The numbers
| Measure | COOs | Dataset average | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Prospects contacted | 12,400 | – | – |
| Reply rate | 29.7% | 32.3% | 11th of 14 |
| Meeting rate | 4.2% | 4.7% | 10th of 14 |
| Average deal size | €22,600 | €39,006 | 13th of 14 |
| Pipeline per 1,000 prospects | €949,000 | – | 14th of 14 |
Reply rate is 2.6 points below the dataset average and meeting rate is 0.5 points below it.
What the data says about this persona
COOs reply at 29.7 percent and book at 4.2 percent, with the lowest pipeline value per thousand prospects of any persona except procurement, at €949,000. That is driven by a €22,600 average deal, second lowest in the dataset, which reflects where COOs actually sit: mostly at smaller companies, where the title covers everything the founder does not.
They appeared in the voice note test alongside founders, at 10 to 50 employee companies. Adding a voice note at step two took reply rate from 30.7 to 33.7 percent and meeting rate from 4.1 to 5.0 percent. Small, cheap, and it worked specifically at this size band where the person listening is the person deciding.
The useful framing for a COO is time and headcount, not capability. They are measured on whether the business runs, not on whether it runs with the best tools, and messages that lead on capability get read as someone else’s problem.
What to put in the message
A process you think is manual. A headcount cost. One question about how it works today.
What to leave out
Strategy language. Also avoid anything that requires them to convene other people to evaluate.
The format itself does not change by persona. Across every segment we tested, the winning first message was two and a half sentences, ended in a question, named something of theirs, said nothing about us and landed between 240 and 420 characters. That version replied at 44.5% against 18.6% for the same message with solution detail added.
Method
Figures for this persona come from 12,400 prospects inside a wider dataset of 389,890 prospects and 15,018 meetings, run for 17 clients across 41 programmes between 2018 and 2026. Prospects were split at random inside each client account, so industry, geography, seniority and company size are held constant on both sides of every controlled test. Meetings are counted at the point one was accepted in the client’s calendar; we do not track what happens after that.
Full method, all fifteen tests and the breakdowns by company size and region are on the 2026 outbound benchmarks page.
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Cite this page as: Prospectio.ai, Outbound benchmarks for COOs, 12,400 prospects, 2018 to 2026.