Get Recruited · Instantly · 20 October 2026

Google is still replying. Microsoft is not.

Your reply rate has come down as sending volume went up. That drop is concentrated in Microsoft recipients, and in secure email gateways. The same copy, sent to Google inboxes from the SMTP domains, is still around 2%.

820 Unique replies in August, the high month. September was 652. October is at 261 through the 20th.
2.4% Reply rate to Google inboxes, old copy, SMTP senders. 9 replies from 375 people.
0.15% Reply rate to Microsoft inboxes from the Microsoft domains. 2 replies from 1,350 people.

Reply rate means unique human replies divided by new people contacted. Automatic replies are excluded. Open tracking is off, so this review does not use opens.

The year

November 2025 was the high-water mark on rate, at 1.42%, on about 27,000 new people. From July the account stepped up to roughly 100,000 new people a month. The rate settled in a band around 0.6–0.8%. Absolute replies rose with that volume and peaked in August.

Unique reply rate by month, November 2025 to 20 October 2026 Reply rate peaked at 1.42 percent in November 2025, held near 1 percent through May 2026, then settled between 0.61 and 0.78 percent from June to September. October to date is 0.27 percent and the month is not finished. 1.6% 0.8% 0 NovDecJan FebMarApr MayJunJul AugSepOct*
Unique reply rate by month. Bars are new people contacted (scale is separate: the tall bars are about 100,000). October runs through the 20th only.
Month New people Unique replies Reply rate Opportunities
Nov 202527,2743881.42%64
Apr 202634,4724321.25%32
Jun 202652,8464140.78%77
Jul 202699,5606680.67%74
Aug 2026107,9458200.76%97
Sep 2026107,4026520.61%60
1–20 Oct 202695,7912610.27%32

October is not comparable to a finished month yet. In the first 13 days, before follow-ups have time to answer, September was 0.27% and October is 0.19%. The MD sequences wait 14 days for step 2, so a lot of October’s replies have not had a chance to arrive. Bounces are not the issue: 0.08% in October. July did spike to 3.1% bounced, and that has cleared.

Same copy, split by inbox provider

The ESP split is in place as separate campaigns, not as Instantly’s built-in routing. Google, Microsoft, secure gateways, and everyone else each have their own campaign. Marketing to Google and Microsoft goes out from 73 SMTP inboxes, a few mailboxes on each domain. MD mail to Microsoft goes out from 375 Microsoft inboxes, about 47 to 100 mailboxes on a domain.

This is the old copy, live in October, on those splits.

Recipient Sender People Replies Rate Versus Google
GoogleSMTP37592.40%
OtherSMTP30741.30%
Secure gatewaySMTP56710.18%
MicrosoftSMTP84010.12%
MicrosoftMicrosoft1,35020.15%

The original October campaigns still mix every recipient type in one audience. Those land at 0.23–0.24%. That blend is what the account average feels like. It hides a Google path that is working.

What is working

Google recipients on the smaller SMTP domains. Also VENTE, the vacancy-specific campaign: 3.14% and 10 opportunities in October, on 1,528 people.

What is not

Microsoft recipients, from either pool. Secure gateways on the marketing copy, at 0.18%. Finance 11–1000 (Apollo) is the weakest large campaign, at 0.07% on 9,504 people.

Old copy and the 15 October rewrite

Through the middle of October, almost every campaign was the same note with the noun swapped: “Marketing talent in {{Location}}”, “3 professionals worth knowing”, “Hope you’re having a good day.” That is the copy the ESP test above is measuring.

On 15 October a new note went live. It names a candidate: Chloe interviewed David, a marketing manager, last night. Five days is too short to judge it. Early reads match the split above, not a copy miracle. Google marketing is at 1.93% (4 of 207). Microsoft marketing is at 0 of 510.

Two setup issues will muddy that test if they stay:

  1. The campaign named “New Content – To Microsoft Oct – Marketing from SMTP” is not sending from SMTP. It is attached to the Microsoft MD inboxes. The name and the inboxes disagree, so that row cannot be scored yet.
  2. The MD version of the new copy still opens on David, a marketing manager. Later variants switch to a finance manager and a business development manager, then come back to Olivia, another marketing manager. The November MD draft does the same. An MD receiving a marketing CV as the first variant is the wrong offer.

This week

  1. Read Google and Microsoft separately. The blended campaigns at 0.23% are mostly the Microsoft and gateway rows. They are not evidence that the Google sends failed.
  2. Move the new Microsoft marketing test onto the SMTP marketing inboxes before treating its result as real.
  3. Take the marketing-manager variants out of the MD sequences, including the November draft. Keep David and Olivia on the marketing campaigns.
  4. Let the new Google copy run until 27 October before deciding it failed. Microsoft will not be fixed by another pass on this angle. Those domains are carrying on the order of 100 mailboxes each, and Microsoft recipients are not answering that mail. The next Microsoft test is a thinner set of domains, not a new subject line.
  5. Use VENTE as the model for the next rotation. A named vacancy is the only live campaign clearly above 3%. The quarterly spin of “talent in {{Location}}” is the copy the account has been on all year.