Sales follow-up statistics in B2B: Belkins’ 2025 study

If 2023 taught us that a good sales follow-up could double your reply rate, 2024 reminded us not to overstay our welcome.

We analyzed 16.5 million cold emails across 93 business domains from January 2024 to December 2024 to get a fresh perspective on the shift in cold outreach campaigns.

Key takeaways

• Less is more: The highest reply rate (8.4%) comes from just one email. Performance steadily declines with each follow-up.
• Follow-up fatigue is real: Sending 4+ emails in a sequence more than triples your unsubscribe and spam complaint rates.
• Size matters: Small and mid-size businesses tolerate more follow-ups. Enterprise prospects ghost quickly and punish persistence.
• Industry makes a difference: Manufacturing, solar, and logistics respond well to follow-ups, while crypto, cloud, and healthcare not so much.
• Founders are patient, to a point: They’ll engage through the second follow-up, but fall off sharply after the third.
• LinkedIn beats long email threads: Soft-touch nurturing via LinkedIn drives higher reply rates (up to 11.87%) with less friction.

What you’ll find below:

Are follow-ups dead? Response rates drop with each message in a sequence

Reply rates hit their peak of 8.4% at just one email, with open rates at 45.37%. But every step beyond that chips away at performance.

In 2024, we stopped tracking open rates because the tracking pixels were hurting deliverability. But the data we do have shows a clear (and logical) correlation — when open rates tank, reply rates follow suit.

And the drop is steep: going from 1 to 5+ emails cuts your reply rate by more than half.

The dark side of having too many follow-ups: Spam and unsubscribe risks

It’s hard to admit, but sending several emails in a row increases the likelihood of negative consequences. The more you follow up, the higher the chance your message lands in the wrong folder.

That 4th follow-up (which is, in fact, your 5th email in a row)? It triples your unsubscribe rate and more than triples your risk of getting marked as spam.

Even a high reply rate can be misleading if all the responses are opt-outs. That’s why it's critical to monitor both positive and negative replies — unsubscribes, complaints, and even their tone. If most of your replies are “please remove me,” it’s a red flag that your messaging (or your offer itself) needs reworking. Fewer, more relevant emails will always outperform longer, tone-deaf sequences and will most likely save you from going to the spam folder.

The bigger the company, the harder they ghost

This is where it gets interesting, as company size dramatically impacts follow-up tolerance:

• Small businesses (2–50 employees) start at 9.2%, drop to 8% on the first follow-up, then bounce back to 8.4% on the second.
• Mid-market companies (51–1,000 employees) give you a slight drop on the first follow-up and a slight uptick on the second one.
• Enterprises (1,000+ employees) are basically allergic to persistence.

Who still reads and responds to your emails (industry split)

Across industries, initial messages and first follow-ups consistently outperform longer sequences. When we look at reply rates across industries after follow-ups, some clear winners and losers emerge.

The champions:

• Manufacturing: Maintains 6.67%–6.77% through the first two follow-ups
• Transportation & logistics: A solid 6.46%–6.66% on early follow-ups
• Solar: A stellar 6.73% initial, 6.83% first follow-up (then drops)

The strugglers:

• E-learning: 5.6% → 5.7% → 5.3% → 5.5% → 4.9%
• Crypto: 5.24% → 5.34% → 4.94% → 5.14% → 4.54%
• Healthcare: 5.21% → 5.31% → 4.91% → 5.11% → 4.51%
• Cloud solutions: 5.17% → 5.27% → 4.87% → 5.07% → 4.47%
• Computer and network security: 5.06% → 5.16% → 4.76% → 4.96% → 4.36%

Luckily, founders also read a few emails

Here’s something wild: Though overall, C-suite tends to respond less (just 5% compared to the 8% of responses from entry-level pros), when founders receive email follow-ups, their engagement actually stays pretty consistent. 

Looking at the data, founders maintain a solid 6.64% response rate on the initial email and 6.66% after one follow-up — basically flat. 

But watch what happens next: the response rate for the second follow-up jumps to 6.94%, then crashes to 5.75% by the third, and absolutely tanks to 3.01% by the fourth.

Emails vs. LinkedIn: Which channel is better for following up?

Finally, there’s an interesting trend we’d like to highlight: LinkedIn nurturing actions result in better engagement and higher response rates, compared to email follow-ups.

Upon analyzing the overall situation, we found the following patterns:

Your 2025 follow-up formula

While these benchmarks provide a strong starting point, there’s no one-size-fits-all rule. As a B2B sales enablement agency, we’ve seen that every audience behaves differently. If your follow-up strategy isn’t landing, look beyond averages — revisit your timing, frequency, targeting, and message quality.

Here’s your new playbook:

• 1 initial email + 1 follow-up = highest average reply rate (8.4%)
• Watch out for warning signs: After email #3, unsubscribe risk spikes and reply rates drop
• Customize cadence by industry and company size (SMBs tolerate more, enterprises less)
• If you go long, bring value every time, or don’t send it
• Combine emails with LinkedIn for additional nurturing to improve results

The data tells a story. Pay attention to it and adjust accordingly.

Want to create effective follow-up emails that boost your reply rates? Contact our experts to discuss your case.

Relevant reading:

• What are B2B cold email response rates? Belkins’ 2025 study
• LinkedIn B2B outreach statistics: Belkins’ 2025 study
• What are B2B cold email deliverability rates? Belkins’ 2025 study

Sources and methodology

Unless otherwise noted, all figures in this report are based on outreach performance data collected between January 2024 and December 2024 by Belkins and its technology partners.

Cold email data

We analyzed 16.5 million cold emails sent by Belkins across 93 business domains.

• Open rate was calculated as the percentage of unique recipients who opened at least one email in a sequence.
• Reply rate reflects the share of unique recipients who responded to a message, excluding auto-replies and bounces.
• Follow-up steps refer to subsequent emails sent to the same contact within a sequence.
• Contact volume per company was estimated using unique domains (e.g., @company.com), excluding public providers (e.g., @gmail.com).
• All time-based metrics were localized by recipient city using Geonames time zone data.
• Industry segmentation and job seniority were determined through Belkins’ custom enrichment and data normalization logic.

LinkedIn data

Provided by Expandi. Based on internal platform data covering 20+ million outreach attempts from 13,000+ unique LinkedIn accounts, collected between January 1 and December 31, 2024.

• Performance was evaluated by campaign type, job title/seniority, industry, geography, and timing (day and month).
• Datasets tracked both campaign-level and contact-level engagement.