Email Performance Issues

We analyzed 4 million recruiting emails sent through Gem. Most get opened. But only 22.6% get replies. Half those replies are "thanks, but no thanks." We dug into what actually works. Here are 8 factors that drive REAL responses: 1. Strategic timing beats everything else - 8am gets 68% open rates. 4pm hits 67.3%. 10am lands at 67% - Most recruiters blast at 9am when inboxes are flooded - Avoiding peak times alone can boost your opens by 7-10% 2. Weekend outreach is criminally underused - Saturday/Sunday emails get ≥66% open rates consistently - Why? Empty inboxes. Zero competition. Candidates actually have time - Yet few recruiters send on weekends. Their loss is your gain 3. Keep messages between 101-150 words - Shorter feels spammy. Longer gets skimmed - You need exactly 10 sentences to nail the essentials - Every word beyond 150 drops performance 4. Generic templates kill response rates - Generic templates: 22% reply rate - Personalized outreach: 47% increased response rate - Even adding name + company to subject lines boosts opens by 5% 5. Subject lines need 3-9 words - Include company name + job title for highest opens - "Senior Engineer Role at [Company]" beats clever wordplay - 11+ words can work if genuinely intriguing, but why risk it? 6. The 4-stage sequence is optimal - One-off emails are dead. Send exactly 4 follow-up messages - You'll see 68% higher "interested" rates with proper sequencing - After stage 4, engagement completely flatlines. Stop there 7. Get the hiring manager involved - Having the hiring manager send ONE follow-up boosts reply rates by 50%+ - Yet most recruiters don't use this tactic - Weekend advantage: Minimal competition for attention 8. Leadership involvement is a cheat code - Role-specific timing (tech vs non-tech) matters - Technical roles: 3 of 4 best send times are weekends - Engineers check email differently than salespeople. Adjust accordingly TAKEAWAY: These aren't opinions. This is what 4 million emails tell us. Most recruiting teams are stuck in 2019 playbooks wondering why their reply rates won't budge. Meanwhile, recruiters who implement these 8 factors see dramatically better results. The data is right there. The patterns are clear. The only question is: will you actually change how you operate? Or will you keep sending the same tired emails at 9am on Tuesday? Your call.

An ecommerce company recently approached my team to do an email audit as they were facing challenges with low open and click-through rates. After analyzing their email account, here are our main recommendations to revive their email marketing channel: 1. Strategic Email Segmentation: Currently, your emails lack personal relevance due to a one-size-fits-all approach. This is a crucial area to address. Action Plan: Implement segmentation based on purchase history, engagement levels, browsing behavior, and demographic information. 2. Personalized Content Creation: Generic content won't cut it. Your audience needs to feel that each email is crafted for them. Action Plan: Develop emails specifically tailored to the different segments. This includes curated product recommendations, personalized offers, and content that aligns with their interests. 3. Subject Line A/B Testing: Your current subject lines aren't doing their job. You need to be implementing ongoing A/B subject line tests, as this is low-hanging fruit to improve your open rates. Action Plan: Regularly test different subject line styles and formats to identify what resonates best with each segment. Keep track of the metrics to inform future campaigns. 4. Mobile Optimization: A significant portion of your audience reads emails on mobile devices. Neglecting this is causing a decrease in your email engagement rates. Action Plan: Ensure all emails are responsive and visually appealing on various screen sizes. Test your emails on multiple devices before sending them out. Additional Campaign Strategies We Recommend: - Launch a Monthly Newsletter: This should include new arrivals, style guides, and user-generated content. It’s an excellent way to keep your brand in the minds of your customers. - Seasonal Campaign Integration: Tailor your campaigns to align with holidays and seasons. This approach can significantly boost engagement and sales during key periods. - Re-Engagement Campaigns: Specifically target subscribers who haven't interacted with your brand recently. Offer them unique incentives to rekindle their interest. Next steps: 1. If you found this helpful, please leave a comment and let me know. 2. If you own/run/work at an Ecommerce company doing at least $1 million in annual revenue, message me so my team can audit your email channel to see if there's a good fit for working together.

