outbound-performance-diagnosis
Applies to a live campaign with data. Produces the leak, the evidence, and one fix — not a list of everything that could be improved.
Work the layers in order and stop at the first break
The order is not optional. Each layer's numbers are meaningless until the layer above it is healthy, and the classic failure is optimising subject lines for an audience that never received the email.
Layer 1 — delivery. Bounce rate, spam complaints, inbox placement. If this layer is broken, stop. Change nothing else. You cannot learn anything about copy, offer, or targeting from messages that never arrived, and every test you run in that state teaches you something false.
Layer 2 — engagement. Opens, and how they decay across steps. Treat opens as diagnostic, not as a result: tracking pixels cost you placement, and open data is unreliable enough on some clients that low opens with healthy replies usually means the pixel, not the copy. A drop of more than about a fifth per step is sequence fatigue or degrading deliverability, not a subject-line problem.
Layer 3 — replies. Total reply rate and reply rate by step. Read it against opens:
- Opens healthy, replies near zero → copy or offer. They're reading and not moved.
- Opens weak and replies weak → fix delivery and subject first. Reply data isn't readable yet.
- Replies healthy, mostly negative → segment. The message may be fine for someone else.
Layer 4 — quality. Positive replies, negative replies, referrals, and "not now". This is the layer that matters, and the one most reports omit. A campaign with a 12% reply rate that is almost entirely "remove me" is worse than a 4% campaign that is mostly positive — it's burning the domain and the list at once.