How to sell to Heads of Sales at E-commerce companies in United States
Heads of Sales in e-commerce are primarily measured on quarterly revenue growth. They respond to outreach that demonstrates a clear understanding of their sales funnel challenges, such as high cart abandonment rates or inefficient lead conversion processes. Highlighting solutions that directly address these issues will capture their attention and prompt a response.
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
- inefficient lead conversion
- inadequate sales forecasting
- limited customer insights
The playbook
- 01
Identify recent funding announcements
Filter for e-commerce companies that have recently secured funding, which often indicates growth and a need for sales optimization. Use Crunchbase or PitchBook to find this information. Target your outreach to the Heads of Sales in these organizations, as they will be under pressure to accelerate revenue.
- 02
Analyze their online sales metrics
Research the company's online store performance metrics, such as conversion rates and average order value, using tools like SimilarWeb or Google Analytics. Tailor your messaging to address specific areas where they may be underperforming, which will resonate more with the recipient.
- 03
Craft a message around cart abandonment
Create an email that discusses strategies to reduce cart abandonment rates, a common pain point for e-commerce leaders. Use data points or case studies relevant to their industry to establish credibility. This specificity shows you understand their immediate challenges and can offer solutions.
- 04
Follow up on engagement with their content
If you see engagement with their blog or social media posts, reference this in your follow-up. Mention a specific article they wrote about improving customer retention and ask how they plan to tackle that challenge. This shows you’re paying attention to their priorities and can lead to a more fruitful conversation.
- 05
Schedule a call after key sales events
Reach out to schedule a call shortly after major sales events like Black Friday or Cyber Monday. These periods often reveal insights into their sales strategies and challenges. Timing your outreach around these events can increase the likelihood of a response as they reflect on their performance.
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 conversion rates
- Strategies for cart abandonment
- Insights on sales growth
Questions
- Why do Heads of Sales in e-commerce ignore cold emails?
- Heads of Sales often receive numerous cold emails daily, making them selective about which messages to engage with. If the email does not immediately address a pressing pain point or offer a relevant solution, it risks being overlooked. Personalization and relevance are key to breaking through.
- What sales metrics are most important to e-commerce sales leaders?
- E-commerce sales leaders prioritize metrics such as conversion rate, average order value, and customer acquisition cost. These metrics directly impact revenue and profitability, making them critical for assessing the effectiveness of sales strategies and identifying areas for improvement.
- How can I demonstrate value to Heads of Sales in e-commerce?
- To demonstrate value, focus on specific pain points like high cart abandonment or low conversion rates. Providing tailored insights or case studies that showcase how similar companies improved their sales performance can create a compelling reason for them to engage.
- What triggers a response from Heads of Sales in e-commerce?
- Triggers such as recent funding, new product launches, or significant sales events often prompt Heads of Sales to reassess their strategies. Highlighting how your outreach aligns with these triggers can make your message more timely and relevant, increasing the chances of a response.
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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