Sales follow-up statistics in B2B: Belkins’ 2024 study
Author
Michael Maximoff
Co-founder of Belkins, serial entrepreneur, and investor with a decade of experience in B2B Sales and Marketing.
Updated:2024-10-25
Reading time:5 m
Why is it essential to be strategic while creating sales follow-ups? And how do they impact your reply rates?
In 2023, we analyzed 11 million emails sent by our clients from 2021 to 2023 across more than 90 industries to demonstrate the significance of the follow-up process and how to avoid bottlenecks to yield maximum results.
In 2024, we worked with Reply to analyze customer emails and understand how people engage with our products:
Belkins studied 7.5 million client emails sent across 40 industries from March 2023 to February 2024.
Reply processed 6 million user emails.
The data below shows the correlation between follow-up emails and reply rates, the optimal number of emails for cold outreach campaigns, and the best time intervals between sales follow-ups.
According to our data, the first follow-up email is the most effective, boosting the reply rate by 49%.
The second follow-up email increases the reply rate by only 3%, while the third follow-up email decreases the reply rate by 30%.
Cold email campaigns with 1 initial email and 1 follow-up have the highest reply rates (6.9%).
It takes an average of 3 emails to make 1 lead.
Our analysis found that waiting 3 days before following up produces the highest reply rate.
To equip you with more details, check out in-depth data on our key findings below.
How does the number of follow-ups impact reply rate?
Our data shows that on average, the first follow-up email increases the response rate by 49%.
After assessing the top 20% of best-performing cold outreach campaigns, we identified that on average, the first follow-up emails resulted in a 120% surge in reply rate.
As you can see from the chart, the second follow-up increases the email reply rate only by 3%, whereas the third follow-up email decreases the reply rate by 30%.
Our analysis also reveals that the fourth email (i.e., the third follow-up) results in a 30% drop in reply rate.
In 2023, this trend was a bit more positive, with a 9% increase after the second follow-up and only a 20% decrease after the third one.
Though our cold email statistics prove that the number of follow-ups is essential, email content also plays a vital role in your outreach success. Donald C. Kelly, the founder of the Sales Evangelist, believes you shouldn’t just send a message because you have to. Instead, you have to deliver value.
“Most people find follow-up emails annoying and even a bit spammy. That’s why your first follow-up needs to provide value. Consider including a video or some other insights. This will make it feel more like a helpful consultation rather than just a reminder.”
What is the optimal number of follow-ups for cold email campaigns?
Based on our research, 1 initial email and 1 follow-up are an excellent choice for B2B cold outreach campaigns. As a result, 2 email rounds (or 2 total steps in the email sequence), tend to have the highest reply rates (6.9%).
In 2023, 2 follow-up emails (3 total steps) produced the best results. You can see that on the chart below.
“From our experience, the optimal number of follow-ups in a cold email outreach sequence is between 2 and 4. We agree that the first follow-up drastically improves the likelihood of receiving a response, yet we can’t share any specific figures to back this point.”
However, Vlad Oleksiienko, VP of growth at Reply.io, states that sending more emails in the sequence still can have a positive impact on campaigns’ performance:
“In the earlier days of Reply, we would typically send 3-4 follow-ups after the first cold email. Now, we use around 6-7 follow-ups. The result? We still get positive responses even after the 7th touchpoint. Of course, this varies by use case and target audience, so we highly recommend you carry out your own A/B tests to see what works best.”
According to Reply’s research, it takes an average of 3 emails to turn a lead into a prospect, from the first cold email to a positive reply or scheduled meeting.
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Does sending more emails increase the chances of getting a reply? (2023 data)
It depends. As our research shows, sending 5 emails gives a reply rate of 7%, whereas a 10-email scenario has the worst rate of 3%.
To avoid getting labeled as a spammer, it’s better to send fewer emails. We also recommend tracking positive and negative responses. Sometimes, you can have a good response rate, but get all unsubscribes in those replies. In such a case, you’d better revise your email content (or even offering).
So how does email frequency impact email outreach performance? Caspian Lewke, former associate sales engineer at Gong, believes this is an art:
“As your prospect moves through your sequence, they’ll (hopefully) start to recollect your name. So, it’s important to send emails often enough that they recognize you, but not so often to annoy them. Find the right balance and watch your results improve.”
“The numbers in the research match my experience within a margin of error. But following up any amount of times with any amount of time interval may not get a response if the targeting or messaging is off, or if the person is simply not in market or willing to engage with cold email.”
How long should you wait before following up?
Follow-up frequency plays an essential role in building your cold email campaign. The ground rule here is that following up too soon will make you look intrusive and ruin your chances of getting a reply.
Waiting 3 days before following up brings the greatest increase in reply rate (31%). At the same time, sending an email sooner drops your chances of getting a response.
“From my experience, the ideal timeframe for following up on sales emails depends on the context and the recipient’s expectations. As a general guideline, waiting for 2-3 business days after sending the initial email is considered appropriate. However, if you have a pre-established timeline or urgency, you may choose to follow up sooner. Ultimately, it’s essential to strike a balance between being persistent and respectful of the recipient’s time.
Research from 2023 showed that waiting longer than 5 days decreased the likelihood of a response to 24%, while following up within 1 day harmed the reply rate (-11%).
Alla Ivanova, the Head of SDR at Belkins, says that the frequency of follow-ups is determined by the topic relevance and the capability to organically craft the messages without being annoying.
“It is worth making intervals in 2–3 days after sending the first email. Send the third one the next week to make your prospect miss you. In general, the number of follow-ups doesn’t depend on the correlation with the industry your business operates in. However, what you should not do is being too pushy, especially reaching out to titles related to security.”
When it comes to following up, our experience as a B2B sales enablement agency saysthere is no silver bullet in terms of the optimal number of emails sent and the time intervals between follow-ups. Yes, there are average benchmarks we obtained based on the emails sent to our customers. However, if you see bad results in your follow-up strategy, we recommend evaluating the metrics based on the criteria we shared with you.
All figures and stats, unless otherwise stated, were derived from Belkins’ proprietary data on over 11 million emails sent by our customers from 2021 through 2023 and 7.5 million emails from March 2023 to February 2024.
The reply rate was calculated as the number of unique recipients who responded to the outreach email divided by the number of unique recipients contacted in a given industry, country, job function, etc.
Follow-ups were considered as the second, third (and so on) rounds of B2B outreach emails sent to the same set of recipients in a given email sequence.
The change in follow-up reply rate was calculated as the difference between the reply rate for the initial, first round of emails in a sequence and the reply rate for the subsequent (i.e., second, third, etc.) round of emails, expressed as a percentage.
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Michael is the Co-founder of Belkins, serial entrepreneur, and investor. With a decade of experience in B2B Sales and Marketing, he has a passion for building world-class teams and implementing efficient processes to drive the success of his ventures and clients.
