Cold outreach to Marketplaces companies
The buyer is a marketplace operations manager, primarily measured on user retention rates. They respond to outreach that clearly identifies how to streamline vendor onboarding processes, as this directly affects user satisfaction and retention. Demonstrating an understanding of their unique challenges, like balancing vendor needs with buyer experience, is crucial for 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 179 marketplaces company domains over public DNS on 2026-09-03. Last updated 2026-09-03.
What actually hurts
- slow vendor onboarding
- high vendor churn
- negative user feedback
- inefficient communication
The playbook
- 01
Identify vendors with recent negative reviews
Use platforms like Trustpilot or G2 to filter for vendors that have received negative feedback in the past month. These vendors may be struggling with user retention, making them more receptive to solutions that enhance their onboarding processes.
- 02
Highlight operational inefficiencies
Craft your outreach to emphasize common operational inefficiencies faced by marketplace managers, such as slow vendor onboarding times or high churn rates. Addressing these specific pain points will resonate more with your prospects.
- 03
Connect through industry events
Identify upcoming industry events or webinars where marketplace managers are likely to participate. Mentioning a shared event in your outreach can create a connection and provide a reason for them to respond positively.
- 04
Address the fear of change
Acknowledge the common concern about implementing new systems or processes in your outreach. Offer insights or case studies on how similar marketplaces successfully transitioned to improved vendor onboarding without disrupting their current operations.
- 05
Propose a specific follow-up
In your closing, suggest a specific date and time for a follow-up call to discuss their vendor onboarding process. This creates urgency and shows that you are serious about helping them improve their marketplace operations.
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
- Improving vendor onboarding
- Boosting user retention rates
- Streamline your vendor process
Questions
- Why do marketplace operations managers ignore outreach about tools?
- Marketplace operations managers often receive numerous outreach messages that fail to address their specific pain points, such as user retention or vendor onboarding. If the outreach does not demonstrate a clear understanding of their unique challenges, it is likely to be overlooked.
- What are the biggest challenges for marketplace operations managers?
- Marketplace operations managers frequently struggle with balancing the needs of vendors and buyers, ensuring efficient onboarding processes, and maintaining high user satisfaction. These challenges require tailored solutions that can address both operational efficiency and user experience.
- How can I get a marketplace manager's attention?
- To capture a marketplace manager's attention, focus on specific pain points they face, such as high vendor churn or negative feedback. Providing insights or solutions that resonate with their day-to-day challenges will increase the likelihood of engagement.
- What triggers marketplace managers to seek new solutions?
- Marketplace managers are often prompted to seek new solutions when they experience a spike in negative user feedback, increased vendor churn, or when their current processes become inefficient. Highlighting these triggers in your outreach can help establish relevance.
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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