Vlad, VP of Growth (formerly SDR Lead) at Reply, shared his data-backed insights on effective cold emails during a recent Cold Email Deep Dive virtual conference. Vlad, who has spearheaded most of the successful cold outreach campaigns over the past few years, revealed some of the key findings from the analysis of millions of emails sent through Reply.
In case you missed his captivating presentation, no need to worry! We've recapped this session below, allowing you to easily browse through and enjoy these valuable insights!
At Reply, they are fortunate to have access to valuable data-backed insights on cold emails. Through analyzing the anonymized data of their customers, they are able to gain a deep understanding of what works and what doesn't in effective email outreach.
Vlad's discussion will be divided into three parts, each focusing on a different aspect of cold emails.
Here are some fascinating email statistics that will make you think:
Especially the last point shows that cold emails are still important. We will have lots of new users in different countries and continents, they will adopt email clients, and probably they will run businesses, and they all will need an effective way to communicate. So email will still be an effective (I hope so and I think so) channel this decade.
Let's begin by diving into the fascinating realm of subject lines. We've always wondered: Can the length of a subject line really have an impact on open rates? To find out, we carefully examined relevant data and conducted a thorough analysis focused on subject line length, considering word count as a crucial factor.
The results are clear: subject lines that are short and sweet, with one to four words, have the highest open rates. However, there's a decline in effectiveness as subject lines get longer. It's simple math: the more words you use, the longer the subject line becomes, and the fewer people will open it.
Interestingly, the average reply rate also decreases when it comes to emails with long subject lines. It's quite puzzling why people tend to avoid responding to emails that have lengthy subject lines.
An interesting observation here is that leaving subject lines empty can be a major issue. It is highly advised not to send emails without subject lines because, on average, the open rate drops to just 20% (compared to the average of 32% based on our analyzed data).
Therefore, I would recommend sticking to a maximum of 3 or 4 words and then experimenting with this data.
However, it's worth noting that there is conflicting research on subject line length. Some studies suggest that the more words you have, the fewer replies you get, significantly reducing effectiveness. To ensure accuracy, we will reanalyze this data set. In the meantime, I recommend experimenting with different subject line lengths, but generally sticking to shorter ones.
It is evident that subject line length does matter. For example, when receiving an email with six words, the sixth word was almost invisible. It left me confused and unsure of the sender's intention. Therefore, I suggest aiming for subject lines with 4 to 5 words or even 3 to 4 to 5 words for optimal impact.
Next, let’s talk about the letter case.
Like many other sales leaders, I receive dozens of cold emails every week. Lately, I've noticed a growing trend among some SDRs and salespeople who use all lowercase words in their subject lines (as shown in option #1 below).
I was curious to explore whether this is a new trend or if it could actually improve response rates and open rates. Therefore, we conducted an analysis of these three patterns, and it can be concluded that subject lines with all lowercase words generally result in fewer opens on average.
Based on the data analysis, it is evident that subject lines written in all uppercase letters generate more opens compared to the average result. Therefore, it is recommended to avoid using all lowercase words in subject lines. However, it is important to note that if using all lowercase words works for you, then it is a valid choice. Personally, I prefer subject lines with most upper-case words as they tend to have better performance.
In an interesting post on LinkedIn, someone mentioned that the genius who came up with the idea of salespeople asking a 'quick question' deserves credit. It's a clever way to filter out generic cold outreach emails! Let's review the thousands of cold emails with this simple subject line, so we have also analyzed its impact on email performance.
Let’s move on and review email templates. Once again, the length of your cold email template is incredibly crucial – in fact, it's the most important metric. The data clearly shows that in this case, less is definitely more.
Emails with fewer than 50-70 words have the highest reply rate and 'interested' rate. Therefore, the longer the email, the fewer opens and replies you receive.
Therefore, it would be wise to aim for a cold email template that falls within the range of 50 to 70 words, as this seems to yield the best results. It is important to consider that people typically spend only 11 to 14 seconds reading brand emails on average, which is just about 20% of a minute.
It's quite astonishing when you think about it - only 11 seconds! While brand emails are usually HTML edited, it is safe to assume that a cold outreach email can be considered a type of brand email since you are a stranger reaching out to someone for a specific purpose.
Considering that people spend about 11 seconds reading emails from strangers (brand emails), and if we take into account that people typically read at a speed of 250 words per minute, it becomes apparent that in order to capture their attention for those 11 seconds, our cold emails should ideally be no more than 50 words (or maybe between 70 to 100 words if they read faster).
