Connection
A call recorded as connected with the prospect or target account under Konsyg's campaign reporting methodology. External studies may define call connections differently.
Outbound numbers can look very different depending on where you are selling.
A campaign in the US can behave differently from one in the UK. Europe adds another layer again. Response rates move, conversations move, and meeting quality can move with them.
That is what we wanted to look at more closely.
For this report, Konsyg reviewed results from its own outbound campaigns targeting the United States, United Kingdom and European markets, alongside selected external industry benchmarks for additional context.
We looked at the numbers that actually shape performance: calls made, connections, conversations, email replies, LinkedIn replies, meetings booked, meetings held and qualified opportunities.
The point was not to find one average and call it the benchmark.
It was to see where the numbers change, which patterns keep showing up, and what those differences tell us about running outbound in 2026.
Some of the findings are straightforward. Others are not.
And in a few places, the numbers challenge some of the assumptions sales teams still make about volume, meetings and what “good performance” really looks like.
About the Data
The data in this report comes from Konsyg outbound campaigns targeting the US, UK and European markets.
The campaigns cover different industries, company sizes and buyer roles, with outreach running across cold calling, email, LinkedIn and combinations of all three.
We looked at the numbers available across these campaigns, including calls, connections, conversations, replies, meetings booked, meetings held and qualified opportunities.
Not every campaign tracks the same metrics, so the sample changes depending on what we are measuring. We only compare campaign data where the numbers and definitions are consistent enough to make the comparison useful.
You will also see individual campaign examples throughout the report. These are there to give the numbers context. We do not use the result of one strong campaign as the benchmark for every campaign Konsyg runs.
Where we refer to a Konsyg benchmark, it is based on comparable results across multiple campaigns.
How We Define the Metrics
Response
A recorded response to outbound outreach
Interest
A response where the prospect showed interest in continuing the conversation
Meeting Booked
A meeting scheduled through outbound activity
Meeting Held
A booked meeting that actually took place
Qualified Opportunity
A sales conversation that met the campaign's qualification criteria and could progress further
These definitions matter when comparing different datasets because outbound studies do not always measure connections, responses and opportunities in exactly the same way.
2026 B2B Outbound Benchmarks at a Glance
These are the main findings from the Konsyg campaign data analysed in this report.
Calls analyzed
56,604
Emails analyzed
87,015
Observed connection rate
42.1%
Observed email response rate
7.0%
Observed interest rate
1.7%
Qualified appointments across three published programs
146
Observed cost per sales opportunity
$460–$520
Averages tell only part of the story.
Individual campaigns can perform above or below these figures, which is why the sections below also look at campaign context and observed ranges.
B2B Cold Calling Benchmarks 2026: Connection Rates
Across the Konsyg campaigns included in this analysis, 56,604 calls generated 23,849 recorded connections.
That puts the observed connection rate at 42.1%.
But the average hides a wide spread.
In one Konsyg campaign targeting the US, UK, EU and APAC, 10,864 calls generated 6,416 connections. That works out to 59.1%.
Another campaign recorded 9,645 calls and 2,746 connections, for a connection rate of 28.5%.
Calls analyzed
56,604
Connections
23,849
Observed connection rate
42.1%
Example campaign, higher observed rate
59.1%
Example campaign, lower observed rate
28.5%
External Industry Benchmark
Belkins analysed more than 175,000 cold calls and reported a 9.9% connection rate per dial in its 2026 study.
Konsyg’s observed rate across the campaign sample was 42.1%.
That is a large difference, but you shouldn’t treat the two numbers as a direct vendor comparison. The datasets cover different campaigns and use different reporting definitions.
What matters is what the comparison tells us.
A connection rate is not fixed across B2B outbound. Konsyg’s own campaigns moved from below 30% to almost 60%.
Who you call, where you call, and the quality of the underlying data can change the result considerably.
Campaign Snapshot
The 59.1% connection rate did not come from a small calling test.
The campaign included 10,864 calls, with 6,416 recorded connections, alongside email and LinkedIn outreach across multiple markets.
That gives us a useful example of what cold calling can look like when it is part of a larger outbound program rather than treated as an isolated activity.
See how Konsyg approaches B2B cold calling across different markets and buyer groups.
The next question is harder:
Once someone responds, how often are they actually interested?
B2B Cold Email Benchmarks 2026: Response vs Interest
Email can produce plenty of activity without producing the same level of buying interest.
Across the comparable Konsyg campaigns in this analysis, 87,015 emails generated 6,099 responses.
