just blew like 3k on a cold email campaign (outsourced it) and honestly I wanna scream. the CR was under 0.5 percent. everyone's out here selling these "magic templates" that supposedly get 20% replies lol like that's some fantasy land stuff. the problem isn't the template (kinda) it's more your targeting and what you're actually offering. sending "hey I love your site can I write for you" to some random blog editor who's been getting 50 of those a day since 2012. what did I think was gonna happen? also using ai now to write them makes everyone sound the same and kinda sus. so yeah templates are just a starting point maybe but if your list is trash and you got nothing real to offer (access, data, money) you're just adding to the noise. my numbers this month: sent 1200 emails, got 8 replies, 1 yes. epc = disaster.