Creative agency outreach replies at 3.8% against an all industries median of 0.74%. Only one pattern in this segment clears our minimum sample size, so this page publishes a single rate rather than a comparison.
What separates the replies is whether the email contains work or a description of work. A link to something made for a comparable brand does more than any paragraph about process, team or awards.
A general showreel asks the reader to find their own relevance in it. A single piece made for a company that looks like theirs does that work for them. The second gets replies, the first gets skimmed.
Cut the paragraph about your process. Replace it with one link and one sentence explaining why that particular piece is relevant to them specifically.
Hi [First name],
We made this for a brand selling into the same aisle as you, same budget bracket, and it is still their best performing asset a year on.
Thirty seconds, no form in the way. If the style is wrong for you it will be obvious immediately, which saves us both a call.
Worth a look?
Hi [First name],
Your product pages carry good photography and no video, which is usually a resourcing decision rather than a strategic one.
We produce in formats that drop into existing page templates, so nothing needs rebuilding to test it.
Want to see what that looks like on one of your pages?
Join us to elevate your outreach!
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Link, do not attach. Attachments hurt deliverability and get stripped by filters. One link to one relevant piece outperforms a showreel, because it does the relevance work for the reader.
Naming the type of client helps. Naming actual clients is risky in cold outreach unless you have permission, and a recognisable name invites a question about whether they know you are using them in sales emails.
The measured pattern here is video-led, replying at 3.8%. That is the work being video, not the email. A personalised video embedded in a cold email is a different tactic and one we have not isolated separately.
Short enough that the link is visible without scrolling on a phone. The email exists to get the work opened, so anything that delays the link is working against it.
