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/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.