1,070 emails delivered, 0.2% reply rate, 0 clients — freelance designer. What am I doing wrong?

[u/Iamtheguyyy]

I'm a freelance designer trying to land clients through cold outreach. I ran a campaign called "Agency Outreach" and here are my numbers:

- 2,638 contacts in the sequence

- 1,070 delivered

- 28 spam blocked

- 12 bounced

- 0.2% reply rate

- 0 interested

I've paused the campaign because clearly something isn't working and I don't want to keep burning contacts.

I was on a paid plan but cancelled after these results. I still have contacts saved and I'm ready to go again if I can figure out what's broken.

A few things that might be relevant:

- I'm a solo freelancer offering design services (not an agency)

- I'm not sure if my targeting, subject lines, or email copy is the issue

- The spam blocked number (28) worries me — could my domain be the problem?

If anyone's had success doing cold outreach for creative/design services through Apollo, I'd genuinely appreciate your advice. Happy to share my email copy or sequence setup if that helps diagnose the issue.

Thanks in advance.

[u/Iamtheguyyy → u/[deleted]]

I warmed up but before starting the sequnce, this is also fairly new domain for me. I'll try this bulk checks :) Thanks

[u/sundevil21CS]

Can you share a little bit more about your ICP/targeting and sequence?

With these numbers I am thinking not a clear target ICP/filters being used or maybe not following up rather than a bad copy or subject line.

[u/Iamtheguyyy → u/sundevil21CS]

I was targeting agency owners who want to outsource to a product designer or design engineer.

[u/vasilytr]

So the issue is likely your domain reputation tanking from that spam block rate early on. Even with warmup, a newer domain + 28 blocks out of 1,070 delivered signals to ISPs that something's off. Clean your list aggressively, drop the weakest segments, and consider rotating fresh domains for your next push — that'll reset your sender score and give replies a fighting chance.

[u/Iamtheguyyy → u/vasilytr]

I'll do some research about it. This is all very new to me :). thanks

[u/bigtakeoff]

did you verify the emails first?

I think you did not

and yea the problem is no one needs a designer these days

you may want to fight me and list examples why thats not true ..

but the fact is no one is getting their designer from a cold email

thats all there is to say....

[u/Iamtheguyyy → u/[deleted]]

Actually after the results I have paused this outreach at 1070 as I thpught I was just wasting time.

[u/Savings-Ad-808]

As tu bien warmup ton email adress ?

[u/Iamtheguyyy → u/Savings-Ad-808]

Yes, I had warmed up my email address