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And that’s why you’re being ignored.
You spent 30 minutes crafting the perfect cold email. You personalized the opening. You included a compelling value proposition. You even added that case study you thought would seal the deal.
Your prospect deleted it in three seconds.
Key Takeaways:
- Executives spend only 3 seconds scanning cold emails before deciding to engage or delete
- The average prospect gives you 9 seconds maximum, and they’re scanning instead of reading
- Cold email open rates dropped from 36% in 2023 to 27.7% in 2024, with reply rates falling to just 5.8%
- AI-assisted spam has made inboxes more crowded than ever before
- Your prospects are frazzled and overwhelmed, so adding to their mental load guarantees deletion
Who This Is For:
This article is for B2B sales professionals, SDRs, and sales leaders who are frustrated with low email response rates. If you’re sending cold emails that get ignored, struggling to break through inbox noise, or wondering why your carefully crafted messages aren’t converting, I’m going to show you exactly what’s going wrong and how to fix it.
The Brutal Truth About How Buyers Actually Read Your Emails
Here’s what most salespeople don’t understand: your prospects aren’t reading your emails word for word. They’re not even close to reading them carefully.
Research shows that executives spend approximately three seconds scanning a cold email before deciding whether to engage or hit delete. For other prospects, you might get a generous nine seconds. That’s your entire window of opportunity.
Think about your own inbox for a moment. When was the last time you read a cold email word for word? If you’re being honest, probably never. You scan. You look for context. You make split-second decisions about whether something is worth your time.
Your prospects do the exact same thing.
Why Inboxes Have Become Battlegrounds
The attention economy has reached a breaking point. Your prospects are more overwhelmed and more frazzled than they’ve ever been before. Inboxes are more crowded than at any point in history.
The data tells a stark story. According to Martal’s 2025 analysis, cold email open rates dropped from 36% in 2023 to just 27.7% in 2024. That means roughly three-quarters of recipients are deleting your email without reading a single word. And of those who do open, Belkins’ 2024 research found that reply rates dropped to just 5.8%, down from 6.8% the year before.
The culprit is partly the advent of AI and the ability for sellers to spray and pray at scale. AI has made it incredibly easy to send thousands of personalized-looking emails with minimal effort. The result is that decision-makers now receive 10 or more irrelevant cold emails every single week.
Your carefully crafted message is competing with an avalanche of AI-generated noise.
The Scanning Reality That Changes Everything
When prospects open your email, they’re not settling in to read your carefully constructed prose. They’re scanning for context in seconds. Their brains are working in pattern recognition mode, not comprehension mode.
This means several things are happening simultaneously. They’re looking for visual cues about what this email is about. They’re assessing how much mental energy it will take to process. They’re deciding if this is relevant to them right now. They’re checking if there’s a clear action they can take.
All of this happens in three to nine seconds. You’re not competing for their reading time. You’re competing for their scanning attention.
The implications are massive. If your email requires them to read carefully to understand your point, they won’t. If it requires scrolling on their phone, they won’t. If it looks like a dense block of text, they’ll delete it before their brain even registers what you’re selling.
The Mental Load Problem Nobody Talks About
Your prospects are carrying a cognitive load that would have been unimaginable a decade ago. They’re managing Slack notifications, calendar invites, project deadlines, team dynamics, and strategic initiatives. Their attention is diluted across a dozen different platforms and priorities.
When your email lands in their inbox, you’re asking them for a piece of their most valuable
Most salespeople treat emails as insignificant. “It’s just an email,” they think. “Not that big of a deal.” But that’s exactly the problem. You’re still asking for attention and time, even if it’s just a few seconds. And when attention is scarce, every ask matters.
The reality is that every email adds to their mental load. Another message to process. So what happens when your email is long, complicated, or requires significant mental effort to understand? It gets deleted immediately. This doesn’t happen because they’re rude or because they’re not interested. It happens because they literally don’t have the mental capacity to process one more complex thing.
Why Your Perfect Subject Line Is Failing You
You’ve probably spent time perfecting your subject lines. You’ve tested. You’ve iterated. You’ve read all the best practices. And that’s good, because subject lines matter.
But here’s what happens next. They open your email and the very first words they see are “I hope this email finds you well” or “I’m your sales rep at XYZ Corp” or “Our company does…”
You just undid all the good work your subject line did.
This is the preview text trap. As I audit thousands of emails every year for my clients, I see this constantly. Sellers obsess over the subject line while completely ignoring the first ten words that appear below it in the inbox preview. Those words are just as important, if not more important, than your subject line.
