1,764 emails, almost no replies: what our first global campaigns got wrong

What we tried

We were selling four of our own products at once, so we did what most first outbound looks like: big lists, many regions, one inbox. Law firms and consultancies, chartered accountants and company secretaries for Intellixy (document review), social media agencies and heads of content for PostPilot AI, agencies and founders for Outly, and startup founders for CoFounder AI, split by the Americas, Europe and the Gulf, and Asia-Pacific.

Each segment got a few rewrites (the v3 and v4 campaigns in early September) and a follow-up to people who had only received one email.

What happened

Across those campaigns we got a handful of replies, and only one was positive. Law, CA and company-secretary firms, our largest segment, produced zero positive replies. The one positive reply came from the only local campaign in the batch, home-services businesses in Bangalore.

What we got wrong

• Sending in bursts. Most sends left in the 9 AM hour, so a whole campaign hit inboxes at once. That looks like bulk mail to providers and to people.
• Links in the first email. A link in a cold first touch is one more reason for a filter to be suspicious, and it asks for a click before we had earned one.
• Generic copy. The emails described the product instead of a problem the reader would recognise from their own week.
• Segments that didn't have the problem. Law, CA and CS firms were a guess about who needs document review, not something they told us. Zero positive replies says the guess was wrong.
• One inbox. Every send came from a single mailbox, which caps volume and puts all of the reputation risk in one place.

What we changed in Outly

• Pacing: sends are now spread across the business-hours window instead of leaving together.
• No links in step 1: the first email is plain text; links can wait for a follow-up.
• Inbox rotation: a campaign can send from several connected inboxes in turn.
• Warm-up and health checks: new inboxes ramp up from 10 a day, and an inbox slows or pauses when bounces rise.
• One tight segment per campaign: one audience, one problem, one offer, instead of four products and three continents.