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Women often do not reply on dating apps because of volume: a woman on a busy app can receive more messages in a day than anyone could answer, so the default outcome is silence. The question is not 'why was I ignored' but 'what would have made mine answerable'.
The messages that get answered have one thing in common: they are easy to reply to. They reference something specific from the profile and end somewhere a one-line answer fits.
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A reaction to something only her profile could have produced. The dog, the bookshelf, the fact that she named a specific taco truck. It proves you read it, which is rarer than it should be and therefore worth a lot.
A light disagreement works unusually well. Not an argument - a mild, funny objection to a stated opinion. It is interesting and it is easy to answer.
Some examples of the difference. Instead of 'you are gorgeous', try 'Your second photo has a very serious-looking cat in it - is he always that judgmental?' Instead of 'hey, how is your week', try 'You said the best pizza in town is not the one everyone thinks - I need the name, and I need to know whether I will agree.' Both are specific, light, and answerable in one line.
Ending on a question helps, but only a real one. 'What about you?' tacked onto a long message about yourself is technically a question and still hard to answer.
'Hey', 'hi', 'how are you' - answerable but pointless, so they sit in the queue behind messages that are worth answering. They also give her nothing to build a reply on.
Compliments on her appearance. She has had many, they carry no information, and they often read as the opening of a conversation she has had before and did not enjoy.
Anything sexual in a first message. This ends the conversation and increasingly ends the account.
A copy-pasted opener. They are recognizable, and women compare notes more than men expect.
Long first messages struggle too. A full paragraph about yourself asks her to read and respond to a lot before she knows whether she is interested, and that is a big ask in a full inbox.
If almost nobody replies, the opener is usually not the whole story. Matching on a photo and then losing the conversation before it starts often means the profile promised something the second look did not support - a lead photo much stronger than the rest, or a bio that says nothing to reply to.
That is fixable and it is worth fixing first, because it affects every conversation rather than the next one. A better opener only helps once the profile behind it holds up.
Check the basics honestly. Is your lead photo much better than the others? Does your bio give her something to say, like a specific hobby, place, or opinion? Is there at least one photo that shows your face clearly without sunglasses? A profile that answers 'who is this and what would we talk about' makes your opener land better before she reads a word of it.
Getting a first reply and then losing the conversation is a different problem. Common causes are interview-style questioning, answering her one-line replies with long messages, or letting the chat run for days without suggesting a meeting.
Keep your replies roughly the length of hers, share something about yourself alongside each question, and after a few good exchanges propose something simple and specific, like a coffee on a named day. A clear plan gives the conversation somewhere to go.
Plenty of non-replies have nothing to do with your message. She may already be talking to someone else, may open the app rarely, may have stepped away from dating for a while, or may simply not have been that interested after a second look. None of that is visible from your side, and a single unanswered message tells you almost nothing.
Do not follow up an unanswered opener by asking why she did not reply. It turns a neutral silence into an uncomfortable one and does not change the outcome.
Change one thing - usually the style of your opener - and use it across your next fifteen or twenty matches before judging it. Replies swing a lot from week to week, so a handful of messages either way does not prove much. Keep a rough count of how many openers got a reply before and after, and keep whatever moves the number.