When prospects scan their inbox, they’re seeing two pieces of information together: your subject line and your preview text. If your subject line is intriguing but your preview text is generic fluff, you’ve broken the promise. You’ve signaled that this is just another sales email that will waste their time.
The Mobile Reality You’re Ignoring
More than half of emails are now first opened on mobile devices. Many executives are checking email on their Apple Watch. Yet salespeople are still writing emails that require scrolling on a phone.
I ask my clients this question all the time: can your entire email be read without scrolling on a phone?
If the answer is no, you’re losing people. They see a wall of text. They immediately feel overwhelmed. They delete.
Mobile optimization isn’t about being trendy. It’s about respecting the reality of how people consume information in 2025. Your prospects are reading your emails between meetings, while walking to their car, or waiting for their coffee. They’re not sitting at a desk with their full attention available.
If your email requires their full attention and a desktop computer to process, it’s not getting read.
The Grade Level Mistake That’s Costing You Deals
When I’m rolling out sequences with new teams or doing training, I often get pushback when I talk about writing emails at a third to eighth grade reading level.
“My prospects are smart,” sellers say. “They’re executives. They can handle complex language.”
They’re missing the point entirely.
Writing at a fifth-grade level has nothing to do with intelligence. It has everything to do with scannability. I shoot for grade five in all my emails.
Short sentences are easier to scan than long ones. Simple words require less cognitive processing than complex ones. White space between sentences creates visual breaks that make content easier to digest.
Your prospects are absolutely capable of reading complex content. But when they’re scanning an email from a stranger in three seconds, they don’t want to. They want to instantly grasp what this is about and whether it matters to them.
Complex language in cold emails isn’t a signal of sophistication. It’s a barrier to comprehension. And when comprehension requires effort, busy people don’t bother. It’s not about dumbing down your emails. It’s about respecting your prospects’ attention and respecting their time.
What Actually Works: The Shift You Need to Make
The solution isn’t to trick people into reading your emails. It’s to acknowledge reality and work with it instead of against it.
Here’s the shift you need to make. Stop writing emails that need to be read. Start writing emails that can be scanned.
This means ruthlessly cutting anything that doesn’t serve the core message. It means using short sentences. It means leaving white space. It means making your call to action crystal clear.
Most importantly, it means asking yourself before you hit send: “Have I earned the right to ask for this person’s attention?”
This is something I talk about constantly because it’s the foundation of everything. What have you done to craft an email that is actually worth reading? How have you made it about them instead of about you, your company, or your features? Have you reduced their mental load or added to it?
These questions change everything. Because when you start thinking about earning attention instead of demanding it, your emails transform. They become shorter. More relevant. Easier to process. More human.
My “Too Damn Long” Wake-Up Call
Here’s a story from my own journey that illustrates this perfectly. I was working in a fairly transactional sales environment, selling to the energy sector. I had some really incredible clients that would buy from me over and over again, would refer people.
One of them was this crotchety old former military power plant manager, probably in his late 60s, who only answered the phone with his last name. His name was Ashley, and he was such a good client to me that I would always try to do everything I could to deliver maximum value.
Anytime he asked me for anything and I was sending a follow-up email, I would just overachieve. I’d write these really long value-packed emails with every link I could include.
One day Ashley called me, and I saw his name on the caller ID. I’m thinking he’s calling me to give me another piece of business or give me a referral. I’m going to get a deal done.
I answered all excited: “Ashley, oh my gosh, how are you?”
And he says: “Leslie, I got to tell you, your emails are too damn long.”
It was this moment of realization where I thought I was doing something really good by writing these long, big value-packed emails. And he wasn’t reading them. This was one of my best clients. And his kindness in that moment, his willingness to provide me direct feedback, even though he loves me and he will continue to come and buy from me, my emails were so overwhelming to him when they hit his inbox because I’d tried to jam-pack them with so much value that he literally was deleting them.
The lesson here is clear. More isn’t better. Value-packed doesn’t mean valuable if nobody can process it. Even your best clients will ignore you if you make it too hard to engage with your content.
Making Your Emails Unignorable
The path forward is counterintuitive for many sellers. It’s not about adding more. It’s about subtracting everything that doesn’t matter.
I teach my clients to use my 1-10-100 rule.
1 clear call to action.
10 optimized words in your preview text, including your subject line.
100 words maximum for your email body.
This framework forces you to prioritize scannability, mobile optimization, and respect for your prospect’s attention, which are the three things that matter most in today’s inbox environment.
The 10 is optimizing the first ten words, including your subject line, to give prospects a reason to want to open and read more. Replace generic fluff like “Hope your week is going well” with something relevant that matters to them.
