Report · 30 min read

State of Outbound 2026

Cognism Free Intermediate

Settles the LinkedIn versus email versus phone argument with one team's real logs: 451,895 calls, 149,376 emails, 39,679 booked meetings, and the exact channel split behind them. Rare to see a vendor publish its own SDR numbers this openly.

  • Across 449,933 SDR calls the answered rate was 13.3 percent, nearly matching AEs calling warm at 14.4 percent.
  • Email replies split hard by role: AEs at 28.38 percent versus SDRs at 8.98 percent, against a ~5 percent industry average.
  • 196,470 prospects produced 39,679 meetings, a 16.06 percent conversion with an 85.94 percent held rate and 3.36 touches each.
  • Activity mix was 57 percent calls, 27 percent LinkedIn, 15 percent email.
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It answers 2 questions

  1. Is LinkedIn a real outbound channel or just noise? Should I be using it alongside cold email?
  2. Signal-based selling replaced spray and pray. What does the best version of it actually look like?

Read with it

  1. The mechanical walkthrough: search filters, what Sales Navigator adds over the free version, how to read a profile before you... HubSpot Article · 18 min read LinkedIn for Social Selling: How to Research, Prospect, & Sell on Platform Justina Thompson
  2. The readable version of the report above, with the 55 percent phone, 30 percent LinkedIn, 15 percent email activity ratio... Cognism Article · 14 min read 5 Steps to a Winning Outbound Strategy in 2026 Sam Gocher
  3. The clearest short statement of what changed: from ABM owned by marketing to account-based everything driven by shared signals,... Pocus Article · 12 min read The new account-based playbook with Kyle Poyar (Growth Unhinged) Kyle Poyar
  4. The build order, stage by stage: TAM and stakeholder mapping, account research, CRM cleanup and enrichment, then signal... Growth Unhinged Newsletter · 20 min read How to build a modern ABM engine Dan Rosenthal
  5. Video · 57 min 56 Minutes of LinkedIn SOCIAL SELLING Secrets that Actually Work lemlist
  6. Video · 43 min Matzen Shirley: LinkedIn Signal-based Outbound Matzen Shirley
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