How to sell to Heads of Marketing at Agencies companies in Canada
Heads of Marketing at agencies in Canada are primarily measured on client retention rates. They respond to outreach that addresses their struggle with balancing creative innovation and client expectations. Show understanding by mentioning specific challenges like managing client feedback loops or adapting campaigns based on performance metrics, which are crucial in their daily operations.
Written and maintained by the SoloRiff team, who build outbound software and run outbound with it. The figures below are our own: we measured 558 agencies company domains over public DNS on 2026-09-03. Last updated 2026-09-03.
What actually hurts
- client feedback loops
- creative campaign measurement
- client retention challenges
- resource allocation for projects
The playbook
- 01
Identify recent client churn
Use tools like LinkedIn Sales Navigator to filter for agencies that have publicly reported recent client losses. These events are often tied to internal issues, making the Heads of Marketing more receptive to solutions that can help prevent future churn.
- 02
Pinpoint industry disruption events
Research recent news articles or press releases about changes in the marketing landscape, such as new regulations or technology adoptions. Mention these disruptions in your outreach to demonstrate awareness of their environment and how it may affect their agency's strategies.
- 03
Highlight creative campaign struggles
Craft your message to reference common pain points like the difficulty of measuring ROI on creative campaigns. Use insights from industry reports to show that you understand their challenges, which can encourage a dialogue about potential solutions.
- 04
Address client feedback management
In your follow-up messages, bring up the challenge of managing client feedback effectively. Offer insights or frameworks that could help streamline this process, making it clear that you understand their day-to-day hurdles.
- 05
Suggest a timely strategy session
Propose a call to discuss innovative strategies that can enhance client engagement. Emphasize the timing by mentioning that many agencies are planning their next quarter's campaigns and could benefit from fresh insights.
Can agencies companies even receive your mail?
We measured the DNS of 558 agencies 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: 16.8% of 1–10-person companies against 55.4% of the largest — 39 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
- Improving client retention rates
- Navigating client feedback effectively
- Innovative strategies for agencies
Questions
- Why do Heads of Marketing at agencies ignore outreach about analytics tools?
- Heads of Marketing may feel overwhelmed by the number of analytics tools available and skeptical about their actual value. They often prioritize immediate client needs over exploring new solutions, especially if they perceive the tools as complex or time-consuming to implement.
- What are common objections from Heads of Marketing regarding new vendor partnerships?
- Common objections include concerns about budget constraints, the potential disruption to current workflows, and the perceived risk of switching vendors. They often require solid evidence of ROI and compatibility with existing systems before considering a new partnership.
- How can outreach be tailored to engage Heads of Marketing effectively?
- Outreach should focus on specific pain points relevant to agency operations, such as managing client expectations and enhancing creative output. Providing insights or case studies that directly relate to their challenges can make the outreach more appealing and relevant.
- What timing is best for reaching out to Heads of Marketing in agencies?
- The best timing is typically at the beginning of the quarter when they are planning campaigns or after industry events when they might be looking for new ideas. Avoid busy periods like year-end reviews when they are preoccupied with internal evaluations.
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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