There seems to be some random influx of B2B SaaS companies originating from god knows where. This blog isn’t about B2B SaaS, but about one of the most effective marketing channels that helps B2B as a whole: Cold Emailing. It can be powerful when reaching out to new prospects and generating leads, however the success of your cold email campaign is really set in the tracking of data, analyzing the data, and then refining the emails (audience or content) based on that data. Today, we’ll walk through some of the essential KPIs to track that provide the insights you’re looking for.
One you’ve probably never heard of before, but the Positive Reply Rate is a metric which presents the percentage of recipients who respond positively to your cold emails. Not the “no thanks,” which is typically added to the reply rate. Tracking Positive Reply Rate helps to gauge the effectiveness of your email content, the targeting, and then to give you a better view of how well your message sits with those you’re sending to.
How to Calculate Positive Reply Rate:
How to Track Positive Reply Rate:
Example:
If you sent 100 emails and received 15 positive replies, your Positive Reply Rate would be:
This is pretty self explanatory so we’ll skip it… Just kidding! The booking rate measure the percentage of positive replies which convert into booked calls or meetings. This metric is important because it helps to understand the effectiveness of your follow-up process and the overall quality of your leads.
How to Calculate Booking Rate:
How to Track Booking Rate:
Example:
If you received 15 positive replies and 5 of them booked a call, your Booking Rate would be:
Exactly what I meant when I said the Positive Reply Rate differs from the general reply rate. This metric doesn’t care if the recipient says “Get the h*ll out of my inbox!” or if they say “Yeah, let’s chat.” A reply is a reply. All-in-all, it measures the overall engagement of your emails. While it’s broad, we think it does a just good enough job of saying whether or not those subject lines are working.
How to Calculate Response Rate:
How to Track Response Rate:
Example:
If you sent 100 emails and received 20 replies (both positive and negative), your Response Rate would be:
If you begin to track these metrics – Positive Reply Rate, Booking Rate, and general Response Rate – you might just find takeaways that help you to understand your cold email’s effectiveness. With the insights, you’ll be able to make data-driven adjustments to your outreach, improving results and increasing reply/closing success.