On paper, this campaign couldn’t fail. The lead magnet was worth $6,000, and it produced zero positive responses. The value stayed the same: changing who it went to and how it was framed turned it into 16 opportunities. This is the story, with the client’s name kept private.
What was the lead magnet?
Two complimentary seats on the client’s AI training, worth $3,000 each. The client sells AI trainings to companies, and its trainings build with AI rather than just talking about it. The cold email went to leaders: pick two members of your team, we train them completely, and in return you get a capstone project.
Why did a $6,000 lead magnet get no positive replies?
It asked too much of the person reading it. Every yes meant a leader choosing two people from their team to put through a full training. The value was real, but so was the ask. In Ali’s words: “We were asking them for too much.”
What changed?
We kept the lead magnet’s generosity and changed the angle.
- Who we emailed: instead of messaging leaders, we reached out directly to the job titles who’d take the training.
- The pain: we picked the pain that was most painful for them in their day to day.
- The connection: we logically connected that pain to the offer, the lead magnet itself.
| Campaign | Before | After |
|---|---|---|
| Lead magnet | Two seats worth $3,000 each | The same two seats |
| Sent to | Leaders | The job titles who’d take the training |
| Angle | Pick two of your team, get a capstone project | Their most painful day-to-day problem, connected to the training |
| Result | 0 positive responses | 16 opportunities |
What were the results?
16 opportunities from 3,600 cold emails in six business days, after zero positive responses with the first angle. That’s about one opportunity for every 225 emails sent, with the same lead magnet on offer the whole time.
| Measure | Result |
|---|---|
| Emails sent | 3,600 |
| Time | 6 business days (Oct 13 to 20) |
| Replies | 58 (a 1.93% reply rate) |
| Positive replies | 16 (27.59% of replies) |
| Opportunities | 16, valued at $52K in Instantly |
The numbers come from the campaign’s Instantly report, shown in the video. Ali says 3,700 on camera; the video corrects it on screen to 3.6K.
What makes a good cold email lead magnet?
Value the reader can accept easily, tied to a pain they feel in their own day to day. From this campaign and Ali’s four things to prepare before hiring a cold email agency:
- Value first: generosity alone didn’t do it here, but it was worth keeping.
- Low friction: nothing the reader has to organise, hand over or commit others to before saying yes.
- Matched to the job title you email: the pain has to be theirs, not only their company’s.
- Tested: run it through cold email campaigns before you scale it.
Planning to send cold emails with a high-value lead magnet, and not sure how to frame it? Book a strategy call and we’ll look at it with you. For another campaign with its numbers, see 4,300 leads, 25 opportunities, or read how we run cold email.
Questions
Do lead magnets work in cold email?
They can, but value alone isn't enough. Our client's $6,000 lead magnet got zero positive responses when it was pitched to leaders. The same lead magnet, sent to the job titles it would train and framed around their day-to-day pain, brought 16 opportunities from 3,600 emails in six business days.
Why does my cold email lead magnet get no replies?
Often because it asks too much of the person reading it. Here, saying yes meant a leader picking two people from their team to be trained. Check who has to act, what saying yes costs them, and whether the pain you lead with is one they feel themselves.
Should cold emails go to decision makers or to the people who'd use the offer?
To whoever feels the pain your lead magnet solves. In this campaign, emailing leaders produced no positive replies; emailing the job titles who'd take the training, about a problem from their own day to day, produced 16 opportunities.
How valuable should a cold email lead magnet be?
Valuable enough to be worth a reply, but value doesn't carry it alone. Two seats worth $3,000 each got no positive responses until the angle changed. Make it easy to accept, and connect it to one pain the reader feels every day.
Read the video transcript
So we ran a cold email campaign for this client. Pretty excited. The lead magnet was worth $6,000. There wasn't a possibility for this campaign to fail, but guess what? We generated zero positive responses, to our surprise.
Now here's the story. The client sells AI trainings for companies, but they build with AI in the process instead of just talking about AI. The lead magnet we thought was a no-brainer: two complimentary seats, each worth $3,000, being offered as part of the cold email campaign. And then we were sending these messages to leaders. They get to pick two members from their team, we completely train them, and then in return they get a capstone project.
That's it. That was the problem. We were asking them for too much. So we kept the generosity of the lead magnet and we changed the angle. So instead of messaging leaders, we directly started reaching out to job titles. We picked a pain that was most painful for them in their day to day, and we logically connected that to the offer slash lead magnet.
The campaign was an instant success: 16 opportunities from 3,700* cold emails sent in a course of six business days. If you really want to send cold emails with high-value lead magnets and you do not know how to frame it, link is in the comments.
*On screen, the video corrects this: 3.6K sent.
Lightly edited for clarity.