We're Buying Second-Class Stamps Again. Here's Why.
Dec 3, 2025
Everyone Has Apollo. Nobody Has Replies.
TL;DR
Prospecting in 2025 is brutal, but not for the reasons you think. Cold email reply rates have dropped 15% year-over-year to just 5.1%, and the tools that were supposed to give you an advantage (Apollo, ZoomInfo, LinkedIn Premium) have become the great equaliser. Everyone's using the same data, sending the same "personalised" emails, and wondering why response rates are circling the drain. The good news? Most of your competitors are too lazy to do anything different. The bad news? Doing different requires effort. This isn't about finding better tools. It's about being more human when everyone else is being more automated.
The Pitch vs The Reality
You've heard the pitch. Build your ICP. Plug it into Apollo. Add some intent signals from ZoomInfo. Let the automation flow. Watch the meetings roll in.
Blah blah blah.
But here's what nobody's telling you in plain English: your prospects are drowning in outreach from people using the exact same tools, pulling the exact same data, and sending the exact same "I noticed you recently raised a Series A" emails. That "personal touch" you spent 30 seconds on? They've seen it 47 times this week. From 47 different companies. All convinced they're being clever.
I'm not talking about some theoretical saturation problem. I'm talking about right now. Today. According to research from Belkins analysing 16.5 million cold emails, the average reply rate dropped from 6.8% in 2023 to 5.8% in 2024, a 15% decline year-over-year. Open rates fell from 36% to under 28%. That's not a blip. That's a trend.
If your outbound response rate has fallen off a cliff lately, you're not imagining it.
When Everyone Has the Same Weapons, Nobody Wins
For the past five years, outbound prospecting has been a tools game. Better data. Smarter automation. More sequences. The companies with the best stack won.
That's over.
Here's what's actually happening:
The data's decaying faster than ever. B2B contact data decays at roughly 2.1% per month. That's 22.5% annually. One study found 3.6% of business emails went stale in November 2024 alone. When everyone's hammering the same databases, the decay accelerates. Job titles are stale. Emails bounce. Phone numbers are wrong. I've spent more time this quarter cleaning data than using it.
The filters are multiplying. Your prospects aren't stupid. They've installed every spam filter, email gatekeeper, and AI screener they can find. Google and Outlook tightened spam filters and bulk-sender rules in 2024. That beautifully crafted sequence? It's hitting the void before a human ever sees it.
You're competing with your own tools. Here's the bit that really stings: Apollo and ZoomInfo are brilliant businesses. They've sold the same "secret weapon" to you, your competitors, and about 10,000 other companies all targeting the same prospects. Decision-makers in B2B now receive more than 10 cold emails per week, most of which are irrelevant. You're not getting an advantage. You're getting access to a crowded room where everyone's shouting.
LinkedIn InMail has entered its spam era. I upgraded to Premium. Wrote genuinely personal messages, not the "I see we're both in marketing" garbage, actual research-backed outreach. Response rate? Crickets. The inbox that used to feel exclusive now feels like everyone else's email: overcrowded, over-filtered, and overwhelmingly ignored. When LinkedIn started pushing InMail credits harder, that should've been the warning sign. If they're desperate to get you sending more messages, it's because the people receiving them have stopped caring.
What This Actually Means (The Practical Bit)
Let me translate this into decisions you need to make.
If your entire prospecting strategy is "better data + more automation," you need to have a serious conversation with yourself. Not because automation is bad (it's not), but because when everyone's doing the same thing, the marginal returns collapse to zero.
The maths is brutal. Research shows around 306 emails must be dispatched to successfully generate a single lead in B2B. If your prospect gets 50 automated emails a day and you send email number 51, you're not competing on message quality. You're competing on pure luck. And luck isn't a strategy.
Here's what's working instead: being so obviously different that you can't be ignored.
What I'm Actually Doing (The Honest Bit)
I'll be blunt. Prospecting right now is tough. Here's what's happening in real time:
Direct mail is back. Yes, really. I just spent an embarrassing amount of time hunting for second-class stamps. When was the last time you got a physical letter from a potential vendor? Exactly. It's so unusual now that it actually gets opened. The irony isn't lost on me: the "old-fashioned" approach is now the innovative one.
