After his previous post on "How to Run High-Volume Outbound", Scott is sharing with us more great content on his Factors that Affect Your Cold Email Open Rates!
"I thought everyone knew this, but maybe not?
Subject lines don't really affect your cold email open rates
You might get a 10% open bump if you're lucky
Say, increase 30% open rate to 40% open rate
But mostly it's other factors.
Imagine you're a busy executive scrolling their inbox
First off, you don't check your spam. You're too busy.
So 40% of your open rate is literally just deliverability.
This boils down to emails per domain per day (assuming it's not a main email) and correct domain setup.
In my experience, <20% open rate means 75% of your emails are going to spam.
Back the exec's inbox.
You're skimming the inbox... you see an interesting subject line, but unfortunately for that sender, you have preview text.
You can see the first line is a "me vomit" that doesn't have anything to do with your problems.
Delete.
Personalization, especially first line personalization, is another 40%.
Well personalized emails in my experience hit 70-80% open rate, regardless of platform.
Note: you can still hit 80% open rate with just Spintax and a really relevant first line.
Different platforms change up the sending speed, open tracking, and other factors.
A 40% reply rate campaign in Apollo.io could be 60%+ in Smartlead with Spintax. And the volume will be higher.
With personalization, Apollo.io can still hit 80%, it's just harder.
What really counts is sending platform + varied email text + interesting first line.
TLDR:
> Setup your domain right
> Warm up your emails
> Send <100 emails / domain / day. I do 50.
* Sending from main inbox you can probably hit 100 a day and not break anything IF you get enough replies.
> Use a good sending platform. Smartlead seems to be the GOAT right now
> Personalize with Reach, Clay, Lavender 💜 , or use Spintax + an intriguing first line. Do this well enough and sending platform matters less."