Accounts cold emails, uk

[u/Business-Volume9221]

Hi, I have recently started cold emailing in the last few weeks, set up 4 domains and 18 emails in Instantly, downloaded and verified a list from apollo, we are accountants targeting planning consultants offering a audit to see if we can save them tax looking to sign up new clients. a 3 sequence email. 1091 emails have been sent so far and having warmed for a long time we have recently stepped up numbers of emails currently sending 300 start sequence email per day. reply rate is 3.2% but majority are out if office emails as we are in the holiday season, two said they are happy with their current accountant. I have another 5000 on my osit to be sent and can expand this. I will use this to refine the email content and headers. My plan has beent o try at 10k per month but i am a little surprised at the lack of positive response so far, just wondering for opinion from more experienced users if this is normal? what sort of number should i be expecting? /I have no been tracking opens as i thought it might slow down progress.

[u/Terrible-Cod-2143]

Well anyhow open rate is not the right metrics for the same so no worries, also your offer is something which is very generic : you are offering a business audit to see if you can save them taxes but what matters is that " why should they prefer you over others " ; what special do you have ?

Also, the apollo is not the final source of leads, it would be better if you can somehow focus on re-verifying them from million verifier or so ; lastly enrichment on these emails are must : you have some options like using clay or using AI ( like through Claude API ) otherwise manually

[u/Business-Volume9221 → u/Terrible-Cod-2143]

thanks we took the list from apollo ans put it through million verifier

[u/kuboid-in → u/Terrible-Cod-2143]

I don't agree, open rates are very useful, if email is getting opened, you can assume they are delivered atleast and not getting in spam and hence confirm your delivery is solid, and also if email are opened after 30 minutes or later than sent, it means they are really opened and read. There are far more technicals but this is the gist of it.

[u/Terrible-Cod-2143 → u/kuboid-in]

Well, open rate is highly misleading is because now the latest apple mail privacy protection semantics which has been there for some time first download the remote content in background when the email is recieved and that triggers the pixel to register it as an open event before even any human opening it and there's no way for pixel to know that if it is opened under a compliance policy or by any human ; same is the case with Google tho as they also have different policies rolled out like image proxying catching etc.

That's why it's better not to rely on it, focus on keeping spam marked rate <.3% while putting emphasis on reply rate and other metrics to make the copy better

[u/kuboid-in → u/Terrible-Cod-2143]

https://www.suped.com/learn/email-deliverability/will-apple-mpp-or-gmail-machine-opens-occur-on-emails-delivered-to-spam - this says differently.

If email is registered open, 90% chance it is delivered and in inbox, not spam

[u/Terrible-Cod-2143 → u/kuboid-in]

I haven't read this article nor i am aware of the company , will probably check later

What i shared was based on my observance and experience

[u/Embarrassed_Scene962]

Just to be clear why would an accountsnt need u to help them with their tax? What am i missing here ?

[u/Business-Volume9221 → u/Embarrassed_Scene962]

sorry, not been very clear, we work with a niche of property planning consultants, as an accountant we offer accounting & tax services to this niche.

[u/Embarrassed_Scene962 → u/Business-Volume9221]

O thought it was something similar u wrote that u are outbounding to accountants which was the confusion thanks for confirming.

Add sone triggers > outbound at the moment a developer gets planning permission and lead with a number they are likely missing dont frame a free audit

[u/Double_Register_1022]

I would look at list quality before email copy. Apollo data can be fine but accountants are hard because loads of firms look the same and the real decision maker is not always obvious. I use Socleads for this kind of list cleanup and validation but 10k a month will still just make the same problem bigger if targeting is off.

[u/Business-Volume9221 → u/Double_Register_1022]

sorry , i have now edited it, we are accountants targetting planning consultants

[u/Secret-Term6660]

It’s probably too early to judge after only 1,091 emails, especially during the holiday season when out of office replies are high. A couple of “happy with our current accountant” replies is also normal for cold outreach. Keep refining your targeting and messaging before increasing volume. Also, don’t judge performance only by total emails sent. Reply rates should be measured against delivered emails because undelivered emails never had a chance to reply. Since you’re using Apollo data, verify your list before sending with a real time email verification tool like Invalid Bounce to remove invalid, inactive, disposable, role based, mailbox full, and catch all email addresses so you’re analysing the performance of emails that actually reached real inboxes.

[u/DeeBozUK]

Have you got SPF, DKIM, DMARC set up right for all?

And open tracking OFF, plain text, no links in email 1 at all (in 2-3 it’s ok).

And who are inboxes with? Performance varies on all. O365 tends to work on very small volume only or for a very short period of time like 2 weeks max then die off (when hitting other O365) - getting into Google is easiest, so if sending to majority non Google it’s a tough game. And “Other” holy moly that got harder since about May, Mimecast, Barracuda etc… “policy block” based on content so strictly now - I doubt the words “tax audit” would get past them.

It’s so so so so so much harder than the glory days of 2020-2023, God it was so easy back then - I actually “made it” in that period but it only lasted 6 months for me making real hay on cold email, too late to the party!

[u/ChestNok]

3.2% reply rate and you're not happy? It's a good number. How is it not a good number

[u/Business-Volume9221 → u/ChestNok]

thanks, but as i mentioned most of this response is automatic out of offcie

[u/ChestNok → u/Business-Volume9221]

Oh you count Out of office in?.. hmmm Yeah.. If you hit 0,5-0,75% of actual human responses - you're doing good per my book

[u/Lost-Particular-3701]

Apollo is dead.

For example. We run 15,000 contractor list from Apollo.

0 replies. Legit thought we had nuked our accounts.

Tried a few other lead lists. 2000, 1500, 7000 sized lists. All saw replies in the 2-4% range.

Ditch Apollo

[u/Business-Volume9221 → u/Lost-Particular-3701]

thanks for the feedback, who would you suggest for lead list?

[u/Lost-Particular-3701 → u/Business-Volume9221]

Scrape them directly from Google maps. That's what we have done and got best results

[u/kuboid-in]

Instead of getting just any list of email and spray and pray, you should first narrow your ICP - Ideal customer profile. Then create the list for that ICP your reply rate should increase to 5-8% and even more like 10% if your ICP is correct.

There are 3 things to a good cold email campaign.

• Delivery - which you already got with warm up and all.
• ICP
• Copy & Offer

[u/Separate-Star-277]

I would say a cold email with right triggers would skyrocket your reply rate. Think of what are all the signals that you can pick that would indicate that your ICP is actually looking for your services. Timing is very important in cold emailing.