That gives an observed response rate of 7.0%.
But replies are only part of the picture.
Across campaigns with comparable interest data, the observed interest rate was about 1.7%.
Emails analyzed
87,015
Responses recorded
6,099
Observed response rate
7.0%
Observed interest rate
1.7%
The gap between 7.0% responding and 1.7% showing interest is important.
Someone replying to an outbound email does not necessarily mean the message created a sales opportunity. Replies can include referrals, objections, timing issues, requests to unsubscribe and simple noes.
That is why reply rate alone can make an email campaign look healthier than it really is.
External Industry Benchmark
Against that context, Konsyg’s observed 7.0% response rate sits above the 5.8% reported across the Belkins dataset.
The comparison is useful, but the more important Konsyg finding is what happens after the reply.
7.0% responded. Only 1.7% showed interest.
That gap is one of the clearest findings in the Konsyg email data. A response shows the outreach generated a reaction. Interest tells us whether that reaction could become a sales conversation.
Campaign Snapshot
One published Konsyg campaign recorded 16,991 emails, 762 responses and 106 interested leads.
It is a good example of why these two metrics need to stay separate.
A campaign can get people to answer.
The harder job is getting the right people interested enough to keep the conversation going.
What Changes When Outbound Uses More Than One Channel?
Email, calling, and LinkedIn are often reported separately. In practice, prospects may encounter more than one before responding.
That makes multichannel performance harder to attribute, but important to measure.
An analysis of 2.1 million outbound touches across 480 B2B teams found a 1.4% reply rate for cold email only. Adding a LinkedIn connection increased the reported reply rate to 3.2%, while sequences using email, LinkedIn messaging and a voice note reached 4.8%.
Konsyg’s campaign data also includes programs that used channels together.
One campaign combined 16,991 emails and 2,000 calls. Another international campaign included 10,864 calls alongside email and LinkedIn outreach.
We are not assigning a multichannel uplift to Konsyg’s campaigns because the available campaign records do not consistently attribute each conversion to the individual touches that came before it.
That distinction is worth keeping.
The data supports using multiple channels across these campaigns. It does not support claiming that adding LinkedIn, for example, increased Konsyg’s results by a fixed percentage.
For that, we would need consistent channel-level attribution across the campaign sample.
US, UK and Europe B2B Outbound Benchmarks
Regional results are only presented as benchmarks where the underlying campaign data can be attributed to that market. Multinational campaigns are identified separately.
This is where the campaign data gets more interesting.
Konsyg runs outbound across the US, UK, and European markets, and the differences aren’t limited to response rates. Target market size, buyer roles, local business culture, available contact data, and how accounts are approached can all change what a campaign looks like.
That makes regional context important when reading any outbound benchmark.
United States
The US gives outbound teams a large addressable market, but that does not automatically make prospecting easier.
Konsyg’s US campaigns show why targeting still matters at scale. More accounts can mean more room to test industries, company sizes and buyer roles, but it can also create more room for poor-fit accounts to enter the list.
In one multinational campaign that included the US alongside the UK, EU and APAC, Konsyg recorded 10,864 calls and 6,416 connections, producing an overall 59.1% connection rate.
Because this was a multinational campaign, the 59.1% figure should not be interpreted as a US-only benchmark.
This shows the level of connection possible within an international program that included the US.
United Kingdom
The UK gives us a different reference point.
In external UK outbound data covering 2.1 million touches, email-only outreach produced a 1.4% reply rate, rising to 3.2% when LinkedIn connections were added and 4.8% when email, LinkedIn messaging and voice notes were combined.
That reinforces something we also see in the Konsyg campaign mix: UK outbound should not be judged from email performance alone.
For the final regional benchmark, we separate UK campaign results where the underlying Konsyg data can be attributed specifically to the UK rather than using a global campaign and calling it a UK result.
Europe
Europe is the region where broad averages become particularly difficult to use.
Germany, the Netherlands, France and the Nordics should not be treated as one outbound market simply because they sit under the same regional label.
Language, market size, buyer expectations and local outreach practices can change between countries.
For that reason, this report shows European numbers at the country level where the campaign data supports it. We use a wider European figure only where combining the campaigns produces a meaningful comparison.
For companies building outbound across the region, see Konsyg’s B2B sales development in Europe.
What We Can Say From the Regional Data
The data does not support a simple claim that one of these regions is “best” for outbound.
It supports something more useful.
The benchmark needs a market attached to it.
