Metrics
Reply Rate
The percentage of outreach messages that receive a response from the prospect.
What is Reply Rate?
Reply rate is the percentage of outreach messages that generate a response from the prospect. It is the primary leading indicator of outbound campaign health because it measures whether your message is earning attention.
Reply Rate Benchmarks by Channel
| Channel | Poor | Average | Good | Excellent |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cold email | <1% | 1-3% | 3-5% | 5-8% |
| LinkedIn (volume-based) | <2% | 2-5% | 5-8% | 8-12% |
| LinkedIn (manual) | <5% | 5-10% | 10-15% | 15-20% |
| Video outreach | <3% | 3-8% | 8-14% | 14-20% |
What Drives Reply Rate
Reply rate is a function of three variables:
- Targeting accuracy: Are you messaging people who actually need what you sell?
- Timing relevance: Does the prospect have an active need right now?
- Message quality: Does your outreach demonstrate genuine understanding?
Most teams focus on #3 (writing better copy) while ignoring #1 and #2. This is why my methodology prioritizes research over copywriting.
// REPLY RATE OPTIMIZATION
lever_1: targeting (drives 50% of reply rate variance)
lever_2: timing / signals (drives 30% of reply rate variance)
lever_3: copy quality (drives 20% of reply rate variance)
conclusion: research > writing
My Reply Rate Performance
Across 40+ B2B SaaS and dev agency campaigns, I average 8-18% reply rates on LinkedIn outbound. This is 3-5x the industry average because I invest disproportionately in research and signal-based targeting.