Where we are: volume keeps building across six verticals with deliverability healthy on every active campaign (zero Watch flags). Human reply rate, now tracked per unique contact reached rather than per email sent, clears the >0.5% goal at 0.53%; Healthcare's C5 Personalization Test (Variant) continues to run roughly 2x Control on human replies, a promising early signal on a still-small sample. Separately, 54 mailboxes across 18 domains are paused after a SURBL blocklist flag; other mailboxes are covering campaign rotation so volume isn't materially affected, and we're working with our infrastructure vendor on resolution.
Progress toward goals
Prospects reached (monthly pace)10,668 of 15,000
Deliverability (bounce, lower is better)0.89% · on target
Human reply rate · per unique contact, real people, ramping0.53% · goal >0.5%
Qualified leads · starting goal ~1 per 5,000 emails2 · ~1 per 15,000
By vertical
| Vertical | Emails | Human replies | Leads |
|---|
| Healthcare | 13,827 | 26 | 1 |
| Education | 4,462 | 19 | 0 |
| Financial Services | 3,994 | 3 | 0 |
| Manufacturing | 3,757 | 6 | 1 |
| Technology | 2,248 | 2 | 0 |
| Logistics | 2,035 | 1 | 0 |
| Total | 30,323 | 57 | 2 |
Campaign performance
| Campaign | Sent | Bounce % | Status | Human | Positive | Human Reply % | Positive % |
|---|
| Education — E1 Built for Educators, Not Office Workers | 1,164 | 1.37% | OK | 7 | 0 | 1.42% | 0% |
| Education — E2 Legacy Program Gets Modernized | 1,026 | 0.88% | OK | 6 | 0 | 1.32% | 0% |
| Education — E3 Prior Vendor Broke Staff Trust | 1,143 | 0.96% | OK | 5 | 0 | 1.02% | 0% |
| Education — E4 Diverse and Distributed Workforce | 1,129 | 0.97% | OK | 1 | 0 | 0.20% | 0% |
| Financial Services — C1 HR Owns Too Much | 1,594 | 0.82% | OK | 1 | 0 | 0.24% | 0% |
| Financial Services — C4 Vendor Switching | 2,400 | 0.96% | OK | 2 | 0 | 0.30% | 0% |
| Healthcare — C1 Legacy-Modernization | 1,621 | 1.11% | OK | 2 | 0 | 0.35% | 0% |
| Healthcare — C2 Transactional to Continuous | 1,682 | 0.89% | OK | 0 | 0 | 0.00% | n/a |
| Healthcare — C3 Prior-Vendor Displacement | 3,315 | 0.57% | OK | 6 | 1 | 0.47% | 17% |
| Healthcare — C4 Staff Burnout & Retention | 3,519 | 0.88% | OK | 6 | 0 | 0.45% | 0% |
| Healthcare — C5 Personalization Test: Control | 1,086 | 0.74% | OK | 3 | 0 | 0.62% | 0% |
| Healthcare — C5 Personalization Test: Variant | 903 | 0.89% | OK | 5 | 0 | 1.30% | 0% |
| Healthcare — C5 Single Challenge Pilot | 1,701 | 1.29% | OK | 4 | 0 | 0.67% | 0% |
| Logistics — Reaching the Road | 2,035 | 0.74% | OK | 1 | 0 | 0.18% | 0% |
| Manufacturing — C1 Reaching the Floor | 1,741 | 0.57% | OK | 2 | 0 | 0.36% | 0% |
| Manufacturing — C2 Ease & CSM-Managed | 2,016 | 0.55% | OK | 4 | 1 | 0.72% | 25% |
| Technology — Consolidation | 2,248 | 1.29% | OK | 2 | 0 | 0.27% | 0% |
| Total | 30,323 | 0.89% | | 57 | 2 | 0.53% | 4% |
Bounce Watch = 2%+ bounce. Human Reply % is now per unique contact reached, not per email sent (switched 2026-07-29); thresholds rescaled accordingly: green ≥1.4%, yellow 0.4-1.4%, red <0.4%. Positive % = positive replies ÷ human replies; shown as "n/a" where a campaign has 0 human replies yet. No campaigns are currently bounce-flagged, all 17 hold under 1.4%. Both qualified leads sit on Healthcare — C3 Prior-Vendor Displacement (17% positive-of-human) and Manufacturing — C2 Ease & CSM-Managed (25%), both clearing the 10% program goal on very small samples (1 of 6 and 1 of 4 human replies respectively). Human Reply % still skews yellow/red across most of the program (8 red, 8 yellow, 1 green), with only Education E1 clearing the green tier outright; the program overall (0.53%) now clears the >0.5% goal under this framing.
Vs. industry benchmark · Smartlead State of Cold Email 2026 H1, compared 2026-07-28
Beating it: deliverability decisively (0.89% bounce vs Smartlead's 1.54% typical), and the Healthcare C5 personalization lift (~2x Control) matches Smartlead's own personalization research. Trailing it: overall reply rate runs about 40% behind typical (187 contacts per human reply vs Smartlead's typical of 135). Most of that gap concentrates in our two biggest lists, Healthcare C3 and C4, which are also our weakest converters (213-222 contacts/reply) despite carrying the most volume, the same "bigger list isn't better" pattern Smartlead's data warns against.
LinkedIn outreach · new channel, manually tracked
LinkedIn outreach is a newly-added channel, tracked manually and not yet folded into the email volume or reply-rate goals above. No goals set yet, pending enough data for a baseline.
Where things stand: volume sits at 10,668 of the 15,000 monthly prospect target across six verticals (71%), with deliverability healthy across the board (0.89% bounce, zero campaigns flagged). Both qualified leads remain at interested stage, Healthcare C3 Prior-Vendor Displacement and Manufacturing C2 Ease & CSM-Managed, with no meetings booked yet. Human replies stand at 57, which is 0.53% of the 10,668 contacts reached, now the program's lead reply-rate metric and clearing the >0.5% goal for the first time; Healthcare's C5 Personalization Test Variant continues to run roughly 2x Control. Separately, sending is currently paused on 54 mailboxes across 18 domains following a SURBL blocklist flag; other mailboxes are covering campaign rotation so this hasn't materially slowed volume, and we're working with our infrastructure vendor on resolution. LinkedIn outreach also launched this week: 86 connection requests sent, 13 accepted and messaged, no replies yet, still too early to read.