A 5% response rate in one market cannot automatically be used to diagnose a campaign running somewhere else.
That is why the remaining benchmarks in this report keep the regional context wherever the sample allows it.
B2B Appointment Setting Benchmarks: Booked vs Held
Meetings booked are usually the number everyone watches.
But there is a big difference between a meeting appearing on the calendar and that meeting actually happening.
That is why Konsyg looks at meetings booked and meetings held separately.
A campaign that books 40 meetings and holds 36 is behaving very differently from one that books 40 and holds 22. The top-line number is identical. The result is not.
Show rate helps expose that difference.
Show rate = meetings held ÷ meetings booked
That’s where the reasons behind the number start to matter.
A lower show rate can point to meetings being booked too far in advance, weak confirmation and reminder processes, poor qualification, or a prospect agreeing to a meeting without enough reason to prioritise it.
A strong show rate tells us something different. The meeting was not simply booked. The prospect still saw enough value to attend when the day arrived.
The Benchmark We Would Watch
For this report, we treat show rate as its own benchmark rather than folding it into total meetings generated.
That gives sales teams two numbers to compare:
How many meetings did outbound create?
How many of those conversations actually happened?
The distinction becomes even more important in the next stage.
Because a held meeting can still be a poor meeting.
The stronger test is how many of those conversations become qualified sales opportunities.
The Number After the Meeting Matters More
A meeting can happen and still go nowhere.
The company may not fit the ICP. The person on the call may not own the problem. Or there may simply be no realistic next step.
That is why meeting volume needs another number beside it: qualified opportunities.
Konsyg’s published appointment-setting results give us a useful comparison.
Program 1
56
$520
Program 2
48
$460
Program 3
42
$480
Combined
146
$460–$520 observed range
146 qualified appointments across three published programs
Across these three programs, the reported cost per sales opportunity remained within an observed range of $460 to $520.
That gives us a more useful way to judge outbound performance.
A campaign should not only be measured by how many meetings reach the calendar. We also need to know how many of those meetings were worth putting in front of Sales.
For teams comparing their own numbers with this report, meetings booked, meetings held and qualified opportunities should remain separate measures.
Otherwise, a campaign can look healthy at the meeting level while the problem only becomes visible after handoff.
Industry and Seniority Change the Benchmark
The same outreach numbers should not be expected across every audience.
Konsyg’s campaign work covers sectors including SaaS, cybersecurity, manufacturing, professional services and technology, with outreach reaching different levels of the buying organisation.
The person being contacted can change the numbers as much as the industry itself.
Senior executives are harder to reach at volume, but reaching fewer people does not automatically mean the campaign is performing poorly. Fewer conversations with the right decision-makers can be more valuable than a higher response rate from contacts with little influence over the purchase.
That is why we would not compare these campaigns on reply rate alone.
C-suite and senior leadership
Access, conversation quality and qualified meetings
VP and Director level
Response, problem ownership and meeting conversion
Managers and operational buyers
Response volume, influence and qualification
SaaS and technology
ICP fit, competition and buyer relevance
Cybersecurity
Seniority, technical relevance and problem ownership
Manufacturing and industrial
Account selection, buying roles and sales cycle
The practical point is simple.
If two campaigns target different industries or seniority levels, comparing reply rates without that context can give the wrong impression.
The benchmark becomes more useful when you know who was contacted and what role that person plays in the buying decision.
When You Reach Out Changes the Result
Timing is one of the easiest parts of outbound to overlook.
The account can be right. The buyer can be right. The message can be relevant. But the first attempt can still arrive when that person has no reason or time to respond.
That is why one unanswered email or missed call tells us very little.
Large outbound datasets show the effect of follow-up clearly. In its analysis of more than 175,000 cold calls, Belkins found that the first call attempt produced a 7.6% contact rate. By the third attempt, the cumulative contact rate had reached 13.3%.
The improvement continued with additional attempts, but more slowly.
That is the useful part of the benchmark.
The first attempt doesn’t give you the full answer, but more attempts don’t produce the same return forever.
What Konsyg Watches
Repeated missed calls
Test another time before changing the account
Email opens without replies
Revisit the reason to respond, not just the subject line
Replies after follow-up
The first message may have arrived too early
LinkedIn engagement after email
The account may need another point of recognition
No engagement across channels
Recheck the contact, account fit and reason for outreach
Across Konsyg campaigns, timing is read alongside the response itself.
The goal is not to keep adding touches until someone answers.
