You're sending emails and getting crickets. Or worse - you're getting responses, but they're from people who can't actually use what you sell.

This is almost always a targeting problem, not a copy problem. And most people spend weeks tweaking subject lines when they should be asking: "Am I even talking to the right person?"

Here's how to know if your targeting is broken - and what to actually do about it.

Sign 1: High Open Rates, Low Reply Rates

You're getting 25-35% open rates, which looks good. But your reply rate is hovering around 2% or lower.

This means your subject line is working - you're getting people to open the email. But once they read it, they don't care.

Most people blame the copy here. But the real issue is usually this: you're reaching the right company, but the wrong person inside it.

A VP of Ops at a software company might open an email about "cutting operational costs." But if your offer is actually for implementing a new tool that requires buy-in from engineering, IT, and finance, the VP of Ops isn't your decision-maker. They'll open it out of curiosity, read it, and move on.

The fix: Get specific about title + department + use case. If you're selling project management software, don't just target "project managers." Target project managers at companies with remote teams over 50 people who use Asana (which means they already accept SaaS tools for this function).

Check your open rate against your reply rate in your email platform. If the gap is wider than 5:1, you're talking to people who aren't empowered to move forward on your offer.

Sign 2: Replies Come from the Wrong Stakeholders

You send an email to a CMO about improving content performance. The VP of Operations replies instead, saying "interesting, but not relevant to us right now."

Or you get a response from an entry-level account executive who forwards it to their manager with a question mark.

This happens when your messaging is too broad. You're triggering interest across a bunch of people, but none of them are the actual buyer.

Look at your reply patterns over the last 50 emails. What titles are replying? Are they the people with budget authority for what you're selling? If most replies are coming from people one or two levels below where you'd expect, your targeting criteria are too loose.

The fix: Tighten your title targeting and make your offer more specific to a single pain point that one role owns. Don't say "improve team efficiency." Say "reduce time-to-hire in your recruiting team" and target Talent Acquisition Managers or Recruiting Ops people specifically.

Sign 3: You're Getting No Pushback, Just Crickets

You send 100 emails. You get 2-3 responses total. They're polite declines.

No one's telling you "we already use something for this." No one's saying "we're not interested right now but check back in Q3." They're just... not responding.

This usually means one of two things: you're emailing people who don't have the problem you're solving, or you're emailing the wrong role at companies that do have it.

When you reach the actual right person with the actual right problem, you get objections. "We already have a vendor." "Not in the budget." "Can you send something over?" These are signs you found someone.

Silence at scale means you're in the wrong bucket entirely.

The fix: Go back to your ICP definition. If you're selling expense management software, don't just say "companies with 50+ employees." That's too broad. Say "companies with 50+ employees, B2B service-based, with distributed teams, where travel and contractor expenses are high." That's a specific friction point.

Sign 4: Your Response Rate Varies Wildly by Vertical

You get a 12% reply rate when you email tech companies, but 3% when you email agencies. Or vice versa.

This is a sign that your targeting and your offer don't fit equally well across your list. You're accidentally finding a niche that works, while the rest of your list is dead weight.

Most people think this means they should focus on the vertical with higher replies. That's partly true. But first, figure out why the gap exists.

Is it because the offer genuinely solves a bigger problem in that vertical? Or is it because you're reaching the right person by accident in one vertical and the wrong person in the other?

Pull 20 emails from the high-performing vertical and 20 from the low-performing one. Look at the titles you're targeting in each. Look at the company size. Look at whether these companies use similar tools (which tells you something about their maturity level and openness to new software).

You'll usually find one variable that's different - and that variable is where your actual targeting criteria should be.

Sign 5: Your "Best Responding" List Is Random

One of your top responders is a 15-person consultancy. Another is a 1,200-person insurance company. Another is a 250-person logistics firm. Nothing makes sense.

This suggests your targeting criteria are too loose. You're hitting a lot of different types of companies, and occasionally you find someone who happens to be looking for what you sell - but it's luck, not targeting.

Tight targeting creates consistent responses from a narrower set of companies that all share similar traits (revenue, vertical, use case, team structure).

If your best responses look random, you're casting too wide a net. A 15-person consultancy and a 1,200-person insurance company have completely different problems, budgets, and decision timelines. You can't have one offer that lands with both.

The fix: Look at your actual positive responses - not just replies, but replies from people who engaged meaningfully. What do those companies have in common? Company size? Vertical? What software do they use? How many employees? How much revenue? Find the overlap. That overlap becomes your new targeting criteria.

Sign 6: You're Getting Bounces or Invalid Email Addresses

More than 8-10% of your list bounces hard. Emails come back as "user unknown" or "domain doesn't accept mail."

This is a data quality problem, not a copy problem. Bad data means you're not really testing your targeting at all - you're just burning through an email list that was never vetted.

When your bounce rate is high, you don't actually know if your targeting works, because you're not even reaching the people you think you're targeting.

The fix: Validate your list before you send. Use a tool like RocketReach, Apollo, or Hunter to verify email addresses exist. Expect 5-10% of emails to be invalid even after validation. If it's more than that, your data source is bad.

What to Do Right Now

Pull your last 100 emails. Look at reply rate by vertical, by company size, and by title. Find the segment that's actually responding. That segment is your real ICP, whether you meant it or not.

Then rebuild your targeting around that segment only - not broader, more specific. If finance teams at SaaS companies with 20-100 employees are your winners, don't expand to "all finance teams." Stay narrower.

Your targeting isn't off because you're aiming at the wrong industry. It's off because you're aiming at too many types of people within an industry, and your offer doesn't map clearly to one person's job.

If you want a quicker reference, check out this guide on using intent signals to narrow targeting. But honestly - start with your own data. It's more honest.

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