The data backs this up: 75% of marketers say direct mail is the best channel to connect with C-Suite executives. It's less invasive, recipients can open it when they want rather than having it pop up when they're trying to work. And 67% of marketers report improved direct mail results compared to last year. Meanwhile, 82% are increasing their direct mail spend. They're not doing that for nostalgia.
The llms.txt goldmine. Here's something I didn't expect: I've been checking whether target companies have llms.txt files (the file that helps AI search engines understand your business). The vast majority don't. This tells me two things: (1) they're probably behind on AI visibility, which makes them a good fit for what we do, and (2) it's a genuine conversation starter that isn't "I noticed you raised funding."
LinkedIn InMail is on ice. I gave it a proper go. Premium subscription, hyperpersonalised messages, the works. The open rates suggest my messages are disappearing into the same void as everyone else's. My theory: when LinkedIn made InMail easier to send at scale, they killed what made it work. The "exclusivity" of landing in someone's LinkedIn inbox meant something when it was rare. Now it's just another channel that's been flogged to death. I'm not saying it's completely dead, but I am saying my stamps are getting better ROI right now, which is genuinely absurd.
Networking events are coming back. I'm dusting off the heels for January. In-person is underrated right now because everyone's hiding behind automation. Showing up, being human, having actual conversations, it's almost become a competitive advantage.
Fewer, better touches. Instead of 500 emails that sound like everyone else's, I'm sending 50 that are genuinely personal. Actually reading their content. Actually having an opinion on their positioning. Research shows personalised emails boost response rates by 30.5%. It takes longer. It works better.
The Other Arms Race (And Why I'm Eating My Own Dogfood)
Here's something I probably shouldn't admit: I help companies get found by AI search engines. ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, the lot. It's one of our core services. And the landscape is shifting so fast that what worked six months ago already needs updating.
Everyone's woken up. The SEO crowd has pivoted. The content agencies have added "AI optimisation" to their websites (most of them have no idea what they're doing, but still). The marketing space in particular is insufferable right now. Every LinkedIn post is about AI visibility. Every agency is suddenly an expert. It's all anyone's talking about, which means it's exactly where you don't want to be fighting for attention.
This is actually why the llms.txt check has become such a useful prospecting filter. If a company hasn't even got the basics sorted, they're behind. And they probably don't know it yet. That's a conversation worth having.
The land grab is happening now. If you're hoping to figure this out "eventually," eventually is already too late.
The Stuff You Can Actually Control
You can't fix the data decay problem. You can't stop your competitors using the same tools. But you can control how human you're willing to be.
First: Audit your own inbox. Look at the cold outreach you're getting. Notice how it all blurs together? That's what you look like to your prospects. If your emails could have been sent by anyone, they'll be treated like they were sent by no one.
Second: Find your weird angle. The llms.txt thing wasn't planned. I stumbled on it while doing something else. But it's become genuinely useful, both as a prospecting filter and a conversation starter. What's your version of that? What do you notice that nobody else is talking about?
Third: Go physical. Direct mail has terrible unit economics if you're thinking about scale. But you're not trying to reach 10,000 people. You're trying to reach 50 perfect-fit prospects. At that scale, £1 for a stamp and 10 minutes to write something genuine is a bargain. Personalised direct mail generates a 6.5% response rate compared to 2% for non-personalised, and that's before you factor in how few of your competitors are doing it at all.
Fourth: Show up. Networking events are awkward. Most of them are terrible. But the bar for standing out is so low right now that simply being present and prepared puts you ahead of everyone hiding behind LinkedIn automation.
Here's the Bit Nobody Wants to Hear
I'm going to be blunt about something: this is harder than it was two years ago. The tools haven't failed us exactly. They've been commoditised. When everyone has the same superpower, nobody's super.
The response rates aren't coming back. Not to where they were. The prospects who used to tolerate cold outreach have been trained by 10,000 bad emails to ignore everything. Inbox fatigue is real. Buyers are overwhelmed.