POST 6/7 👉2025: Why Design Is Now a Deliverability Signal—Not Just a Branding Element. Good design doesn’t just get attention. It gets delivered — to the right part of the inbox. Let’s get one thing clear: Promotions is inbox. Updates is inbox. What matters in 2025 is avoiding spam, not forcing Primary. If your email is expected, renders cleanly, loads fast, and respects UX principles, you're in the right place. Too many ecommerce marketers still underestimate how much design affects deliverability. It's no longer just about what looks good. Design performance is now tied to how your domain is scored by Gmail, Apple Mail, and Outlook. Here’s how. Mobile-first rendering: Over 74% of ecommerce opens now happen on mobile. If your layout breaks or loads slowly, you're triggering behavior Gmail sees as friction — not engagement. Load speed and responsiveness: Gmail and Apple Mail monitor how quickly your message displays and how long the user interacts. Heavy layouts or large imagery can cause quick exits, reducing future inbox trust. Dark mode compatibility: Unreadable emails in dark mode break the experience. Invisible text or poor color contrast are quietly penalized. Accessibility: Skipping alt text, using tiny fonts, or low-contrast layouts may technically deliver your message — but visually fail for many. Those silent exits hurt engagement scoring. Real-world case: A brand redesigned its templates with GIFs, AMP, and rich visuals. On desktop? Beautiful. On Gmail mobile? Broken. Result: click rates dropped, complaint rates rose, and inboxing fell. They reverted to fluid layouts, lighter assets, and simpler code. Engagement and delivery recovered within 2 sends. Email design checklist for 2025: 1. Keep size under 100KB 2. Use system fonts 3. Code mobile-first, not retrofitted 4. Preview in both dark/light modes on Gmail and Apple Mail 5. Always use alt text 6. Avoid base64 images and fixed-width tables 7. Load-test AMP and interactive elements 8. Match design tone with your website 9. Ensure contrast and readability pass basic checks Takeaway: Every second of lag is a penalty. Every failed render hurts trust. Gmail is evaluating design behaviors—not beauty. Design is no longer just branding. It's inbox access. #email #emailmarketing

You think automation is saving you time.... .... But it might be silently killing your email performance. Here’s why: Most email flows (welcome, abandoned cart, post-purchase) are built once and left untouched for months or years. And that’s a problem. Because your audience, product, and market conditions are constantly changing. What worked six months ago might be tanking your engagement today. • Your welcome series might be promoting a best-seller that’s now out of stock. • Your post purchase flow might be sending review requests too soon, before customers have fully used the product. • Your abandoned cart emails might be offering a discount, when most customers were already willing to buy full price. Solution? Set a 30 day calendar to review and optimize key flows. Look at: • Click rates (Is the CTA still relevant?) • Unsubscribes (Is the timing too aggressive?) • Conversion rates (Is the offer still compelling?) • Revenue Per Subscriber (How is it trending?) • Open rates (Is the first email still grabbing attention?) Automation is powerful. But “set and forget” is just lazy marketing.

Desktop email is NOT the same as mobile email. Most brands forget to optimize and adjust their emails for mobile devices—and it ruins their design. What happens? 👉 Products stack awkwardly, breaking the layout. 👉 Images and text become misaligned. 👉 The email looks messy, causing customers to bounce instead of buy. Here’s an email from LARQ—the desktop version looks perfect, but on mobile, the same products stack incorrectly, making the email look awful. Since 70%+ of emails are opened on mobile, ignoring this is a huge mistake. How to fix it? ✔️ Test every email on both desktop and mobile before sending. ✔️ Turn off mobile stacking. ✔️ Check for any errors and padding issues missed in the desktop version. A clean, easy-to-read email = higher conversions.

