How to sell to Heads of Sales at Agencies companies in France
As the Head of Sales in a marketing agency, your primary metric is revenue growth. You respond to outreach that demonstrates a clear understanding of the unique challenges faced by agencies, such as fluctuating client demands and the need for effective lead generation strategies tailored to creative services. Show that you grasp the nuances of agency sales cycles to 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 558 agencies company domains over public DNS on 2026-09-03. Last updated 2026-09-03.
What actually hurts
- high client turnover
- inconsistent lead flow
- pressure to meet revenue targets
The playbook
- 01
Identify agencies with recent client wins
Use LinkedIn Sales Navigator to filter for marketing agencies in France that have announced new client acquisitions in the last 30 days. This indicates a potential need for support in scaling their sales efforts to manage increased demand.
- 02
Craft outreach around agency-specific challenges
When drafting your email, mention the typical pain points like high client turnover or the struggle to maintain consistent lead flow. Reference a recent trend in the agency space, such as the rise of digital marketing, to show you understand their environment.
- 03
Leverage industry events for introductions
Research upcoming marketing conferences or networking events in France. If you can reference a mutual connection or a recent event they attended, it increases the likelihood of your email being opened and read.
- 04
Anticipate objections about budget constraints
Prepare to address common concerns about budget limitations by outlining how your solutions can lead to cost savings or increased revenue. Use specific examples of how similar agencies have benefited from your approach.
- 05
Set a clear call to action for a brief chat
In your follow-up, propose a 15-minute call to discuss how your insights can help them capitalize on their recent successes. Provide two specific time slots to make scheduling easy and avoid back-and-forth.
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
- Boosting agency sales growth
- Navigating client demands
- Strategies for agency success
Questions
- Why do Heads of Sales at agencies ignore outreach?
- Heads of Sales at agencies often receive numerous outreach messages that fail to address their specific pain points. If the outreach doesn't demonstrate a clear understanding of the unique challenges in agency sales, it is likely to be overlooked.
- What sales challenges are unique to marketing agencies?
- Marketing agencies face challenges like managing fluctuating client demands, high competition for new business, and the need to maintain a consistent pipeline of leads. These factors create a unique sales environment that requires tailored strategies.
- How can I improve my cold email response rates to agency sales leaders?
- To improve response rates, focus on personalizing your outreach by referencing specific challenges faced by the agency. Highlight recent industry trends or successes that align with their goals, and ensure your message is concise and relevant.
- What role does client feedback play in agency sales?
- Client feedback is crucial in agency sales as it helps refine service offerings and improve client retention. Agencies often rely on testimonials and case studies to showcase their value, making it important to address feedback in sales conversations.
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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