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The median cold email campaign targets 499 leads. The smallest 25% target 87 or fewer, the largest 25% target 1,961 or more, and the largest 5% target 9,871 or more.
Leads in each campaign, with the replies that many leads would bring in at the median reply rate. Built from more than 850 million emails sent through Smartlead.
| Campaign | Leads | Replies at 135 contacts per reply |
|---|---|---|
| Smallest 10% | 25 or fewer | under 1 |
| Smallest 25% | 87 or fewer | under 1 |
| Median | 499 | about 4 |
| Largest 25% | 1,961 or more | about 15 |
| Largest 10% | 5,775 or more | about 43 |
| Largest 5% | 9,871 or more | about 73 |
Most campaigns run to a few hundred leads. Half target 499 or fewer.
The spread is wide. The largest 25% of campaigns are about four times the median, and the largest 5% are almost 20 times.
Small campaigns leave little room for results. At the median 135 contacts per reply, a campaign of 87 leads would expect less than one reply, and a median campaign about 4.
Few guides give a benchmark for campaign size. This data fills that gap. The typical campaign targets about 500 leads, and three in four stay under about 2,000.
Campaign size doesn't predict results in this data. It shows how many leads senders load, not which size works best. The reply figures above are arithmetic on the median reply rate, not results measured by campaign size.
The median campaign targets 499 leads, and half of all campaigns fall between 87 and 1,961. At the median 135 contacts per reply, 499 leads would bring in about 4 replies.
Not by itself. This data doesn't link campaign size to reply rate. A bigger list brings in more replies only if the reply rate holds.
About 1,350 at the median 135 contacts per reply, or about 700 at the top 25% rate of 70 contacts per reply.
More than 850 million emails sent through Smartlead, using combined, anonymous platform data only. Only senders with at least 500 emails sent in the period are included. Campaign size is the number of leads loaded into each campaign. Replies are estimated by dividing leads by 135, the median contacts per reply.
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