It is to give a relevant prospect more than one reasonable opportunity to engage, then know when the data is telling you to move on.
For Konsyg, that distinction matters more than chasing a universal “best time to send.”
What Konsyg’s 2026 Data Tells Us
After looking across the campaigns in this report, five findings stand out.
- Connection rates can move significantly between campaigns
Across the comparable calling sample, Konsyg recorded an observed connection rate of 42.1%.
But individual campaign results ranged much wider. One international campaign reached 59.1%, while another recorded approximately 28.5%.
That variation is too wide to judge every cold calling campaign against one universal number.
- Replies and interest need to stay separate
Across the comparable email sample, the observed response rate was 7.0%, while the observed interest rate was approximately 1.7%.
That gap is important.
A higher reply rate can look good in a report, but replies only become commercially useful when the right prospects want to continue the conversation.
- More activity does not fix every problem
The data points us to different places to look, depending on where performance drops.
Low connections point us toward data, targeting and calling conditions.
Responses without enough interest point to the audience, offer, and message.
Meetings that do not progress point us toward qualification and account fit.
Simply increasing activity can make any of those problems bigger without fixing them.
- Meetings need a second number beside them
Konsyg’s published results across three appointment-setting programs included 146 qualified appointments, with reported cost per sales opportunity ranging from $460 to $520.
That is why this report separates meetings from qualified opportunities.
The calendar tells us how much conversation outbound created.
Qualification tells us how much of that conversation Sales could actually use.
- Context belongs beside the benchmark
A response rate without the market, channel, industry or buyer behind it can only tell us so much.
The Konsyg campaigns reviewed here span different markets and audiences, and the variation between them is part of the finding.
For 2026, the useful question is not simply: “Are we above or below the average?” It is: “Are we comparing our campaign with the right benchmark?”
B2B Outbound Benchmarks 2026: Reference Table
For a quick reference, these are the main figures from the Konsyg campaign data analysed in this report.
Calls analyzed
56,604
Total calling sample
Connections recorded
23,849
How often calls reach a prospect
Observed connection rate
42.1%
Calls to recorded connections
Observed campaign range
28.5% to 59.1%
How widely connection performance can move
Emails analyzed
87,015
Comparable email sample
Responses recorded
6,099
Total responses generated
Observed email response rate
7.0%
How often outbound email receives a response
Observed interest rate
1.7%
How often outreach produces recorded interest
Qualified appointments across 3 published programs
146
Qualified outcomes, not calendar volume alone
Cost per sales opportunity
$460 to $520
Observed range across the three programs
External Industry Benchmarks
Konsyg’s dataset is smaller than some large industry studies. That is useful context rather than something to hide.
Belkins’ cold calling research analysed more than 175,000 calls and reported a 9.9% connection rate per dial.
Its cold email research analysed 16.5 million emails and reported an average 5.8% reply rate.
Konsyg’s comparable campaign sample recorded a 42.1% connection rate and 7.0% email response rate.
The methodologies are not identical, so these figures should not be read as a direct vendor ranking.
They do give sales teams two useful reference points: a large external dataset and the results Konsyg is observing while running B2B outbound campaigns across multiple markets.
Most importantly, the Konsyg data goes beyond the first response.
The 1.7% observed interest rate, the 146 qualified appointments, and the $460 to $520 cost per sales opportunity show why you should never read the top-of-funnel number alone.
What These Benchmarks Mean for Your Outbound
The numbers in this report give sales teams something to compare against, but they are not targets every campaign should be forced to hit.
A 42.1% connection rate tells you what Konsyg observed across the calling sample. A 7.0% email response rate gives you another reference point. Neither tells you whether your own campaign is working without looking at the market, audience and what happens after the response.
That is where the deeper numbers become useful.
Are prospects answering but showing little interest?
Are meetings being booked but not held?
Are meetings happening without becoming qualified opportunities?
Those gaps tell you much more about what needs to change than activity volume alone.
For Konsyg, that is the bigger takeaway from the 2026 data.
Benchmark the result, but diagnose the gap.
If you want to compare your current outbound performance with what Konsyg is seeing across active B2B campaigns, explore our approach to B2B lead generation or book a conversation with the Konsyg team.
Methodology note: This report is based on Konsyg campaign records and published campaign results available for analysis in 2026. Sample sizes vary by metric because not every campaign records each stage using an identical methodology. External datasets are included for context and should not be interpreted as direct vendor-to-vendor performance comparisons.
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