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Hi everyone,

We’ve just launched our first outbound sales campaign using Apollo.io with a prewarmed inbox from PremiumInbox. For the initial test, I built a small list of around 200 contacts and set up a 4-step sequence.

Even though the inbox was already warmed up, we started very cautiously — sending only 8 emails per day to avoid any deliverability issues and gradually planned to scale up based on open rates.

However, after sending about 100 emails, we've only seen 1 open and 1 reply, the rest show as unopened, this is extreme weak. Despite all the technical setup being confirmed as correct by PremiumInbox, who also reported no issues with deliverability or spam when testing, so I decided to pause the sequence entirely.

Could the problem be that our target audience (university staff and faculty) is particularly sensitive or less likely to engage with cold outreach? Or is there something else I might be missing?

Would appreciate any insights from those with more experience in cold email!

Thanks in advance 🙏