How to sell to Heads of Marketing at SaaS companies
Heads of Marketing in SaaS companies are primarily measured on customer acquisition and retention rates. They respond positively to outreach that demonstrates a deep understanding of their unique challenges, such as optimizing the marketing funnel or maximizing ROI on campaigns. Specific insights about their current strategies or recent product launches can capture their attention immediately.
Written and maintained by the SoloRiff team, who build outbound software and run outbound with it. The figures below are our own: we measured 559 saas company domains over public DNS on 2026-09-03. Last updated 2026-09-03.
What actually hurts
- high customer churn rates
- inefficient marketing spend
- poor lead conversion
- lack of actionable insights
The playbook
- 01
Identify recent funding rounds
Use sources like Crunchbase to filter for SaaS companies that have recently closed funding rounds. These companies often have increased budgets to invest in marketing solutions, making them more receptive to outreach.
- 02
Analyze current marketing initiatives
Review the company's website and social media to identify their latest marketing campaigns. Mentioning these specific initiatives in your outreach can show that you are informed and relevant to their current efforts.
- 03
Pinpoint challenges in customer retention
Research common customer retention challenges faced by SaaS companies, such as high churn rates. Tailor your messaging to address how your solution can help alleviate these specific pain points, making it easier for them to see value.
- 04
Segment by company size and growth stage
Filter your list to include only mid-sized SaaS companies that are scaling rapidly. These companies are often looking for innovative marketing solutions to keep pace with their growth, making them more likely to engage.
- 05
Schedule follow-ups around product launches
Keep track of upcoming product launches within your target companies. Following up shortly after a launch can be effective, as the marketing team will likely be focused on driving adoption and may be more open to new ideas.
Can saas companies even receive your mail?
We measured the DNS of 559 saas 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: 16.7% of 1–10-person companies against 80.9% of the largest — 64 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 your lead conversion
- Tackling customer churn together
- Maximizing your marketing ROI
Questions
- What common objections do Heads of Marketing have to new marketing tools?
- Heads of Marketing often cite budget constraints and existing vendor relationships as primary objections to adopting new tools. They may also express concerns about the time required for implementation and whether the new solution can integrate seamlessly with their current technology stack.
- Why do Heads of Marketing focus on customer retention?
- Customer retention is crucial for Heads of Marketing in SaaS because acquiring new customers is typically more expensive than retaining existing ones. They understand that a high churn rate can significantly impact revenue and growth, making retention strategies a top priority.
- How can I effectively engage with Heads of Marketing on LinkedIn?
- Engaging with Heads of Marketing on LinkedIn involves sharing insightful content related to SaaS marketing trends and commenting on their posts with thoughtful insights. Building a rapport through genuine interactions can increase the chances of your outreach being noticed.
- What metrics do Heads of Marketing prioritize?
- Heads of Marketing prioritize metrics such as customer acquisition cost (CAC), lifetime value (LTV), and conversion rates. These metrics help them evaluate the effectiveness of their marketing strategies and make data-driven decisions to optimize performance.
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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