How to sell to CTOs at E-commerce companies in United Kingdom
CTOs in e-commerce companies focus on optimizing system performance and scalability. They are primarily measured on website uptime and transaction speed. Understanding their need for seamless integration of third-party services can prompt a positive response, especially if you highlight specific pain points like downtime during peak sales events.
Written and maintained by the SoloRiff team, who build outbound software and run outbound with it. The figures below are our own: we measured 578 e-commerce company domains over public DNS on 2026-09-03. Last updated 2026-09-03.
What actually hurts
- system downtime during peak sales
- integration issues with third-party services
- performance lags during traffic spikes
- navigating compliance regulations
The playbook
- 01
Identify recent platform migrations
Use LinkedIn to filter for e-commerce companies that have announced recent migrations to platforms like Shopify. These companies may be looking for ways to optimize their new systems. Tailor your outreach to address potential integration challenges they might face post-migration.
- 02
Research peak sales events
Check for upcoming sales events in the e-commerce calendar, such as Black Friday or Cyber Monday. Reach out to CTOs a few weeks prior to these events, emphasizing how your solution can ensure system performance during high traffic periods.
- 03
Focus on compliance updates
Identify e-commerce companies that have recently faced regulatory changes, such as GDPR updates. In your outreach, discuss how your offering can help them navigate these changes while maintaining system efficiency, which is a key concern for CTOs.
- 04
Highlight downtime incidents
Search for news articles or social media posts about downtime incidents at e-commerce companies. Mention these specific incidents in your outreach to demonstrate understanding and offer solutions that could prevent similar issues in the future.
- 05
Leverage integration pain points
Engage with CTOs by discussing the common integration challenges with third-party tools in e-commerce. Provide insights on how your approach simplifies these integrations, allowing them to focus on core business objectives without frequent system interruptions.
Can e-commerce companies even receive your mail?
We measured the DNS of 578 e-commerce companies, sampled evenly across company sizes, to see how many authenticate their own email. It matters in both directions: a domain that does not authenticate is a domain whose team is used to mail going missing — and if your own domain is in the gap, yours is the mail going missing.
Publishes a DMARC policy of quarantine or reject — the domain actually asks receivers to act on failures.
The gap is the finding: 19.6% of 1–10-person companies against 67.5% of the largest — 48 points apart. Small companies are where the unauthenticated domains are, and small companies are who most cold outreach is aimed at.
Where does your domain sit?
Same three lookups, run live against your domain. Nothing is stored and nothing is emailed to you.
How this was measured
Company domains were sampled within employee-count bands, then queried over public DNS for SPF (TXT at the apex), DMARC (TXT at _dmarc.) and MX. One domain per company, deduplicated. Anyone can reproduce any single row of this with dig.
DKIM is deliberately absent. A DKIM key lives under a selector that cannot be enumerated from outside the domain, so a company with flawless DKIM under a name we did not guess would be counted as having none. That would measure our guess list, not the industry.
Domains with no MX record are excluded rather than counted as failures — parked and redirect-only domains would otherwise drag every figure down and make the result an artefact of the sample.
Sampled within bands, so this describes the population of companies, not of employees: a 10-person company counts once, as does a 10,000-person one. Each band is at least 60 domains; bands below that are not published. Figures are percentages of the sample, not of the whole industry, and we publish no company names — only counts.
Measured 2026-09-03. Re-measured monthly.
The full census across every industry — sortable, with sample sizes, free to reuse under CC BY 4.0.
Subject lines that fit
- Optimizing performance for peak sales
- Avoid downtime this holiday season
- Simplifying third-party integrations
Questions
- Why do CTOs at e-commerce companies ignore unsolicited emails?
- CTOs often receive numerous unsolicited emails daily, making them selective about their responses. If the email does not immediately address a pressing pain point or provide a clear benefit to their operations, it risks being overlooked.
- What challenges do CTOs face during peak sales?
- During peak sales, CTOs grapple with ensuring system stability and performance under high traffic. They worry about potential downtime, which can lead to lost revenue and customer dissatisfaction, making them highly receptive to solutions that address these issues.
- How can I make my outreach stand out to e-commerce CTOs?
- Personalize your outreach by referencing specific industry challenges, such as compliance issues or recent platform migrations. Demonstrating an understanding of their unique environment and providing tailored solutions can capture their attention.
- What common objections do e-commerce CTOs have?
- CTOs may object to new solutions due to concerns about integration complexity, potential downtime during implementation, or the cost versus benefit of adopting a new technology. Addressing these concerns directly in your outreach can help alleviate their hesitations.
Or have it run itself
SoloRiff does every step above on its own — finds the companies, finds the people, writes each of them individually, and handles the replies. Drop your URL and watch it work before you sign up for anything.
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