Remember when cold emails actually got replies?

Three years ago I was sending out cold emails to about 50 marketing directors in Charlotte every week and getting maybe 8-10 replies. Last month I tried the same approach with a new list of 60 contacts and got 2 replies total. I used the same subject lines, same personalization tricks, same follow-up cadence. It feels like inboxes are just completely flooded now compared to 2021. Has anyone else seen a huge drop in email reply rates over the last year or two?

2 comments

2 Comments

mary_kelly8d ago

Hold your horses a bit. It wasn't three years ago, it was more like 2020 maybe 2021 when reply rates were actually decent.

anna5678d agoTop Commenter

and you're spot on @mary_kelly, I think people forget how fast things changed after that. it feels like everything online got a lot more cluttered and harder to get a straight reply out of anyone around that time, like everyone just got busier or something.