And the 100 is keeping it under 100 words so your entire email can be read without scrolling on a phone. Test it. Send it to yourself and open it on your phone. If you have to scroll, it’s too long.
Think about the experience you’re creating. Is this email easy to scan for context? Does it respect their attention? Does it reduce their mental load or add to it?
According to Belkins’ analysis of 16.5 million cold emails, most sellers are getting ignored most of the time, with reply rates hovering around 5.8% in 2024. The ones who aren’t being ignored have figured out that scanning behavior isn’t a problem to overcome. It’s reality to design for.
When you stop trying to make people read your emails word for word and start making them scannable, relevant, and low-effort, something magical happens. Response rates go up. Meetings get booked. Deals get done.
This doesn’t happen because you tricked anyone. It happens because you finally started respecting the most valuable thing your prospects have, which is their attention.
FAQs
How long should my cold emails actually be?
Keep your cold emails under 100 words total. This ensures they’re mobile-optimized and can be read without scrolling. Research shows prospects spend only 3-9 seconds scanning emails, so brevity isn’t just nice, it’s essential. Every word beyond 100 increases the chance your email gets deleted unread. This is part of my 1-10-100 rule that I teach to all my clients.
What’s the best way to write subject lines and preview text?
Optimize the first 10 words total, which includes your subject line and the beginning of your email body. This is the 10 in my 1-10-100 rule. I see this constantly when I audit emails: sellers create great subject lines then immediately blow it with “I hope this email finds you well” in the preview text. Make those first 10 words work together to give your prospect a reason to want to open and keep reading.
Should I use bold text or formatting to highlight important points?
No. Bold text and heavy formatting actually work against you. When people scan emails, bolded words become the only things they read, meaning they miss your full message. Plus, excessive formatting screams “sales email” and triggers mental spam filters. Keep formatting minimal and let your message do the work.
How many touch points should I include in my email sequence?
You need a minimum of eight touch points in your sequence. This is one of the few data points that hasn’t changed over the 15-plus years I’ve been doing this. Most sellers stop way too early, sometimes after just 2-3 emails. Even a mediocre eighth email can get responses, not because it’s good, but because most of your competition has already given up by that point.
Is it really necessary to write at a grade 5 reading level for executives?
Yes, but not for the reason you think. It’s not about intelligence. Executives can obviously read complex content. I shoot for grade five because it’s about scanning speed. Short sentences, simple words, and white space are easier to scan in 3 seconds. It’s not about dumbing down your emails. It’s about respecting your prospects’ attention and respecting their time.
How can I tell if my email is too long for mobile?
Send it to yourself and open it on your phone. If you have to scroll to read the entire message, it’s too long. Better yet, open it on an Apple Watch if you have one because that’s where many executives first see emails now. If it’s readable there without squinting or scrolling, you’ve nailed it.
What’s the biggest mistake people make with cold email CTAs?
Giving multiple options. This is the mistake I see most often. People will send a link to something, like an article, a blog post, a YouTube video, whatever it is, and then they’ll also say “let me know if it’s worth a chat.” The moment you ask your prospect to do more than one thing, you’ve divided their attention. The probability that they take either action plummets. Pick one clear, specific action and make it as easy as possible to take. That’s the 1 in my 1-10-100 rule.
How do I make my emails stand out from AI-generated spam?
Stop trying to sound like AI wrote them. Use your actual voice, including contractions and natural phrasing. AI is really good at surfacing insights, but I would never ship off a fully AI-written email because no matter how good your prompt engineering is, it still has the staccato writing, the “no fluff, no frills” phrases, the em dashes, the “game changers.” Show your humanity. That’s what makes you stand out.
Should I escalate my calls to action throughout my sequence?
Yes. I like to use what I call escalating calls to action. At the beginning of my sequences, I use CTA lights, those “worth a chat” or “are you interested” types. Later on, I’ll share a link or valuable asset because that’s a slightly bigger ask. And then at the end of the sequence, that’s where I’m directly asking for time. The logic parallels my earn-the-right philosophy. I’m assuming that I’m showing up and writing emails that earn the right to their time and attention. I’m building trust and rapport throughout my sequence, so I escalate the directness of my asks throughout the CTAs.
What frameworks can I use?
Use my 1-10-100 Rule: 1 clear call to action, 10 optimized words in your preview text including the subject line, and 100 words maximum for your email body. This framework forces you to prioritize scannability, mobile optimization, and respect for your prospect’s attention, which are the three things that matter most in today’s inbox environment.
Can you recommend books that will help me learn more?
Profit Generating Pipeline by Leslie Venetz, available at www.salesledgtm.com/book
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