How to sell to Heads of Sales at Agencies companies in Germany
Heads of Sales at agencies in Germany are primarily measured on revenue growth. They respond positively when outreach demonstrates a clear understanding of their unique challenges, such as client retention and managing sales team performance. Showing knowledge of recent client wins or losses can establish immediate credibility and encourage engagement.
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
- underperforming sales teams
- tight project budgets
- lengthy sales cycles
The playbook
- 01
Identify recent client churn
Search for agencies that have recently lost major clients or reported declines in project wins. Use industry news sources or social media to find announcements or discussions. This context allows you to tailor your outreach to address their immediate concerns.
- 02
Analyze team performance metrics
Look for agencies that have publicly shared sales performance metrics or team restructuring news. This data can be found in press releases or LinkedIn updates. Highlighting ways to optimize their sales processes will resonate with their current priorities.
- 03
Reference recent industry events
Identify key industry events or awards that have occurred recently in the German agency landscape. Mentioning these in your outreach shows you are engaged with their world and can provide relevant insights or solutions that align with their needs.
- 04
Acknowledge budget constraints
Prepare to address potential objections related to budget limitations. Research common financial challenges faced by agencies, especially post-pandemic. Presenting cost-effective solutions can help alleviate their concerns and open the door for discussion.
- 05
Suggest a specific follow-up timeframe
Propose a follow-up call within a week of your initial outreach. This timing is strategic as it allows them to reflect on your message. Be clear about the value of the conversation, which can help in securing the meeting.
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
- Tackling client retention challenges
- Improving your sales team's performance
- Navigating budget constraints in agencies
Questions
- Why do Heads of Sales at agencies ignore cold emails?
- Heads of Sales often receive numerous cold emails daily, making it easy to overlook messages that lack relevance. If the outreach doesn't directly address their specific challenges or show a clear understanding of the agency landscape, it's likely to be ignored.
- What common challenges do agency sales leaders face?
- Agency sales leaders frequently deal with high client turnover, which affects revenue stability. They also struggle with managing underperforming sales teams and navigating tight project budgets, which can hinder growth and profitability.
- How important is personalization in outreach to agency sales heads?
- Personalization is crucial when reaching out to agency sales heads. Tailoring your message to reflect their specific challenges, recent achievements, or industry trends shows that you have done your homework and genuinely want to help.
- What could prompt an agency sales leader to respond to outreach?
- An agency sales leader might respond to outreach that highlights a solution to a pressing issue, such as improving client retention or optimizing sales team efficiency. Demonstrating a clear understanding of their pain points can significantly increase the chances of engagement.
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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