The Starting Point
Grove Digital is a six-person marketing agency based in Austin, Texas, specializing in paid media and SEO for e-commerce brands. Their growth had relied entirely on referrals. When referrals slowed in Q3 2024, they had no outbound engine to fall back on.
They came to us with a clear goal: generate five qualified discovery calls per month from cold outreach. Budget: $1,500/month for tools and infrastructure.
The Setup
Target ICP: Direct-to-consumer e-commerce brands doing $2M–$20M in annual revenue, with active paid media spend but no dedicated agency relationship.
Toolstack:
- Apollo.io for prospecting (filtered by revenue, headcount, tech stack showing Meta Ads and Google Ads pixels)
- Instantly.ai for email sending
- Two dedicated sending domains (not their primary domain)
- Mailreach for warm-up
List building:** 300 accounts per month, 2 contacts per account (founder + head of marketing where available). Total: ~600 contacts per month.
The Email Sequence
They ran a 4-step sequence over 14 days:
- Day 1: Personalized opener referencing a specific product or ad creative they had seen from the prospect's brand, followed by a single question about their current paid media performance
- Day 4: Value-add email sharing a relevant case study from a similar brand
- Day 8: Short follow-up referencing the previous email, different angle
- Day 14: Break-up email with a low-friction CTA
Subject lines that worked:
- "[Brand] — saw your Meta ads"
- "quick question about your ROAS"
- "idea for [Brand]"
Results (Month 1)
- 600 contacts emailed
- 47% open rate
- 8.3% reply rate (50 replies)
- 11 discovery calls booked
- 3 new retainers signed (average value: $4,500/month)
Total new MRR from month one: $13,500 — a 9x return on their tool investment.
What Made the Difference
Hyper-specific targeting. Filtering for brands with active ad spend meant every prospect was a real potential buyer, not just a company that might theoretically need marketing services.
Personalization at the first line. Referencing a specific ad creative or product they had researched made the email feel far more human than typical agency outreach.
Low-friction CTA. They did not ask for a 30-minute call in the first email. They asked one relevant question. Replies led naturally to calls.
Month 2 Iteration
They added a LinkedIn touchpoint between email steps 2 and 3, sending a short voice note on LinkedIn to the same prospects. Call bookings increased by 40% the following month.
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