But here's the thing: most of your competitors won't adapt. They'll keep sending the same automated sequences, wondering why the numbers keep dropping, blaming the market instead of their approach. Research from Belkins found that the first email in a sequence does the heavy lifting, after the second touch, unless you bring real value or switch channels, "it's like shouting into the void."
That's your advantage. Not a better tool. Just a willingness to do the work that doesn't scale.
What You Should Actually Do This Month
Forget the 12-month outbound overhaul. Here's what you can do in four weeks:
Week one: Audit your inbox. Screenshot every cold email you get for five days. Notice the patterns. Notice what you delete without reading. That's your playbook for what NOT to do.
Week two: Pick 25 target accounts. Not 500. Twenty-five. Research them properly. Read their blog. Check their llms.txt file (or notice they don't have one). Find something genuinely interesting to say.
Week three: Go physical. Send 10 direct mail pieces. Handwritten notes if you can manage it. Include something that proves you actually looked at their business. Track what happens.
Week four: Book one networking event for January. Just one. Commit to showing up, having five real conversations, and following up within 48 hours.
That's it. Four weeks, and you've started doing what your competitors won't.
What Success Actually Looks Like
Stop measuring emails sent. That number will make you feel productive while achieving nothing.
Start measuring replies. Not opens, replies. Actual human beings responding to your outreach. If that number isn't moving, nothing else matters. C-level executives are 23% more likely to respond to cold B2B emails than employees outside the C-suite, so if you're targeting the right people and still getting silence, the problem is the message, not the title.
Better yet: measure conversations. Not meetings booked (those can be garbage too). Actual back-and-forth dialogue with people who fit your ICP.
The best indicator? When someone says "your email was different" or "I actually read this one." That's when you know you've broken through.
Why This Might Actually Be Good News
Here's what I find genuinely exciting about this shift: the playing field is tilting toward people who are willing to do the work.
For years, the advantage went to whoever could afford the best tools and send the most volume. That rewarded lazy thinking. It rewarded spray-and-pray. It rewarded bad prospecting at scale.
Now? The advantage goes to people who actually understand their prospects. Who are willing to do things that don't scale. Who can write something worth reading.
If you're good at the fundamentals, research, empathy, clear communication, you're about to have a very good few years. Because your competitors are still optimising their automated sequences, wondering why the robots aren't working anymore.
The tools aren't the problem. The thinking is.
People Also Ask
Is cold email dead?
Not dead, but wounded. Response rates have collapsed because of volume saturation and better filtering, down to around 5% on average, with 95% of emails receiving no response. Cold email still works when it's genuinely personal and offers real value, but "personal" means more than dropping in their company name. Personalised subject lines get 46% open rates versus 35% without. You need to demonstrate you've actually done the research.
Should I cancel my Apollo/ZoomInfo subscription?
Not necessarily. The data is still useful for research, even if blasting sequences isn't working like it used to. Use these tools for intelligence, not automation. Find prospects, learn about them, then reach out in ways that don't look like everyone else. Just remember: 22.5% of that data will be wrong within a year.
What about LinkedIn InMail?
Tried it. Premium and everything. Hyperpersonalised messages that took actual effort. They're not even getting seen, let alone replied to. LinkedIn requires recruiters to maintain a 13% response rate to avoid restrictions, which tells you something about how bad average performance has become. The channel isn't broken, it's just crowded beyond usefulness for most use cases.
How much should I spend on direct mail?
For targeted B2B prospecting, think £5-15 per piece including postage. At 25-50 highly qualified prospects, you're looking at £125-750 total. Direct mail has a 9% average response rate for house lists and 4.9% for prospect lists, compare that to less than 1% for email. If even two of those convert to conversations, you've beaten your email response rate by a factor of ten. The maths works at small scale.
What's an llms.txt file and why does it matter?
It's a file that helps AI search engines (ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude) understand your business and include you in recommendations. Most companies don't have one yet. If you're prospecting companies who care about AI visibility, checking for this file is a smart filter, and a genuine conversation starter that isn't about their funding round.
Ready to stop blending in? Book a call and let's talk about prospecting that actually works.
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