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      "caveat": "The public report does not expose the full model or controls, so treat the result as observational.",
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      "caveat": "This funnel denominator differs from Instantly's emails-sent denominator, so the rates must not be averaged.",
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      "caveat": "A positive reply is not necessarily a booked meeting, qualified opportunity or sale. Editorial clarification October 3, 2026: the report-level 61,770 classified replies and the contact funnel's 28,632 replies are not established as the same cohort. Do not apply the 14.1% classified-reply share to that funnel or compare it directly with 8,737 / 1,369,823 (about 0.64%) as if the denominators matched. No new source acquisition.",
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      "source_title": "Cold Email Statistics 2026 from 2M+ Real Emails",
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      "methodology": "Reply attribution by sequence position in observed campaigns.",
      "caveat": "The distribution differs from Instantly's 58%/42% result because the datasets and sequence definitions differ.",
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      "source_title": "Cold Email Statistics 2026 from 2M+ Real Emails",
      "source_quality": "first_party_campaign_telemetry",
      "methodology": "Sequence-position comparison in observed campaign data.",
      "caveat": "Positive rate uses replies as its denominator; reply rate uses outreach volume.",
      "audited_at": "2026-08-20"
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      "source_title": "Cold Email Statistics 2026 from 2M+ Real Emails",
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      "caveat": "Seniority can correlate with industry, offer and targeting quality; this is not a causal experiment.",
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      "source_quality": "first_party_campaign_telemetry",
      "methodology": "Observed reply rates segmented by department.",
      "caveat": "Department results can reflect the mix of offers and industries in the platform dataset.",
      "audited_at": "2026-08-20"
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      "claim_id": "cold-email-statistics-2026-016",
      "slug": "cold-email-statistics-2026",
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      "source_title": "Cold Email Statistics 2026 from 2M+ Real Emails",
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      "methodology": "Positive-reply share segmented by contact seniority.",
      "caveat": "Positive-reply share is conditional on receiving a reply and is not a send-to-positive rate.",
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      "source_title": "Cold Email Statistics 2026 from 2M+ Real Emails",
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      "caveat": "The result is conditional on replies and may reflect different offers, industries and targeting.",
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      "source_title": "Cold Email Statistics 2026 from 2M+ Real Emails",
      "source_quality": "first_party_campaign_telemetry",
      "methodology": "Observed positive-reply share segmented by classified email tone.",
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      "source_title": "Cold Email Statistics 2026 from 2M+ Real Emails",
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      "claim": "Sales.co reports a 9.47% positive-reply share for emails structured as value proposition, trust and then call to action.",
      "source_domain": "sales.co",
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      "source_title": "Cold Email Statistics 2026 from 2M+ Real Emails",
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      "caveat": "The structure label is vendor-defined and correlated with copy quality and targeting.",
      "audited_at": "2026-08-20"
    },
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      "claim_id": "cold-email-statistics-2026-021",
      "slug": "cold-email-statistics-2026",
      "metric_category": "message_design",
      "claim": "Sales.co reports a 30.05% positive-reply share for the CTA 'Want to see it in action?' and 8.59% for 'Mind if I send more info?'.",
      "source_domain": "sales.co",
      "source_url": "https://sales.co/research/cold-email-statistics",
      "source_title": "Cold Email Statistics 2026 from 2M+ Real Emails",
      "source_quality": "first_party_campaign_telemetry",
      "methodology": "Observed positive-reply share segmented by CTA wording.",
      "caveat": "CTA results can reflect the surrounding offer, audience and copy rather than wording alone.",
      "audited_at": "2026-08-20"
    },
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      "claim_id": "cold-email-statistics-2026-022",
      "slug": "cold-email-statistics-2026",
      "metric_category": "send_timing",
      "claim": "Sales.co reports Monday had the highest reply rate at 1.96%, while Thursday had the highest positive-reply share at 10.5%.",
      "source_domain": "sales.co",
      "source_url": "https://sales.co/research/cold-email-statistics",
      "source_title": "Cold Email Statistics 2026 from 2M+ Real Emails",
      "source_quality": "first_party_campaign_telemetry",
      "methodology": "Observed send-day comparison in the platform campaign dataset.",
      "caveat": "Timezone, industry and sequence scheduling can change day-of-week performance.",
      "audited_at": "2026-08-20"
    },
    {
      "claim_id": "cold-email-statistics-2026-023",
      "slug": "cold-email-statistics-2026",
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      "claim": "Sales.co says its analysis covers more than 2 million cold emails across 161 campaigns, 2.5 million enriched contacts and 61,770 classified replies.",
      "source_domain": "sales.co",
      "source_url": "https://sales.co/research/cold-email-statistics",
      "source_title": "Cold Email Statistics 2026 from 2M+ Real Emails",
      "source_quality": "first_party_campaign_telemetry",
      "methodology": "Methodology statement published with the Sales.co 2026 report.",
      "caveat": "Specific charts can use narrower subsets, including the 1,369,823-contact funnel. Editorial clarification October 3, 2026: the report-level 61,770 classified replies and the contact funnel's 28,632 replies are not established as the same cohort. Do not apply the 14.1% classified-reply share to that funnel or compare it directly with 8,737 / 1,369,823 (about 0.64%) as if the denominators matched. No new source acquisition.",
      "audited_at": "2026-08-20"
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  ]
}