How many touches a sales cadence should have, and how to build one

A sales cadence is a planned run of calls, emails and messages to one prospect, each on a set day, with a clear end. Sequence means the same thing in most teams. A two-week cadence simply spreads its touches over 14 days.

Without a plan, the second call happens when someone remembers. With a cadence, the next step is decided before the first one goes out.

Start with 6 to 8 touches over two or three weeks, closer together at the start, and stop the moment someone replies, books or asks you to stop. If a touch calls or texts a Singapore number to market something, the Do Not Call rules below come first.

As of November 2026.

1. Write down who it's for, because cold names need something different from people who filled in a form.
2. Choose the channels your prospects answer. For most business buyers that means phone and email, with LinkedIn if yours use it and WhatsApp or text where it's normal and allowed.
3. Set the touches and the length. Try 6 to 8 touches over two to three weeks as a first test, and let your own replies tell you where to cut.
4. Put the touches closer together at the start: two or three in the first week, then spread the rest out.
5. Make each touch add something. "Just following up" gives nobody a reason to answer. Bring a question, a short example from a similar customer, or a time that suits them.
6. Plan the exit. The last touch says you'll stop there, and you do. Anyone who replies, books or asks to stop leaves the cadence that day.

The days and touches below are starting points, not measured results. Change them once you've seen which touches get replies.

For a cold prospect: 8 touches over 14 days.

For someone who asked you to get in touch: 7 touches over 7 days.

For a prospect who went quiet after a meeting: 4 touches over 21 days.

Work it out from the time the touches take. These numbers are made up to show the sums.

Say a rep has 2 hours a day for outreach, which is 600 minutes a week over five days. The cold cadence has 4 calls and 4 written touches. If a call takes about 3 minutes with notes and a written touch about 2, one prospect costs 4 x 3 + 4 x 2 = 20 minutes.

So 600 / 20 = 30 new prospects a week. Prospects who reply early drop out and give time back. To start more than 30, you need more outreach time or fewer touches.

Count replies by touch number. Give it 8 weeks before you trust the pattern. Here's a made-up example for 200 prospects on a 7-touch cadence:

Touch 7 has produced nothing and touch 6 one reply, so this cadence could end at touch 5. That's 21 replies and 7.5 meetings per 100 prospects started. Those two numbers tell you whether a change helped.

This summarises the rules from the Personal Data Protection Commission (PDPC) and the Personal Data Protection Act. It isn't legal advice.

• Before you send a marketing message to a Singapore number, you need valid confirmation that the number isn't on the Do Not Call Registry, and PDPC says results "are valid for 21 days from the date the check was conducted".
• The rules cover voice calls, SMS and data apps. PDPC names WhatsApp, iMessage and Viber where they use a Singapore number.
• You don't need the check if the person gave clear and unambiguous consent, kept in written or another form you can refer back to. PDPC says consent is unlikely to come from "a mere failure to opt out".
• A message asking for that consent counts as a marketing message itself.
• The message must say who sent it and how to reach them, and those details must be reasonably likely to stay valid for at least 30 days.
• A marketing call must not hide the caller's number.
• If someone withdraws their consent, you have 21 days from their notice to stop.
• Replying to someone's own request for information about a product generally isn't a marketing message, if that's the reply's sole purpose. Later touches that promote something are a different matter, so check them.
• Messages from one company to another, for the receiving company's own purposes, are excluded. A message to someone acting in a personal capacity isn't.

A company or a sole practitioner can run the check through PDPC's own service, and each main account gets 1,000 free credits a year. Email isn't covered on this page, so ask whoever owns compliance where you work.

• One cadence for everyone. Someone who asked for a call gets the same slow drip as a cold name.
• "Just checking in." A touch with nothing new gives nobody a reason to reply.
• No exit, so a prospect gets touch 9, 10 and 11.
• Carrying on after a reply. A "yes, let's talk" followed by an automated nudge loses trust.
• Counting touches sent instead of replies and meetings.
• Skipping the registry check because the message went by WhatsApp.

Palby Sales Tracker doesn't run a cadence or hold its dates. It shows you whether the work is happening. Each call and meeting is one tap on the rep's phone, and you can rename the tiles to your team's words, so Calls, Emails and Meetings each get a count on the board. You can export the activity feed to CSV and set it beside your replies by touch.

• PDPC, Advisory Guidelines on the Do Not Call Provisions, revised 1 February 2021, pdpc.gov.sg, read 2 November 2026
• PDPC, Check numbers against the Do Not Call Registry, pdpc.gov.sg, read 2 November 2026
• Personal Data Protection Act 2012, Part 9, Singapore Statutes Online, read 2 November 2026