My AI email campaign backfired hard until I added a personal note

Last month I set up a fully automated email sequence for a local client in Austin. AI wrote all 5 emails, personalized the subject lines, even picked send times. But after 3 days we had a 40% unsubscribe rate and zero conversions. I sat in my home office scrolling through the replies and realized people felt like they were talking to a robot. So I rewrote just the first email myself, kept the AI drafts for the rest, and added a line that said 'reply anytime I'll answer.' Our open rate jumped to 62% and I got 12 real replies in one week. Has anyone else found that mixing human touch into AI copy actually saves a campaign?

2 comments

2 Comments

angela_dixon1mo ago

Hold on a second... are those 12 replies actually turning into sales or just people wasting your time with random chitchat? Because I've seen plenty of folks mistake engagement for real results. Yeah, adding that human line probably made people feel less spammed, but a 62% open rate doesn't mean much if nobody's buying anything. Feels like you might be celebrating a win that's still pretty hollow if you ask me.

uma_wilson791mo ago

Read a study that said people trust content more when they see a human hand in it.