How to sell to Heads of Marketing at E-commerce companies in United Kingdom
Heads of Marketing in e-commerce are primarily measured on customer acquisition cost (CAC) and return on ad spend (ROAS). They respond to outreach that demonstrates a clear understanding of their current campaigns and how to optimize them. Highlighting specific challenges, such as high cart abandonment rates or ineffective ad targeting, can prompt them to engage with your message.
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
- high cart abandonment rates
- ineffective ad targeting
- limited budget for campaigns
- low conversion rates
The playbook
- 01
Identify recent funding announcements
Search for e-commerce companies in the UK that have recently secured funding. These businesses are likely looking to scale their marketing efforts. Utilize platforms like Crunchbase or PitchBook to filter for companies with funding rounds in the last 6 months.
- 02
Analyze their current ad performance
Review the online presence of your target companies, focusing on their advertising strategies. Tools like SEMrush or SimilarWeb can help you identify their top-performing channels and potential areas for improvement, which you can mention in your outreach.
- 03
Highlight specific pain points in your outreach
Craft your message to address common issues like high cart abandonment rates or poor conversion rates. Use insights from your analysis to reference how your solution can directly impact their current challenges, making your outreach more relevant.
- 04
Set a follow-up reminder based on their campaign cycle
If you haven't received a response within 7 days, follow up. Timing is crucial; many marketing teams plan their campaigns quarterly, so reaching out just before their planning cycle can increase your chances of a response.
- 05
Prepare for objections about budget constraints
Be ready to address concerns regarding budget limitations. Research industry benchmarks to provide context on typical marketing spend vs. return for e-commerce companies, helping to justify the value of your proposal and alleviate their concerns.
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
- Boost your ad performance
- Reduce cart abandonment
- Optimize your marketing spend
Questions
- Why do Heads of Marketing in e-commerce ignore cold emails?
- Heads of Marketing often receive a high volume of cold emails, making it difficult for them to filter through and find value. If your message doesn't immediately address a specific challenge they are facing, it may get lost in their inbox.
- What triggers a positive response from e-commerce marketing leaders?
- A positive response is often triggered by outreach that showcases a deep understanding of their current marketing challenges, such as improving ROAS or addressing customer retention. Providing tailored insights or solutions can significantly increase engagement.
- How can I demonstrate value to e-commerce marketing heads?
- Demonstrating value involves providing specific insights into their marketing performance and how your solution can help improve metrics like CAC or conversion rates. Sharing relevant case studies or examples can also illustrate your expertise effectively.
- What common objections do e-commerce marketing heads have?
- Common objections include concerns about budget constraints, the effectiveness of new strategies, and the potential disruption to existing campaigns. Addressing these objections with data-driven insights can help alleviate their concerns and open the door for further discussion.
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.
Try it on your site