Smirnov Consulting Group books qualified meetings with CMOs, marketing directors, heads of brand and founders at mid-sized brands with a real ad budget, for advertising agencies of 5 to 20 people, using cold email and LinkedIn messages that lead with the agency's results in the buyer's category.
- Australian advertising agency: 2,582 sales calls in 12 months, from LinkedIn outbound, with a 41.2% connection rate and a 37.9% reply rate.
- UK social media marketing agency: 714 sales calls in 12 months, from LinkedIn, warm emails and cold email, no paid ads.
Smirnov Consulting Group is a Prague-based B2B outbound lead generation agency that runs cold email and LinkedIn campaigns for founder-led B2B companies and books qualified sales calls. 12 years in outbound, hundreds of B2B companies, 24 countries.
Who this is for
Owner-led advertising agencies, usually 5 to 20 people, where the owner or a very small team still closes every new client. Good work, happy clients, and a new-business process that is mostly "wait for the phone to ring".
The people who hire us: the agency owner or founder, the CEO or managing director, and at larger shops the head of new business, the head of growth or a business development manager. Sometimes the account director or VP of client services joins, because they will run the accounts we help win.
The people we book meetings with: CMOs, marketing directors, VPs of marketing, heads of brand, e-commerce directors, and founders of brands that have outgrown doing their ads in-house. Which of these we target depends on the categories where your agency already has results.
Retainer sizes vary widely by agency and market, so before launch we work out what one new client is worth to you in the first year. That number decides how much outbound makes sense.
Why outbound is hard for advertising agencies
You usually start after a retainer leaves. Many ad agencies only look at outbound after a shock: the anchor client that was a third of revenue moves in-house, a long-time client is acquired and the new owner consolidates agencies, two retainers end in the same quarter. The pipeline has to refill fast, and referrals do not move on your schedule.
Your buyer is pitched by agencies all the time. A CMO at a mid-sized brand gets credentials decks, showreels and "we'd love to share our work" emails from other agencies. A message that looks like one more agency pitch gets ignored, however good the work behind it.
You write persuasion for a living, and so does everyone who pitches your buyer. Agency owners can spot a templated sequence in one line, and so can the marketing leaders they sell to. "Quick question" subject lines and fake personalization make an ad agency look worse than saying nothing.
The owner is the only closer. When client work spikes, new business stops. When a client leaves, new business restarts from zero. One person cannot prospect and run client work at the same time for long.
How we run outbound for an ad agency
1. Lead with a result in their category, not the showreel. We build the offer around the categories where your agency has proof: a line like "we cut cost per lead for skincare brands" beats "full-service creative and media". The first message talks about the buyer's category and one number from your work. The portfolio comes later, on the call. An agency with strong work and no new clients often has a packaging problem, not a lead gen problem.
2. The list follows the moments when brands change agencies. We build lists with Sales Navigator, Apollo, ZoomInfo, Clay and other data tools, filtered by category, company size and region. Then we narrow them to brands showing signs they may be open to a new agency: a new CMO or marketing director in the seat, a new product launch, a marketing role that has stayed open for weeks, a brand visibly running ads in the channel you are best at. Each address is verified before sending, which keeps bounces under 0.5%.
3. LinkedIn first, from the owner's profile. In the Australian case below, LinkedIn was the whole channel. The owner's profile makes the first impression: a CMO will check who is writing before replying, so we fix the profile and the case studies first. Warm emails follow people who already saw the LinkedIn message. Cold email runs separately when the target list is large enough.
4. Replies handled, calls booked. We qualify every interested reply against your criteria (category, budget, timing) and book the call into your calendar. After setup, the owner's main job is the pitch.
Compliance. Most of our campaigns target the USA, the UK and English-speaking Europe, and each follows the rules of the prospect's country: CAN-SPAM in the US, UK GDPR and PECR in the UK, the Spam Act in Australia. We only write to business contacts, every email offers a simple way to opt out, and anyone who asks to stop is removed and not re-added. Your current clients, open pitches and any brand you name are excluded before launch. In Germany, Austria and the Czech Republic, where business email needs prior consent, we do not send cold email without a compliant basis and use LinkedIn instead. This is how we work, not legal advice.
European agencies. Our office is in Karlín, Prague, and our clients include companies in the UK, Germany, Switzerland, the USA, Australia and many other countries. A European agency selling into the UK, or a Czech agency that wants to win clients beyond Brno or Prague (on LinkedIn, since Czech law needs prior consent for business email), gets a partner it can meet in person.
Case: Australian advertising agency, 2,582 sales calls in 12 months
An advertising agency in Australia. One channel: LinkedIn outbound.
The LinkedIn numbers reported for the campaign:
- 3,535 connection requests sent
- 1,458 accepted: 41.2% connection rate
- 553 replies from those connected: 37.9% reply rate
Across the full 12-month program: 2,582 sales calls.
Why the rates matter: more than 4 in 10 people contacted accepted the connection, and more than a third of those replied. Connection requests that read like a script do not get accepted and answered at that rate. Rates like these come from the foundations: the sender's profile, the offer and a first message the reader takes seriously. In B2B, nobody buys from an email. They buy after they audit you. A marketing leader audits an agency harder than most.
