and two emails bounced. This outcome spans five different agency verticals - general marketing, law-firm marketing, AI marketing, content studios, and B2B - and three different hook types - SERP finding, free snapshot offer, and a lighter follow-up.\n\nOur follow-up strategy involved sending 28 second touches on schedule, but the results remained unchanged. The content we used for these emails was crafted based on real research, with recipients being actual agencies and independent consultants who we had taken the time to read their contact pages.\n\nWe cannot definitively conclude the specific rates of email opens or the effectiveness of the offers or the sender's domain at this point. However, it is evident that a one-week timeframe is not enough to draw a conclusive verdict. This initial data point serves as a starting point for further analysis.\n\nLooking ahead, we plan to make some adjustments. We will be attaching a small industry report to the emails instead of the free credits offer. We also intend to widen the recipient pool. The data-first approach in our emails, which has clearly worked in community posts with the same findings, will continue to be used. We believe that publishing these findings where the buyers are already looking may be a more effective channel than traditional cold emailing. This hypothesis will be tested over the next two weeks.\n\nWe are not promoting a marketing tool in this report; instead, it is our own trial and error in finding the best outreach methods. If you are currently engaged in outreach efforts, we invite you to share your reply rates and any changes that have improved them.",
  "summary": "Just over a week ago we started cold-emailing marketing agencies. The first batches pitched our tool straight up; since Wednesday, every opener leads with a finding we thought was genuinely useful to them: who actually holds page one for their own category term. This is the honest scoreboard so far. The numbers (all real, all sent from a real person's inbox): 99 emails sent — every one checked…",
  "key_points": [
    "99 cold emails were sent to agencies across five verticals",
    "No human replies received, only two auto-acknowledgments and two bounces",
    "Switched to SERP findings as email hook after initial straightforward pitches"
  ],
  "editors_take": "The failure of personalized, research-backed outreach suggests that traditional cold emailing may be losing its efficacy against agencies, necessitating a shift toward publishing findings directly where potential buyers congregate.",
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}