Huynh K.

i usually check in mtoolbox and dns

open rates can still give you a rough idea but i wouldn’t rely on them as a fully reliable metric since apple and gmail can trigger opens without someone actually reading the email for cold outreach i’d pay more attention to replies bounces and actual conversions since those are much harder to inflate

Luke F. have u tried manychat? or u can try to find the mails of ppl in meta with apollo/icypeas

sounds like an automated verification loop esp since the second brand under the same business went through fine. i’d probably stop creating new test accounts for now and push for a manual review through a bsp since the duplicate accounts could make the case even messier

look at each provider’s accuracy separately and track the dial outcomes by source title and company size that should show you where the bad numbers are coming from and whether certain segments are dragging down the overall accuracy

for a niche segment like this i’d build the account list first from places where the stores are actually categorized by product type then enrich the companies for buyer titles and verify each contact before outreach i use icypeas rn for finding and verifying emails and it helps keep bounce rates under three percent which makes it easier to work through a smaller list without wasting sends

price it based on the scope and how much of the gtm system you’re actually building since research enrichment outbound automation and reporting can take very different amounts of work i’d also consider a project fee for the initial setup and a monthly retainer for ongoing optimization so the pricing matches the actual workload

first thing first, you messaging. check if it's weak or generic. using spammy words or the same templates over and over again can also be one of the factor (since it'll be flagged by gmail immediately) so make sure to check your words and change it a bit after a while. check your inbox health/deliverability. if it's <80 then you'd prob need to create more inboxes. always do warm up and batch your mail (don;t send it all at the same time)

focus on one campaign and keep the variables pretty tight. first thing i’d test is the audience and offer since that gives you a better idea of whether the right companies actually care about the problem you’re solving

i’ve been testing a similar workflow for outbound and the social signals have been way more useful when they’re tied to actual buying intent rather than just job title or company size for example someone posting about a problem your service solves gives you a much stronger reason to reach out. for enrichment i’ve been using icypeas to find and verify emails after building the prospect list and it’s been useful for keeping bounce rates low while scaling the outreach the part i’m still experimenting with is automating the research without losing the context that makes the outreach feel human