Moving on to the topic of email length, we can see that people generally prefer shorter and more concise cold emails. This applies not only to the overall word count but also to the number of paragraphs used. Let's take a look at an example of a cold email with four paragraphs.
After conducting an in-depth analysis on the response rates and level of interest generated by cold emails based on the length of their paragraphs. As shown in the data, it is evident that cold email templates consisting of two to three paragraphs have the highest reply rate and level of interest. This suggests that keeping your email concise and to the point can greatly improve your chances of receiving a positive response.
It seems that the length of your email doesn't really matter, whether it contains 6, 7, or even 10 paragraphs. As long as you capture the reader's attention in the first sentence, they will likely read the rest of your email. However, if you want to optimize your results, Stick to 2, 3, or 4 paragraphs, similar to the email example provided.
One of the other elements of a cold email template that was analyzed was questions. Because sometimes, cold emails come in that contain more than one question. So typically it means “Okay so you want from me something let’s say #1 then you won’t something #2 then I’m a little bit confused, because I don’t understand what you want from me”.
Please keep in mind that the primary objective of cold outreach is to have a highly targeted and straightforward call-to-action. For instance, would you like them to sign up for something, book a demo, simply reply, or click a link? It is advisable to avoid using excessive questions in order to maintain clarity and effectiveness.
It's interesting to note that cold emails with zero questions tend to have the highest average reply rate. There has been a lot of talk about using soft CTAs, so it's possible that a soft CTA without any questions could lead to surprisingly more replies. Additionally, the average "interested" rate is also higher in this case.
Conversely, the more questions you include in your cold email, the fewer replies you can expect to receive. If we compare cold email templates with three questions, we see that they generate an average of 30% fewer replies.
In light of these findings, my recommendation would be to opt for softer CTAs such as "Is it worth having a conversation?" or my personal favorite, a question-free approach like "If this piques your interest, I'm more than happy to provide further details." This way, you can maintain a friendly tone while still encouraging engagement.
Lastly, let's dive into analyzing the email content, specifically exploring the impact of pictures, links, and GIFs on your results.
Adding multiple links will decrease your average reply rate. And it totally makes sense because sometimes links could contain a long tail URL and are not good for email inbox placement, for email providers. So probably that’s the reason.
When it comes to GIFs, it's a whole different story. They tend to be quite large, sometimes even reaching sizes of 100 kilobytes or even megabytes. This is why email providers are not big fans of cold emails that include GIFs. The same goes for pictures. So here's my suggestion: for the very first cold email in your sequence, try sending a simple text email with no pictures or GIFs. This way, email providers are less likely to flag it as spam. Once they become familiar with your domain and email address, you can gradually start including pictures or links in your second, third, or fourth follow-up emails.
Once again, it is important to note that 33% of people open emails based on subject lines. Therefore, consider the following recommendations:
When it comes to cold emails and cold email templates, people typically spend around 11 to 15 seconds reading brand emails (I'm not entirely sure if this applies to sales cold emails, but I assume it does). Therefore, the length of your email is extremely important. I would recommend sticking to 50 or 70 words, or even fewer if possible. Think of it as a "tweetable email" - something concise and to the point, around 200-300 symbols. Additionally, paragraphs play a crucial role, so aim for 3-4, or maybe 5 at the most.
Additionally, it is important to consider the content of your cold email. To maintain a friendly and engaging tone, it is recommended to limit the number of questions to one at most. Soft call-to-actions, such as "Would you be interested in having a conversation?" or "How do you think this would be relevant to you?" can be effective in encouraging a positive response.
Furthermore, it is advisable to avoid including links, GIFs, and pictures in the initial cold email. Save these elements for your follow-up emails. Finally, don't forget to always conduct A/B testing to optimize your email performance.
Here’s an example of Vlad's sequence. Typically, he tries different subject lines and sometimes changes just CTAs, maybe wording, just some small tweaks, and sending maybe from 500 to 1,000 emails for each variant and then grabbing the best performing one.
Certainly, it may require some passion and time on your part. However, utilizing ChatGPT can potentially expedite the idea generation process and assist you in conducting A/B tests more efficiently. It's worth noting that everything I've shared today is based on data and averages. You might already be achieving better results, which I cannot determine. Regardless, now is the ideal moment to embark on experimentation and further optimize your approach.