Measure replies and conversations, not opens

Open rate has quietly become a vanity metric, and an unreliable one. Privacy features pre-fetch images and bots inflate the count, so a "60% open rate" can be mostly machines. Building strategy on opens means optimising for a number that does not correspond to a human reading your email.

Anchor on the metrics that map to revenue. Reply rate is the honest top-line signal, because a reply is a human choosing to spend effort on you, and a useful frame is the benchmark: 3 to 5% is the broad B2B average, 5 to 10% is solid, 10 to 15% is strong, and 15%-plus belongs to focused, high-intent, signal-driven plays (Instantly, The Digital Bloom). Positive reply rate, the interested or open responses rather than "remove me", is sharper still. Below that sit conversations started, meetings held, and opportunities created, the chain that predicts pipeline. Track these per sequence and per step.

Read the funnel diagnostically, not as a scoreboard. A high reply rate but few meetings means your conversation handling or your offer is weak, not your targeting. Low replies across the board point at the trigger and the first line. Replies clustered on one step tell you which angle is carrying the sequence and which steps you can cut. Each pattern points at a different fix.

Give every test enough volume to mean something. Comparing two subject lines on forty contacts proves nothing, the difference is noise. Change one variable at a time, the trigger, the first line, the offer, the cadence, and let it run across enough real prospects before you trust the result. Most sequence "learnings" are statistical illusions from tiny samples, and the same diagnostic mindset applies right across the funnel metrics that actually move revenue.