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Results & Expectations
What results can I realistically expect?+
Results depend heavily on your ICP and offer. We use a 0.5% positive reply rate as a baseline for projections. With 5,000 emails/month, that's 25 positive replies. Run the numbers from there based on your close rate and LTV. We won't promise numbers without understanding your business first · book a call and we'll give you an honest estimate.
How long before you decide a campaign isn't working?+
We don't make major calls until at least 800 emails have been sent · that's the minimum sample for statistical significance. But we start tweaking copy much earlier. Small copy adjustments often turn a flat campaign around before we ever hit 800. Our internal benchmark is 0.5% positive reply rate. Below that consistently, we iterate aggressively.
Do you track open rates and click rates?+
No. Tracking open rates requires adding pixels to emails · that hurts deliverability significantly. And open rates are meaningless: spam filters open emails, some providers pre-fetch all links, others never load images. We track what actually matters: emails sent, people contacted, total replies, and positive replies. Those are the only metrics that tell you whether the campaign is working.
Process & Operations
What happens after I book a call?+
The call is to see if we're a fit · not a sales pitch. We'll ask about your business, ICP, sales process, and what you've tried before. We'll give you an honest read on whether cold email makes sense for your offer. If it does, we walk you through exactly how we'd approach it. Questions welcome throughout.
How do you handle replies?+
All replies go to the sending accounts we manage. We label every reply daily. Out of office → schedule follow-up when they return. Referral → reach out to the referred contact. Negative reply → stop all follow-ups. Positive reply → stop sequence and forward to you immediately, usually within hours.
How many follow-ups do you send?+
Typically 3-5 follow-ups per contact, spaced 3-5 days apart. Each follow-up is a distinct angle, not just "following up on my last email." We test different follow-up cadences per campaign and let the data decide what works for your specific ICP.
What does your team look like?+
Team of 6. Fully remote, with team members in the US, India, and Singapore. Your direct point of contact is a cold email specialist. Backend tasks (list building, account setup, email labeling) are handled by our India and Singapore teams. Everyone works on a small client portfolio · you're never a number.
Deliverability
How do you ensure my emails land in primary inbox?+
Multiple layers: SPF, DKIM, DMARC on every domain (non-negotiable). Multiple look-alike domains per campaign · typically 14 · each sending a small daily volume. Every account continuously warmed. We maintain a network of test inboxes across Gmail, Outlook, and Yahoo and monitor placement daily. If an account starts trending toward spam, we quietly swap it before it becomes a problem. 89% of our sends land in primary inbox.
How many email accounts do you use?+
280+ per campaign at the Growth tier. Each account sends 30-40 emails per day maximum. Spreading volume across hundreds of accounts keeps individual sending reputation clean and ensures no single account's performance can bring down the whole campaign.
Data & Sourcing
Where do you source your lead data?+
Apollo, Clay, LinkedIn, Google Maps, Crunchbase, industry-specific scraping, and more. We start by identifying the right companies for your ICP, then find the exact decision-makers inside them. We use a waterfall verification method · if one provider can't verify, we move to the next · until we have the highest-quality contact data possible. Before anyone gets emailed, we verify they're still at the company, the company is still active, and the pitch is relevant.
What industries do you work with?+
Roughly 50% service businesses, 40% SaaS, 10% IT. The common thread: they need consistent qualified leads and don't want to deal with the complexity of cold email infrastructure or the unreliability of most agencies. If you have a clear ICP and a proven offer, cold email likely works for you.
Why Calibrate
Why not just run cold email in-house?+
Cold email looks simple until you're in it. How many accounts do you need? How do you build warmup sequences? What copy structure works for your niche? How do you iterate when reply rates drop? We've run 800+ campaigns. You get that pattern recognition from day one. Plus: the tool stack alone (Apollo, Clay, Instantly, ZeroBounce, and more) costs thousands per month. We spread that cost across clients.
Why Calibrate instead of another cold email agency?+
Most lead-gen agencies do too many things and none of them well. We only do cold email. Full stop. You always work directly with a specialist · never get handed to a junior account manager after signing. We share everything: every lead, every email, every data source. No black box. And we build proprietary tooling that no other agency has access to. If you ever want to bring cold email in-house, we'll help you do it. We don't hold your domains or infrastructure hostage.
How do I get started?+
Book a 30-minute strategy call. We'll assess your ICP, estimate your TAM, pressure-test your offer, and tell you honestly whether cold email is the right channel. If we're a fit, you can be live in 14 days.