If your outreach emails are falling flat, you're not alone. Writing a "perfect" template is a myth—what works for one list or market can tank with another. The only way to know what actually moves the needle is to test your emails, see what lands, and keep improving. This guide is for anyone using Revreply who wants practical, step-by-step instructions to A/B test their outreach templates. No fluff, no buzzwords—just clear steps to help you get more replies and deals.
Why Bother with A/B Testing Outreach Templates?
Let’s cut to the chase: most cold emails don’t get replies. The ones that do often succeed for reasons you didn’t expect. You can guess all day about subject lines, personalization, or call-to-actions, but you won’t know what works for your audience until you test.
A/B testing lets you:
- Stop guessing and start seeing what actually performs
- Quickly spot what’s turning people off (so you can stop doing it)
- Uncover small tweaks—like a different opener or call-to-action—that make a real difference
If you’re happy with “good enough,” A/B testing might seem like extra work. But if you want to steadily improve your response rates and avoid sending junk that gets ignored, it’s the only way that’s honest.
Step 1: Define What Success Looks Like
Before you start, get specific about what you want more of. Don’t just say “better results”—pick a metric that matters for your outreach, like:
- Open rate: Good for testing subject lines or preview text
- Reply rate: Best for most B2B cold outreach—did they write back?
- Click rate: Useful if your email links to a signup or resource
- Booked meetings or conversions: The gold standard, but harder to track directly
Pro tip: Most people get hung up on open rates (thanks to email tool dashboards), but replies and meetings are what actually matter. Focus on those if you can.
Step 2: Set Up Your A/B Test in Revreply
A/B testing in Revreply isn’t rocket science, but it does require a little setup:
- Log into Revreply and go to your Campaigns.
- Create or edit a campaign.
- Add multiple templates to the same sequence step.
- Revreply will let you add “Template A” and “Template B” (or more) to the same step.
- You can test subject lines, body copy, CTAs—whatever you want.
- Choose how you want Revreply to split your audience.
- By default, it’ll distribute contacts evenly between templates.
- Don’t overthink it—random is fine unless you have a specific reason.
What to Test? - Subject lines (keep the body the same) - First sentence or intro - Call-to-action (soft ask vs. hard ask) - Personalization strategy (macro vs. manual) - Length or tone
What NOT to Test: - Changing five things at once. You won’t know what made the difference. - Super-minor tweaks (“Hi John,” vs. “Hey John,”)—unless you’re at massive scale.
Step 3: Let the Test Run (and Don’t Jump the Gun)
This is where most people mess up: they peek at early results and declare a winner after sending 30 emails. Don’t do that.
- Let the test run until each template has at least 100 sends (more is better, but you need a baseline).
- If your audience is tiny, accept that your results will be less statistically solid—just look for big, obvious trends.
- Don’t keep tweaking mid-test. Resist the urge to “fix” templates in real time.
Honest Take: If you’re only sending a few dozen emails, A/B testing won’t give you ironclad proof. But even a rough signal is better than guessing. Just don’t use tiny sample sizes to justify wild claims.
Step 4: Check the Results—What Actually Won?
Now for the fun part: seeing what happened.
- Open up your campaign analytics in Revreply.
- Compare performance between your templates on your chosen metric (reply rate, meetings booked, etc).
- Look for clear gaps—5% vs. 15% reply rate is real. 10% vs. 11%? Could be noise.
- Don’t just chase the “winning” number—read the replies. Sometimes a template gets more responses, but they’re all unsubscribes or complaints.
What to Ignore: - Open rates by themselves (especially with privacy changes in Gmail, Apple Mail, etc.) - Results that are “better” by a hair—unless you’re sending thousands of emails a week, small differences are just noise.
Step 5: Roll Out the Winner (But Keep Testing)
If you found a clear winner, great—swap out the loser and make the winner your new “A.” But don’t stop there.
- Take what you learned and set up a new test: tweak one thing at a time.
- Over time, you’ll build a library of templates and learn what works for your market.
- Don’t be afraid to revisit “losers”—sometimes a template flops with one list but crushes it with another.
Pro tip: Save your winning (and losing) templates. Patterns will emerge—certain approaches work with certain industries, company sizes, or geographies.
A Few Common Pitfalls (and How to Dodge Them)
- Changing too much at once: If you change the subject, intro, CTA, and signature, you won’t know what mattered.
- Testing with too few emails: You need enough data to see a real trend.
- Declaring victory too soon: Early results can flip as more emails go out.
- Ignoring reply quality: More replies are good—but only if they’re the kind you want.
What Actually Moves the Needle
Here’s what’s worth your time:
- Testing bold, clear CTAs vs. softer asks. (e.g., “Are you free for a call next week?” vs. “Would you be open to learning more?”)
- Personalization at scale: Try swapping in a custom first line vs. a standard intro.
- Short vs. long emails: Sometimes cutting the fluff gets more replies.
Here’s what usually doesn’t matter:
- Tweaking “Hi” to “Hey” or adding an emoji (unless you’re testing at serious scale)
- Fancy HTML formatting—plain text almost always performs better for cold outreach
- Overly clever subject lines—clarity beats cute
Keep It Simple and Iterate
You don’t need a data science degree to run solid A/B tests in Revreply. The main thing is to pick one important thing to test, let it run long enough to see real results, and then move on to the next experiment. Most people get hung up trying to perfect every detail—don’t. Just keep it simple, watch the numbers, and get a little better each time.
Remember, the point isn’t to chase vanity metrics or copy what worked for someone else. It’s to find what actually gets your prospects to reply, book meetings, or buy. Test, learn, repeat. That’s how you get real results—no magic, just a little discipline and a willingness to be proven wrong.