Is My Sequence A Good One?

Ever wonder how to track "am I doing the right thing with my Sequences?" Here's to hoping this bit of intel from the front lines helps you out!

1. Do no harm

Make sure unsubscribes are below 2%. Nuff said. Massive marketing blasts may have a higher unsubscribe rate but if you're leading a cold outbound team who's taking time to personalize, this number should be below 2%. As we all know, unsubscribes are the kiss of death in prospecting so do all that you can to mitigate!

2. Let it ride long enough to get data

As tempting as it is to call it quits after you get one bad reply or a middle finger emoji, stay the course! Our general rule of thumb is that it takes 2,000 deliveries to be statistically significant.

Part "B" of this point is to make sure your reps aren't drowning in sequences -- less is more. If they have 50 to chose from, it's going to be really difficult to assess which ones are working if they all don't have that many deliveries. Start small and grow/iterate from there!

3.?Track sentiment

The days of vanity metrics like opens/replies are dead. They tend to feed confirmation bias and IMO, are not that useful in the long run. I.e., they can typically skew your data to make whatever "point" you're looking to make. 23% of your replies being "positive" is typically "good." Doesn't hurt to take a look at negative ones too and see if they're all falling into a similar category (wrong person, bad timing, already have a solution, etc.) to inform your sequence.

4. Track adoption/execution

Are reps finishing the sequence? This seems super simple but leverage the tasks section of outreach to look for "skipped" tasks, and/or check to see how many steps of a sequence are actually completed. Make sure steps at the bottom of the sequence are getting traction. While we all hope to get meetings on touch #1, if touch #14 isn't even happening, it could be indicative that reps are just jumping ship and switching between sequences.

?If there are barely any deliveries/opens, consider deleting some steps at the end to make sequence shorter. if they are under a 1% reply rate (end of sequence templates specifically) consider revising the content.

5. Check meetings booked attribution

It's important to analyze these metrics with a grain of salt because typically, your most successful sequences based on meetings booked will be things like "Demo Request Sequence" or "Initial Meeting Confirmation Sequence" but they should be directionally accurate. If you're looking to get really fancy, leverage tagging and content collections so you can sort your sequences just by "cold outbound" and track which of those are performing the best without having to sort through the "gimme" ones like Demos and IM Confirmation.

If you'd like to continue the conversation, shoot me a DM or ping the Sequence Queen herself, Meghan Donovan! :)