Response Rate
The percentage of contacts who reply to a campaign. The first conversion metric in any outbound channel — mail, email, SMS, or calls.
Response rate is the share of people contacted who respond in any way — a call back, a text reply, an email answer. It's the earliest read on whether a list and message are working, before you know how many of those replies turn into deals. Direct mail often runs in the low single digits, while SMS and email vary widely with list quality and offer.
On its own, response rate can mislead — a high reply rate full of angry or unqualified responses is worse than a lower rate of motivated sellers. It's most useful paired with downstream metrics like cost per lead and cost per deal, which reveal whether those replies actually convert.
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