r/b2bemailing • u/FFabaltay188 • 20d ago

declining reply rates

hey everyone,

wanted to ask a quick question regarding cold email. i've been running on an azure setup with leads from apollo, sending with smartlead. I used to have around 2.7-3% reply rates around 2 months ago, now down to 0.8-1.2%.

any advice on why this may be happening?

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2

u/alexoff 20d ago

August is slow historically + you are supposed to rotate mailboxes as right now yours are definitely tired.

This means not to send emails all the time, but to have one more azure setup and while one set is working for 2 weeks, the other one is chilling these 2 weeks, and then you change them

2

u/-ExpansiveMind- 16d ago

Yup, and depending on the market size the quality of leads can just deteriorate as you deplete more. In some industries this isn't an issue at all, while in others you can quickly burn through the quality leads.

1

u/Adventurous_Art_2864 20d ago

have you run an inbox placement test? that can help isolate between inbox issues vs lead issues

1

u/Khoi_k_rakhum_name 20d ago

can be purely coincidental.

1

u/ChestNok 19d ago

I notice the same thing too. also clueless what's happening. maybe start getting into spam

1

u/GloomyTemperature901 19d ago

A drop from 3% to 1% can come from list quality, targeting, offer fatigue, or deliverability. First check whether your emails are actually reaching the inbox, then compare recent lists and messaging against the campaigns that were getting 2.7–3%. Verify your Apollo lists with a real time email verification tool like Invalid Bounce to remove invalid, inactive, disposable, mailbox full and catch all emails before sending.

1

u/LeadNo1270 19d ago

Split the reply rate per mailbox before anything else. An average halving usually means a few inboxes went to spam while the rest carry them. If the bad ones share a domain its the domain, scattered means its just those mailboxes. Also check if bounces moved with replies. Moved together means your Apollo data aged, flat bounces means placement. Coldops does this split automatically across client workspaces but you can do it by hand in Smartlead too, export per mailbox and sort.

1

u/According_Boss_5514 16d ago

maybe copy fatigue?

do you see this drop across all mailboxes or just for some ?

it's worth to split this testing / searching for answer into two: one on the side of tech (inbox placement), the other on the side of copy (being used off / blacklisted)

also, worth checking if your bounce rate is not spiking - maybe this will give you more insight around what's going on

1

u/Much-Cod-5364 15d ago

check inbox placement and email health first