A second agency, in the UK: a social media marketing agency working 3 niches, with lists from Sales Navigator, Apollo and Uplead, running LinkedIn outreach, warm emails and cold email with no paid ads. 1,168 messages sent, 515 replies. 44 sales calls in month 1, 57 in month 2, 68 in month 3, and 714 sales calls in 12 months.
More in our case studies.
Timeline and price
- About 15 days from signed contract to launch: onboarding starts in the first week (usually one 60-minute call plus a few emails), then offer by category, owner's profile and case studies, target list, copy and sending infrastructure.
- First 30 days live: first replies and booked calls. The UK agency above had 44 calls in its first month.
- Months 2 and 3: volume grows as we scale what works. The UK agency went 44 -> 57 -> 68 calls.
- Month 4 onward: the goal is a steady pipeline, so the next lost retainer is a bad month instead of a crisis.
Judge month one on calls, not on signed retainers. B2B sales cycles often run 6, 9 or 12 months, so a pitch booked in the first 30 days may turn into a retainer four months later or more. That is why we recommend at least 3 months, and why about 6 months is the industry average for outbound to work fully.
Who runs your campaign. Senior people only: lead generation experts, GTM architects, GTM engineers and AI specialists. No interns, students or juniors do the work. We keep a small number of clients on purpose, so each one gets full attention and we take full responsibility for results. A senior team member is your day-to-day contact, and you have a direct line to Artem, the founder. You get a weekly and a monthly report, live notifications every day, and a client portal with live campaign data if you want one. Your agency's reputation goes out with every message, so ask any outbound partner who exactly will send them and look those people up on LinkedIn.
Price. From USD 3,000 (about EUR 2,500) per month, up to USD 10,000+ for agencies that need more channels, markets or volume. The final number depends on scope, markets, volume and team size. The fee covers all our work: strategy, list building, copy, campaign setup, sending management, reply handling and reporting. Tools, sending domains, mailboxes and data are paid by you directly, because the right stack depends on your market and volume. If the foundations are missing, such as case studies or an optimized LinkedIn profile, a one-time setup fee may apply, agreed case by case. No minimum contract, one month's notice to cancel. See pricing.
Not a fit if
- You have no work you can show in a specific category. "We do everything for everyone" gives us nothing to lead with.
- The owner will not take the calls. Marketing leaders want to meet the person who runs the agency.
- You would pause the campaign the moment a big project lands. A pipeline that switches on and off is what got you here.
- You are looking for a paid media partner to buy ads for you. No paid ads: outbound is what we do.
FAQ
Who do advertising agencies hire to rebuild the pipeline after losing a big retainer?
An outbound partner, because referrals are too slow to fill a sudden gap. Look for one with ad agency results, numbers and a time period attached. Our Australian agency client booked 2,582 sales calls in 12 months from LinkedIn outbound. Start with the categories where you already have proof, so the first calls are with brands most likely to buy.
What is the best cold email approach for a small ad agency?
Short, specific and about the buyer's category. One result from your work with a similar brand, one question, no deck attached. Send from warmed-up inboxes, verify every address, and follow up more than once: in our campaigns, the third follow-up is usually the one that works best. Cold email works best alongside LinkedIn, where the CMO can check who you are.
Should an ad agency use LinkedIn or cold email for outreach?
Start with LinkedIn from the owner's profile, then add email. Marketing leaders check the sender before they reply, and LinkedIn shows them a person with a track record. Our Australian ad agency case ran on LinkedIn alone: 41.2% of connection requests were accepted and 37.9% of those replied. Email adds reach once the message is proven.
I am the only person at my agency who can close deals. Can someone take over outbound?
Yes. We run everything before the call: list, offer, copy, sending, replies and booking. After setup, your part is the pitch meetings. The owner's LinkedIn profile still sends the messages, because buyers want to hear from the person who runs the agency, but our team does the work behind it.
Two outbound vendors made us similar promises. What should decide it?
Ask each for a case from an advertising or marketing agency with numbers, a time period and the channel used. Ask whose profile and inboxes will send, who writes the copy, who does the work day to day (at some vendors it is a junior; at ours it is senior people only), what happens in the first 30 days, and how you see results each week. Then ask what happens if the results do not come. Our answer: on a 12-month engagement we guarantee the results we agree with you up front (leads, pipeline and revenue targets), and if we miss them we refund the full fee you paid us. It works when both sides do their part: you reply to call-ready leads within 24 hours and take the calls, let the campaigns run without needless pauses, and stay in touch with us. Full terms are in the contract.
Do you have clients in Europe, or only in the US?
Both. We are a Czech company with an office in Prague, and our clients are in the UK, Germany, Switzerland, the USA, Canada, Australia and many other countries. A Czech or European agency works with a team in or near its own time zone and can meet us in person.
Why does our ad agency only get new clients through word of mouth?
Because word of mouth is the only channel you have built. Referrals come when a happy client happens to talk to someone who needs an agency. You cannot schedule that. Outbound lets you pick the brands you want and start the conversation yourself.