How to sell to Heads of Marketing at Marketplaces companies
Heads of Marketing at marketplaces are primarily measured on customer acquisition growth. They respond positively to outreach that demonstrates a clear understanding of their unique challenges, such as balancing the needs of buyers and sellers on their platform. Highlighting strategies that can streamline this balance will capture their attention.
Written and maintained by the SoloRiff team, who build outbound software and run outbound with it. The figures below are our own: we measured 179 marketplaces company domains over public DNS on 2026-09-03. Last updated 2026-09-03.
What actually hurts
- balancing buyer and seller needs
- high customer acquisition costs
- ineffective marketing campaigns
- low user engagement
The playbook
- 01
Identify marketplaces with recent funding
Use platforms like Crunchbase or PitchBook to filter for marketplaces that have secured funding in the past 6 months. These companies are likely looking to scale their marketing efforts and may be more receptive to new solutions.
- 02
Analyze their current marketing strategy
Review the marketing strategies of your target companies by exploring their website, social media, and press releases. Look for gaps in their approach, such as a lack of user-generated content or insufficient engagement on social media platforms.
- 03
Craft a message addressing buyer-seller balance
When reaching out, focus on how your solution can help them manage the complexities of a two-sided marketplace. Use specific examples of how you can enhance user engagement for both buyers and sellers, making it relevant to their current challenges.
- 04
Follow up after key marketing events
If the company has recently launched a new campaign or product, follow up within a week to discuss how your solution can further enhance their efforts. Timing your outreach after such events shows you are engaged with their business.
- 05
Prepare for objections about budget constraints
Anticipate pushback regarding budget limitations by researching their recent funding rounds. Be ready to discuss cost-effective solutions that can provide a strong ROI, which is crucial for heads of marketing operating under tight financial scrutiny.
Can marketplaces companies even receive your mail?
We measured the DNS of 179 marketplaces 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.
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
- Boosting marketplace engagement
- Strategies for two-sided success
- Navigating marketing challenges
Questions
- Why do heads of marketing at marketplaces ignore cold outreach?
- They often receive numerous unsolicited messages and prioritize those that demonstrate a clear understanding of their unique challenges. If outreach lacks specificity or relevance to their dual audience, it may be disregarded.
- What marketing metrics are most important to marketplace CMOs?
- Heads of marketing in marketplaces typically focus on metrics like customer acquisition cost, user engagement rates, and conversion rates from both buyers and sellers. These metrics help them gauge the effectiveness of their campaigns and overall platform health.
- How can I make my outreach stand out to marketplace marketing leaders?
- Personalize your outreach by referencing specific challenges they face, such as balancing the needs of buyers and sellers. Offer insights or solutions that directly address these issues, which can make your message more compelling.
- What are common objections from marketplace CMOs?
- Common objections include concerns about budget constraints, the effectiveness of new marketing strategies, and the potential disruption to existing processes. Addressing these objections with data-driven insights can help alleviate their concerns.
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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