What is a positive vs negative reply?

Categorizing replies helps measure actual campaign effectiveness beyond raw response counts.

Positive replies:

Express interest in learning more

Ask questions about your offering

Request meetings or calls

Provide referrals to appropriate person

Indicate future timing might work better

Negative replies:

Explicit not interested responses

Requests to stop emailing

Hostile or complaint responses

Unsubscribe requests in reply form

Neutral replies:

Out-of-office responses

Left company notifications

Wrong person referrals without introduction

Questions that don't indicate interest

Why categorization matters:

Total reply rate overstates success if most replies are negative

Positive reply rate is the meaningful conversion metric

Negative reply patterns reveal targeting problems

High negative rates suggest list or message issues

Tracking approach:

Tag or categorize each reply in your CRM

Calculate positive reply rate separately

Monitor ratio of positive to negative over time

Use negative feedback to improve targeting