A common mistake I see brands make is relying on their own inboxes to test email campaigns. But just because it looks great on your device doesn’t mean it will for your customers. What's often not taken into consideration is how your campaigns render across the 60+ platforms and devices your customers might be viewing your campaigns on. This means that while you and even your team might see a beautifully designed, well-put-together campaign, your customers might be seeing a completely skewed design. Not quite the outcome you'd like... And without proper testing, that beautifully designed campaign could appear distorted, unreadable, or even completely broken for some recipients. Dark mode is a perfect example. It's estimated that around 40% of users have dark mode enabled on their devices, yet most brands don’t test how their emails render in dark mode. The result? Logos that disappear, unreadable text, and broken design elements that ruin the user experience. Internally, we use Litmus to check formatting, links, and deliverability before sending and while this is our go-to, Sinch Email on Acid also does the trick and is much more cost-effective for brands. To give you an idea, here's what you can do using a third-party tool like Litmus or Emails on Acid: ✔️ Ensure emails display correctly, including in dark mode ✔️ Make sure all links work ✔️ Confirm compatibility across 60+ devices ✔️ Prevent email clipping, especially in Gmail (102KB limit) ✔️ Minimise human error by testing beyond just your inbox ✔️ Validate mobile responsiveness ✔️ Provide proper authentication to avoid being flagged as spam ✔️ Monitor for blocklists and spam placements ✔️ Check email load times to avoid slow rendering ✔️ Review accessibility compliance (contrast, font size, readability) I’m still waiting for an ESP to integrate this functionality directly - it would be a game changer. Until then, proper testing is non-negotiable.

I've audited 500+ cold email setups. 90% of campaigns fail because of 3 fixable issues. The exact audit checklist I use to diagnose what's broken (and how to fix it): Step 1: Check Your Reply Rate - Reply rate under 1% = infrastructure problem. - Reply rate 1-3% but no meetings = weak offer. Most people skip this step and waste weeks tweaking the wrong things. If Reply Rate is Sub-1% (Infrastructure Audit): Campaign Setup: → Spintax added for variability? → Copy free of spam trigger words? → Signature has spintax? → No longer then 2 step sequence? → Adjusting start / end times daily? Technical Infrastructure: → Each domain in its own tenant? → Low inbox count per tenant? → Using Hypertype with Google/Azure correctly? → Sending volume per inbox appropriate? → Domain went through 2-week warmup? → Redirect is working? → DNS records are properly setup? → Warmup didn’t get turned off for sending accounts? Data Quality: → SMTP validation via Million Verifier completed? → Catch-all emails separated and validated via Scrubby? → Company name formatting cleaned up? → Too many enterprise security systems in your list? → Minimum of 2500 leads in the campaign? If Reply Rate is 1-3% (Offer/Copy Audit): Copy Structure: → Subject line looks internal (lowercase preferred)? → Using soft CTA instead of direct meeting ask? → Includes relevant social proof? → Has personalization elements? → Avoids overselling? → No links or attachments? Offer Quality: → Is it "cold traffic ready" with low perceived risk? → Helps prospect make or save money? → Solves a massive pain point? → Includes risk reversal/guarantee elements? Targeting: → Prospects match your ICP exactly? → Company size appropriate for your offer? → Targeting actual decision makers? Red Flags to Fix Immediately: → High bounce rates → Campaigns not sending daily → Long, complex copy → No spintax or variability → Generic, non-personalized messaging → Weak offer positioning I use this exact checklist for every client audit. Takes 20 minutes to run through. Saves weeks of guessing what's broken.

We analyzed 27M+ cold emails. Here are 6 things that drive replies: 1. Concise subject lines - 10-19 characters have the highest reply rates of 1.11%-1.48% - 50-60 characters see a decrease to 0.74%-0.95% ↳ keep your subject lines short and clear 2. Timing of follow-ups  - the first email typically sees a median reply rate of 1% - subsequent follow-ups can match or exceed this rate, but... - emails beyond the third have less than 30% efficacy of the first few ↳ keep the first few emails strong 3. Focus on smaller, targeted campaigns - campaigns targeting 0-50 people get 3x more replies than those with 1000+ ↳ specific messages work better than mass emails 4. Opt for low email volume - sending 1-20 emails daily gets 4x more replies than sending more than 100 ↳ use Woodpecker.co inbox rotation to spread out sending volume 5. Monitor your bounce rate - keeping bounce rate below 2% can improve reply rates by over 60% ↳ maintain a clean and updated email list 6. Weekend vs weekday send times - weekdays get steady replies, weekend replies drop by 38%, but competition is lower ↳ experiment with send times to find your optimal window Which tactics bring success in your campaigns?

