What engagement signals matter most for cold sending?

Different engagement signals carry different weight for cold sender reputation.

Strongest positive signals:

• Replies: Direct evidence of wanted communication
• Moved from spam: Recipient explicitly overrides filter decision
• Added to contacts: Signals expected future communication

Moderate positive signals:

Opens: Indicates visibility but increasingly unreliable due to privacy protections

• Clicks: Shows engagement with content
• Forwards: Sharing suggests value

Strong negative signals:

• Spam complaints: Devastating to reputation, even small percentages
• Deleted without opening: Pattern of irrelevance
• Blocked sender: Recipient explicitly rejected you

Accumulating neutral signals:

• Ignored messages: No engagement compounds into negative signal over time
• Messages sitting unread in inbox don't help

For cold email specifically:

• Focus on generating replies over other metrics
• Minimize complaint risk through targeting and easy opt-out
• Open rates are informational but unreliable
• Quality of response matters more than volume of sending