RU
OUTREACH AUDIT

Cold Outreach and Deliverability Audit

A cold outreach audit shows why your campaigns are not producing the expected replies: where emails fail to reach inboxes, where the sequence loses attention, and where qualified conversations are being dropped. Within 5–7 business days, you receive an evidence-based report covering your infrastructure, list, copy, metrics and reply handling, plus a prioritised plan for what to fix first.

Case studies
3,224,000
emails sent in our own campaigns — our comparison base
97.7%
of addresses accepted the email in our campaigns
5.93%
of contacted companies replied across our campaigns

What the outreach audit covers

We do not review “marketing in general.” We examine the operating system behind your actual outreach campaigns. Each check ends with a clear finding: sound, needs attention or critical.

  1. Infrastructure. Sending domains, sender mailboxes, DNS authentication and the overall sending setup.
  2. Reputation and deliverability. Domain and IP reputation, bounce patterns, inbox versus spam placement, and list risks.
  3. Lead list. Contact origin, freshness, email validation, duplicates, catch-all addresses and fit with your ideal customer profile.
  4. Copy and sequences. Subject lines, first-touch structure, follow-ups, personalisation, calls to action and text patterns that can damage deliverability.
  5. Metrics. Sent, delivered, opened, replied and qualified contacts. We calculate conversion at each stage to identify where the sequence breaks.
  6. Reply handling. Response speed, handoff process and where warm prospects disappear after asking for more information.

For infrastructure and deliverability, we apply the same standards used in our own work across 1,100 sender mailboxes, 360 campaigns and 85 regions of Russia. See our email deliverability service and list verification service for the related work.

How the audit works

  1. Day 1. A short working call to clarify campaign goals, target audience and previous attempts. You provide read-only access and exports.
  2. Days 2–5. We review DNS and reputation signals, a sample of the list, live sequences and outreach-platform metrics.
  3. Days 6–7. You receive a report with prioritised issues, recommended fixes, expected timing and effort for each item.
  4. Day 7. We walk through the report together, answer questions and agree what your team will handle and what you may assign to us.
We only need read-only access to the outreach platform, metric exports and the domain DNS panel. We do not need mailbox passwords or access to correspondence with your customers.

The usual timeline is 5–7 business days for one campaign and up to five domains. For several campaigns or a large contact base, we confirm the timeline before work begins.

What we need from you

  • Read-only outreach-platform access or an export showing sent, delivered, opened and replied results for each campaign.
  • The sequence copy that was actually sent, rather than draft versions.
  • A list of sending domains and mailboxes, plus DNS-panel access or screenshots of current records.
  • A description of the target audience and how the list was assembled.
  • One responsible contact on your side and around two hours in total for calls.

If no export exists and metrics were never collected, that is the first audit finding. Without stage-by-stage measurement, outreach cannot be repaired with confidence; it can only be guessed at.

What determines the value of the audit

An audit is diagnosis, not the repair itself. Its value depends on the amount and accuracy of your data, and on whether the recommendations are implemented. A report left unused does not improve reply rates.

We compare your results with operating benchmarks, not promotional promises. Across our campaigns, 3,224,000 emails were sent; 97.7% of addresses accepted the email; 5.93% of contacted companies replied; and 6,500 gave an explicit positive response by requesting details, a proposal or a meeting. If your bounce rate is above 2.3% or replies are materially lower, the audit identifies the specific point of failure.

Some issues can be corrected quickly, such as DNS configuration or a weak subject line. Others require more time, including rebuilding a list or preparing new sending domains; we state the expected timeline for every item in the repair plan.

When an audit is not the right fit

An audit is a diagnostic service, not a cure. In the following cases, another route is more useful than paying for a report you cannot apply.

  • You have not launched a campaign yet. There is no live data to diagnose; start with a free audit before your first launch.
  • You need guaranteed leads. An audit explains why outreach is underperforming. It does not promise a sales result.
  • Nothing can be changed. If domains, copy and lists are fixed internally, there may be no practical way to implement recommendations.
  • Your emails were sent as spam to a purchased, non-consensual list. We do not repair or continue that practice.
  • You expect the audit itself to raise replies. It identifies causes; the recommended changes still need to be implemented.
  • You cannot provide access, exports or time for questions. Without source data and coordination, the result can only be a superficial review.

Audit pricing

Pricing depends on the scope: number of campaigns, domains and the size of the review. We confirm a fixed quote before work starts; it does not change during the audit. See pricing for service-level guidance.

If the audit shows that rebuilding the campaign is more economical than repairing it, we say so directly in the report. You can implement the plan internally, use your current provider, or assign separate parts to OT9, including deliverability, copywriting and lead-list work.

FAQ

How is a paid audit different from a free audit?

A free audit is a short external review of visible issues, such as DNS configuration and obvious campaign risks. A paid audit examines metric exports, list samples, all live sequence copy and conversion at every stage, then produces a prioritised repair plan.

Do you need mailbox passwords or access to customer correspondence?

No. We work from outreach-platform exports and read-only access to relevant settings. Mailbox contents and correspondence are not needed because the audit examines configurations, templates and campaign metrics.

What if the audit shows that everything is in order?

We will document that conclusion with the evidence from each check. You will still receive a clear record of what was reviewed and where the campaign is operating as intended.

Can you fix the issues you find?

Yes, if you want us to. The report is self-contained, so your team or current provider can implement it; any repair work from OT9 is scoped separately by the items in the plan.

Our outreach runs from a CRM or an in-house system. Can you audit it?

Yes, provided the system can export sending, delivery and reply statistics. The software itself is not the focus: we assess the infrastructure, list quality, sequence copy and measurable campaign results.

Request an audit of your outreach

Send us an enquiry. Within one business day, we will ask five questions about the campaign and confirm the audit scope, timeline and price before you pay.

Pricing
24 hours
that is how long it takes us to come back with numbers for your segment