Your emails get judged in 4.1 seconds: That means every word needs to earn its place. Research shows email masters are: ↳ 3x more likely to be promoted ↳ 2x more likely to have ideas implemented ↳ 62% more effective at driving decisions Here are the 7 science-backed habits that set them apart: 1. Craft strategic subject lines. ↳ Research shows specific, action-oriented subject lines get 22% more responses. 2. Front-load your message. ↳ 86% of decision-makers determine relevance from your first two sentences. 3. Use the 5-sentence rule. ↳ Emails with 5 sentences or fewer receive 50% faster responses and higher comprehension . 4. Deploy precise language. ↳ Concrete, specific language increases perceived competence by 33%. 5. Time your sends strategically. ↳ Tuesday-Thursday between 8-10am gets 24% higher reply rates. 6. Utilize the "What-Why-What" structure. ↳ This approach improves clarity by 41% and speeds up decision-making. 7. Close with accountability. ↳ Emails ending with clear ownership receive responses 62% faster. Your email habits reveal more about your leadership capacity than your title ever will. Top performers spend 38% less time on email than their peers. It's not about working harder. It's about communicating smarter. Which of these email habits will you adopt first? ♻️ Share this with others in your network. 📌 Save this post for your next important email. 🔔 Follow Ali Mamujee for more leadership tips. Sources: Harvard Business Review, Journal of Business Communication, Email Analysis Consortium, Boomerang Email Research.

My step-by-step process fixing low deliverability (helped 100's of campaigns). Sending with low deliverability = number 1 ROI killer. Here is my example workflow for you to follow: 1. Examine your emails and campaigns. 2. Open rates under 30%? You might have a problem. 3. Choose a mailbox with email open rates of <30%. 4. Is this low open rate consistent across all emails? 5. Identify one email with a <30% open rate. Now take a closer look: 🕵️ Check for links or graphics. 🕵️ Over 300 words or under 50? 🕵️ Scan for any fancy formatting or bullet lists. Spotted anything from the above? You might be in luck. ✂️ Remove all links, graphics, and other elements. ✍️ Rewrite the copy to be between 50 and 100 words. 📧 With the new copy, send a test batch of 100 emails. Notice any improvement in open rates? If so, one of the elements was likely causing the issue. Now, the not-so-good news: If your emails are plain and you still see <30% open rates, you might have a sender reputation problem. But don't panic. You have options: 1. Connect your domain to Google Postmaster Tools. 2. Pause sending. Consider an email warm-up service to rebuild your reputation. 3. Get a new domain and warm it up for at least 30 days, ideally 90. Try option "1" first. Send 100 emails per day from that domain using multiple mailboxes. Google's Postmaster Tools will show your sender's reputation. It's the way Google perceives your domain. If it's bad, Outlook probably agrees. You've now gained some visibility. If your reputation isn't "high", start the warm-up process. Stable for a week? Gradually start your cold email outreach. Watch your reputation improve. Repair can be slow but you will get out of this. Use that time to refine your list and copy. Now I omitted a lot of details and nuances to keep it "simple". Follow me if you want to go deeper and avoid such pitfalls. And now, I'd like to hear from you. Ever rescued a burned domain? ~~~ I post every weekday at 2:30 PM CET / 7:30 AM EST. You learn about cold email and deliverability. Follow me and kindly hit the 🔔, Damian. You won't miss a post. ~~~ #coldemail  #deliverability #stepbystepguide