14 and 15 July were a planned pause to rebuild the lists. 24 to 28 July was not. Three working days, roughly 150 emails, no cause on record. Sending resumed the morning of the 29th.
| Step | Sent | Replies | Rate |
|---|---|---|---|
| Email 1 | 178 | 7 | 3.9% |
| Email 2 | 152 | 1 | 0.7% |
| Emails 3 and 4 | 86 | 0 | 0% |
Steps three and four take about a fifth of all sending and have never produced a reply. Cutting them frees that capacity at no cost.
| Version | Sent | Replies | Rate |
|---|---|---|---|
| A. Audience match | 90 | 2 | 2.2% |
| B. Content you keep | 88 | 5 | 5.7% |
Rumble, Anxious Youth and Lorens all came from B. Small sample, so a strong early read rather than a settled result.
This covers what each brand said. Replies written from a personal mailbox do not reach the platform, so where each conversation now stands is worth filling in together.
| Lane | Reached | Sent | Replies |
|---|---|---|---|
| Apparel | 112 | 256 | 2 |
| Dream Sponsors | 20 | 58 | 1 |
| Energy | 33 | 71 | 1 |
| Pouches | 13 | 31 | 2 |
| Total | 178 | 416 | 6 |
Pouches is thirteen brands, so its rate will not hold. But two replies from thirteen says the category deserves more list.
| Status | Brands |
|---|---|
| Reached at least once | 178 |
| Loaded, never emailed | 67 |
| In database, never loaded | 3,650 |
Fifty emails a day still go out, but all of them are follow-ups. Follow-ups and first emails share one allowance, and follow-ups win. The 3,650 are raw and need qualifying, so read them as headroom rather than a ready list.
Two inboxes cap us near fifty emails a day whatever else we do, and warmup is currently off on both. The only change that raises the ceiling.
Recovers about a fifth of daily capacity and points it at the 67 brands loaded but never contacted.
Lead on the content the sponsor keeps all year, which is what the three strongest conversations responded to.
Half of all volume goes out in a single hour because four campaigns open at nine and share two inboxes.
Around 24 brands sit on providers we cannot resolve, with no replies between them.
The emails send as plain text, which is the right call for deliverability and a large part of why nothing lands in spam. Plain text cannot carry the invisible image that counts opens, so the platform records zero across all 416. Judge everything on replies.
The only item that needs budget. Once agreed we set up warmup and scale sending over the following two weeks.
Can be live the same day. Frees about a fifth of daily capacity for brands we have not yet reached.
Rebuild the opener around version B across all four lanes, and keep the test running as volume grows.
Two of the three cost nothing and can be live the same day. Separately, ten minutes filling in where each of the six replying brands now stands would make this reportable month to month, since those conversations run from your inbox rather than the platform.
Sending started Monday 13 July. All four lanes went live Thursday 16 July. Everything below covers the period through Friday 31 July, pulled live from the sending platform.
For cold outreach to brands who have never heard of Cement Gardens,
this is a healthy top of funnel. The copy is landing and the targeting is right. What we get
back is tell me more
rather than who are you
.
One note on scope. The figures above cover what the platform sends and what arrives back. Replies written from a personal mailbox do not appear in it, so treat this as what each brand said rather than where the conversation now stands.
| Lane | Loaded | Reached | Sent | Bounced | Replies |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Apparel | 177 | 112 | 256 | 4 | 2 |
| Dream Sponsors | 21 | 20 | 58 | 1 | 1 |
| Energy | 33 | 33 | 71 | 3 | 1 |
| Pouches | 13 | 13 | 31 | 1 | 2 |
| Total | 244 | 178 | 416 | 9 | 6 |
Pouches is only thirteen brands, so its rate will not hold at scale. But two replies from thirteen, one of them a meeting request, says the category deserves more list rather than less.
| Sequence step | Sent | Replies | Rate |
|---|---|---|---|
| Email 1 | 178 | 7 | 3.9% |
| Email 2 | 152 | 1 | 0.7% |
| Emails 3 and 4 | 86 | 0 | 0% |
Emails three and four have gone to 86 brands and produced nothing, while taking about a fifth of everything we send. Cutting the sequence to two frees that capacity immediately, at no cost.
| Opening email | Sent | Replies | Rate |
|---|---|---|---|
| Version A. Leads on audience match | 90 | 2 | 2.2% |
| Version B. Leads on content you keep | 88 | 5 | 5.7% |
Version B is pulling more than double, and Rumble, Anxious Youth and Lorens all came from it. The sample is still small enough that this is a strong early read rather than a settled result, so the proposal is to rebuild around B and keep testing.
The campaigns still send fifty emails a day, but the last genuinely new brand was contacted on 23 July. Everything since has been follow-ups, because follow-ups and first emails share the same daily allowance and follow-ups win. 67 brands are loaded and have never been emailed once. Behind them, 3,650 contacts with an email address sit in the database having never been loaded into any campaign. Those are raw and need qualifying before use, so they are headroom rather than a ready list, but the constraint on reach is clearly the sending setup and not the supply of brands.
The ceiling behind all of this. Two sending mailboxes cap us at around fifty emails a day no matter what else we change, and warmup is currently switched off on both. Adding and warming more inboxes is the one change that raises the number rather than redistributing it.
Open rate reads 0%, and always will.
The emails send as plain text, which is the right call for deliverability and a large part of why nothing is landing in spam. Plain text cannot carry the invisible tracking image that counts opens, so the platform records zero for all 416. The recommendation is to stop reporting opens entirely and judge everything on replies.