How to find your niche with a niche test

Start from one of Otto's 18 ready-made campaigns, or test two to six of them side by side in the same area to see which kind of business replies interested most. Otto names a winner only when the numbers say so.

Updated 2026-10-31

Which kind of business wants what you sell most? A niche test answers it with real replies, not guesses. It runs two to six cold campaigns side by side, one per ready-made campaign, all in the same area, and compares how many people replied interested in each.

Cold campaigns, and so niche tests, work only when cold campaigns are switched on for your Otto server. Only an owner or admin can make one. To learn how a single cold campaign works first, see how to run a cold email campaign.

Ready-made campaigns

Each ready-made campaign is a whole outbound plan for one kind of seller:

Who to reach, already filled in as a search for Find businesses: the kind of business, who to write to there, and sometimes a buying signal that says "now", such as hiring, a dated website, or opened recently.
The offer, in plain words for you to change to yours.
How the emails should read.
A second angle, so every campaign starts as a test of two versions. Otto writes version A one way and version B the other way, and the campaign shows replies for each.
The sequence: email 1 and two follow-ups, all sent by Otto.

The offers have no prices or numbers in them on purpose. Otto never writes a number that isn't in your offer or on the business's own website, so add your own if you want them.

For a business selling to local businesses (10):

AI receptionist for trades: plumbers, roofers, HVAC
Website redesign: local businesses with dated sites
Paid ads management: businesses already running ads
Local SEO: service businesses
Managed IT for offices: offices with 8 or more people
Bookkeeping and tax: small businesses
Recruiting for growing teams: businesses that are hiring
Software for field service: trades still on paper
Commercial cleaning: offices and restaurants with staff
Business insurance: businesses that just opened

For an outbound or automation agency finding its own clients (4): staffing firms, web designers, marketing agencies and IT firms. Each offers done-for-you outbound to that kind of firm. See how to run outbound for your clients.

To use one in a single campaign, open a draft campaign and pick it from Start from a ready-made campaign. It replaces the offer, the guide and the emails, and fills in the search. Nothing is found, kept or sent by picking one.

Run a niche test

On the Cold email page, open Find your niche and start a new one.
Give it a name, pick two to six ready-made campaigns to compare, type the area, such as Austin, TX, and the size: how many businesses each campaign should have (200 to start; 20 to 2,000).
Otto makes one draft campaign for each, named after the test and the ready-made campaign. They are ordinary campaigns: open any of them to change the offer, the sending addresses or the options before it starts.
Press Find businesses for all. Otto looks for businesses for every campaign in the test that is still in draft, one campaign after another, up to 50 for each campaign each time you press it. What it finds is a free preview, as in any campaign: nothing is kept and nothing is spent. There is a limit each day on how many businesses Otto finds for you, and a test counts all its campaigns together.
Press Keep confirmed for all. Otto keeps the confirmed mailboxes found for every campaign still in draft, up to the test's size in each campaign, one from each campaign in turn. Keeping is free; each email delivered costs one credit. Catch-alls and unconfirmed addresses stay as previews in each campaign for you to decide.
Before you start, try a practice run of any of them.
Ask to start each campaign. Every campaign still needs its own approval in Reviews; the test approves nothing and sends nothing.

Read the results

For each campaign the test shows how many businesses were written to, replied, replied interested, and booked a meeting. A meeting counts when you mark a reply as a meeting booked or won under What came of it (see how to answer replies to cold emails).

The test compares the interested rate: people who replied interested, out of businesses written to. Beside each rate is its 95% range, the span the real rate most likely sits in. With few businesses the range is wide, and two campaigns whose ranges overlap may not differ at all.

At the top, the test gives its verdict:

Until every campaign has started: "Find and keep businesses for each campaign, then ask to start them."
Once they run, and until there is a clear winner: "Too early to call". Otto waits until every campaign has written to at least 50 businesses, and until one campaign's interested rate is ahead of every other by more than chance (a standard test, at 95%).
Then it names that campaign: it gets more interested replies than every other, by more than chance. That is your niche.

Small tests often stay "too early to call". That is the honest answer: a lead of one or two interested replies is luck as often as it is a niche. A winner only means more people said yes to that whole plan, in that area. It compares offers as well as kinds of business, unless you gave every campaign the same offer.

Share the results

You can share a niche test's results as a read-only page: its verdict, and for each campaign how many were written to, interested and booked a meeting, with the interested rate and its range. It never shows anyone's messages. See how to run outbound for your clients for how report links work.

Remove a test

Removing a niche test removes only the side-by-side view. Its campaigns stay, as ordinary campaigns, and anything already approved keeps sending.

If it doesn't work

"Pick 2 to 6 ready-made campaigns to compare." — tick at least two, and no more than six.
"Every campaign in this test is already looking, or has started." — finding works only for campaigns still in draft. Wait for the search that is running.
"That would find more than … businesses today." — ask for fewer each, or try tomorrow.
"Finding businesses is not setup on this server yet." — import a CSV into each campaign instead.
"Cold campaigns are not switched on for this server." — nothing can be made or sent until they are.