My cold outreach pipeline just crossed 1,000 agencies. here is what i know after 343 pitches and $0 in revenue.
two weeks ago i decided to build an AI-powered SDR service for marketing agencies. the pitch: we scan your prospects websites, find real SEO problems, write personalized emails referencing those problems, and send follow-ups automatically. $297/mo.
i have now scraped 1,000+ agency websites across 54 countries to build the prospect list. sent 343 personalized pitches. got 3 replies. zero paying customers.
here is what the numbers actually look like.
the pipeline
- 1,000+ agencies scraped (emails extracted from their websites)
- 343 pitches sent via gmail SMTP
- 3 replies total (all from english-speaking markets — AU, NZ, UK)
- 0 customers
- 0 revenue
- total cost so far: $0 (python, gmail, linux server i already had)
what the 3 replies looked like
one was a polite "not interested right now." one asked about pricing and went quiet after i quoted $297/mo. one asked a technical question about their laravel site, which isnt even what i was selling — but i helped anyway because its better than silence.
none converted. the conversion problem isnt the tool — its the offer.
what i think is wrong
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$297/mo is high for a cold email from a stranger. agencies get pitched constantly. a random email saying "i can do this for $297" lands in the same mental bucket as every other cold pitch they ignore.
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the personalization helps open rates but doesnt help close rates. knowing their page speed score is 34/100 gets them to read the email. it doesnt make them trust a stranger with their client outreach.
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english-speaking markets reply. everyone else doesnt. 200+ pitches to agencies in india, southeast asia, middle east, africa, latin america — zero replies. the service might only work in AU/NZ/UK/US/CA markets.
what i am changing
- dropping the price to $149/mo for the first 3 clients. the goal is case studies, not revenue
- focusing only on AU/NZ/UK agencies for the next 100 pitches. stop spraying globally
- adding a free trial: first 50 emails free, no commitment. lower the barrier
- including a real sample campaign in the pitch email so they can see exactly what they would get
what has actually worked
building in public on IH. 25 posts, dozens of comments. people engage with transparent numbers even when those numbers are ugly. the IH community has been more valuable for learning than any course or guide.
the scraping pipeline itself works beautifully. 1,000 agencies from 54 countries in two weekends. the sending pipeline works. the reply monitoring works. everything is automated and runs on cron.
the only thing that doesnt work is getting strangers to pay money. which is, you know, the whole point.
if you are building cold outreach: the tech is the easy part. the offer is everything. i am still iterating.
landing page if you want to see what agencies see: https://vemtrac-outreach.pages.dev
Respect for publishing the $0 — most people only post the wins.
Diagnostic frame that might help: when a funnel stalls it's one of three variables — traffic, offer, or copy. You've proven traffic (1,000 prospects, 343 sends). So it's offer or copy.
My bet from the numbers: offer. "AI-powered SDR service" is a category agencies have seen pitched hundreds of times this year — the pitch lands as risk, not relief. What tends to unstick it: shrink the ask to something with zero downside ("I'll run the scan on 3 of YOUR prospects free, you keep the report either way") and lead with THEIR specific problem you found, not your capability.
Also check the boring thing: 343 sends from what infrastructure? If those went out unwarmed or over ~50/day/inbox, a chunk never hit an inbox at all — and you're diagnosing copy that was never read.
Respect for sharing the numbers. Transparency helps the rest of us. Scaling to 1k+ prospects and still hitting low replies is brutal. Have you found that going from manual to autonomous outreach changes the game on volume and personalization at the same time? What’s your biggest bottleneck right now? Iteration plans?
ferdbons and mosesinvests - both of you basically said the same thing from different angles and youre right. the landing page tries to be everything for everyone and ends up being nothing for anyone.
the cold outreach service has the most proof behind it (900+ emails, real pricing, actual results data). thats the one that should be front and center, not buried as 1 of 9 services.
just stripped the landing page down to that one offer today. one buyer, one pain, one page. appreciate you both taking the time to actually look at the site and give specific feedback instead of generic encouragement.