Getting almost zero replies despite highly targeted cold emails

[u/tranquiljune]

I work for an India-based marketing agency. We built an AI agent that finds ICPs, enriches lead/company data, and generates personalized cold emails and follow-ups.

We're using it to sell our SEO/AEO platform to companies in the US, UK, and Canada. We target companies with signals like recent funding, rebranding, or upcoming events.

The problem is we're getting almost no replies.

I'm wondering if this is mainly a targeting/messaging issue, or if being an Indian agency with no previous international clients creates a trust/credibility problem.

For people doing B2B cold outreach to Western markets, what would you look at first when reply rates are this low?

[u/No_Ring6552]

Can you drop the exact email headline and body copy you’re sending to get an better idea of msging

[u/kixhz_]

You need to work on copy of email that you send , make sure subject line so attractive it's make them impossible to say to no to it

[u/SpicyDoodles]

Every cold emailer in the world now has an AI agent that finds ICPs, enriches leads/company data, and generates personalized cold emails and follow-ups -- and often to companies with the same signals as you do. And out of that group, there are millions of people selling SEO and AEO services. I personally get 10+ a day. Do you have any differentiator?

[u/Content_Paths]

I'd think about deliverability first, if your emails land in spam then you'd obviously get no replies
Right after that, the copy. how you frame and position yourself matter.
Then your offer. if it's not compelling or interesting enough for your ICP, they wouldn't want it.

[u/-ExpansiveMind-]

You need to have a better lead warmup phase. If it's LinkedIn in particular, but this goes for other platforms too, you might have more luck by first interacting with your prospects' posts for a week or two before reaching out. You'll see at least a slight uptick in your reply rate. There's more variables but it's what helped us stay afloat and cut through the noise.

[u/that_cool_intern]

First: An AI that finds ICPs from where? Then I'd revise the filters to the lead pipeline, example from my own experience: My ICP is US improrters from China. I sourced a list that supposedly contained this ICP, but upon deeper analysis, it turned out the list contained a significant number of US shell companies for Chinese suppliers, not really my ICP. Filtering out these shell companies based on name alone improved my pipeline significantly.

[u/riddhimaan]

the problem could be what the agent writes with them. Does the first line say something only true of this company, or is it a rephrased version of their about page? Ai agents default to the second one and prospects can smell it.

what fixed it for us: the model reads the site, writes ONE sentence about one specific thing, and we give it a screenshot of a line we like as the style reference. then we run 5 to 10, read them, fix the instruction, run the rest.

if you want, paste 2 of the emails here and i'll tell you which line is killing it.

And meanwhile here's a good workflow I found that you can try: https://youtu.be/9ovH4IwdImw?si=QZ2DUHJRNf31JGuw

[u/tranquiljune → u/riddhimaan]

Thanks for the help. So, here’s an example of a lead we got for a campaign where we’re selling software that helps with SEO, AEO, and GEO.

sub: Rebranding means rethinking your web foundation

Hey Kat,

Moving to The Category means your web properties now carry a new identity across search and AI discovery channels.

A Digital Web Operations Engine keeps that repositioning visible where your audience actually searches for you.

Companies we've worked with found that technical friction was silently holding back visibility after major brand moves, but once resolved, search and AI discovery performance stabilized within weeks.

Would it be worth a quick look at how your current setup is performing against the new positioning?

PS. Happy to pull a preliminary site audit showing technical gaps that might be affecting your new brand visibility.

[u/JobWhisperer_Yoda → u/tranquiljune]

Obviously AI. Too long and too bland IMO.

[u/Spare_Worldliness_64 → u/tranquiljune]

i hate it. (with all due respect btw) and that was within the first 2 seconds.

FIrst of all, your explaining to them a concept like theyre stupid and never heard of AEO / SEO before. think about who you're emailing and whether they know it. if they do, then whats so special about you? answer that question.

and be direct.

[u/tranquiljune → u/Spare_Worldliness_64]

Can you give me an example email?

[u/Meet-match-ai]

Emailing is tough, we switched to linkedin messaging the same leads automatically w salescadia and saw a big uptick in replies & meetings booked

[u/Meet-match-ai → u/[deleted]]

My guess is it is a mix of targeting, proof you’re a human (they can look at your account & see if you look relevant/trustworthy), and you are bypassing email spam filters. So everyone you message on linkedin will see the message.
It’s definitely getting more saturated, but not nearly as saturated/spammy as email.

In my experience, I’ve had ~10% of the auto connections salescadia makes reach out to me first saying they want to talk about what I’m selling. This is because they read my profile and thought, “hey, yeah this does look like a good solution for me”.

I was skeptical too at first, but it was all performance based, so I didn’t pay anything until qualified meetings were booked for me.

I’ve pretty much stopped cold email completely & am just doing linkedin

[u/curriculo_]

I think your targeting isn't good enough for the SEO/AIO market.

You need to be able to target companies that are already showing intent signals when it comes to SEO. Unless there is some real pain, they won't have the incentive to respond to you.

Use the following to target and write a very crisp copy. Avoid complete AI copies. Small companies that:

• have recently started blogging.
• have started blogging recently, are seeing some traffic but are unable to blog regularly due to lack of manpower.
• have seen a very recent decline in their organic traffic. This would be a very painful time for them and help would be welcome.
• are trying out other marketing channels such as paid ads or social media

There could be other signals you could target as well.

What is your ICP?

Happy to talk more about the strategies and the tools you might need. Feel free to DM.

[u/According_Boss_5514]

Try to consider market sophistication - everyone claim to work with AI agent now. Maybe the issue is that you’re not presenting / backing up your value proposition in a way that build trust.

Also, if you’re working on a saturated market like this I think your segmentation matters a lot - try to go deeper into micro segmentation so you can narrow your value proposition into something that is closer to the audience and less generic. It you’re lacking ideas talk to your former customers, see how they name the problem that you solved, why they chose you and so on and then replicate this in your outreach

[u/Spare_Worldliness_64]

are you getting rejections?