u/BriefTemperature7158

Hey there. Want to share how we helped a small team define a problem in outbound and fix it.

Hope you'll find it useful.

An AI automation agency reached out to us to consult on their outbound GTM execution.

Their campaigns were full of the typical mistakes, but first their workflow looked like this:

1. Started with 20K emails per month to find traction
2. Got first sales, scaled the exact same campaign to 120K
3. Never checked what IP model their provider gave them

Result? 120K emails with identical copy sent from SMTP inboxes on shared IPs.

Around 37% (44K emails) were landing in spam.

At typical benchmarks for their SMB automation niche - 3% reply rate with 25% positive - this was costing them $220K!! in retainer across clients.

What we've done (easy setup):

Identified urgency to start sending: the client said "as soon as possible" — we chose pre-warmed Outlook inboxes instead of running a 3-week warm-up process.

Set up DNS (SPF, DKIM, DMARC) properly:

1. SPF - one record, never +all

Publish exactly one SPF record per domain. End it with ~all or -all, never +all (14% of errors). Keep DNS lookups under 10 and the record under 255 characters.

1. DKIM - enable it and use the right selector

Enable DKIM signing (11% of domains don't have it at all) and verify the selector matches what their sending platform expects (4% of errors come from wrong selectors). Without DKIM, Outlook and Gmail can't validate that the message wasn't altered in transit.

1. DMARC - published and progressing past p=none

Publish a DMARC record and move past p=none once SPF and DKIM are aligned and reporting clean (9% of domains stay stuck on p=none forever, which gives zero enforcement). Make sure the rua reporting address actually exists.

% of domains and mistakes is what we track and see over the last 7 months of building outbound campaigns.

Rewrite their copy following strict Outlook rules:

• No ESP matching
• No open tracking
• No links included in body copy (they trigger the Safe Links scanner_
• No dollar signs or financial language
• Max 70 words per email
• Spintax on every 2–3 words, especially in signatures

To not be unsubstantiated: 2 months in, and this agency books around 40 calls per week and scales by +50K inboxes every month.

They didn't change the offer or positioning, they just fixed infra and cut the copy down.

Did you notice any pattern that your outbound engine follows??

your current cold email skills can generate 10x more money a month

most people will never see it because they keep optimizing the wrong layer

everyone obsesses over copy, sequencers, warmup pools. but the true bottleneck is who you're sending to

run the same sequences you're running today but point them at a different list and your retainers jump from 2k/month to 70k/quarter

here's what 99% get wrong:

they chase marketing agencies, local shops, low-margin service businesses. saturated markets where every prospect already gets 40 cold emails a week and the LTV caps out at $3k

you're done with that game

the move is serving serious operators in the old economy. industries where real assets, real products, and real capital needs exist

aviation charter operators, cargo carriers, parts manufacturers. maritime shipbuilders, port operators, logistics companies. manufacturing precision engineering, heavy equipment, industrial supply chains. energy & resources oil & gas services, renewables infrastructure, resource extraction. specialty early-stage startups solving old-economy problems at scale.

these sectors share one trait everyone overlooks: constant capital demand

sophisticated investors deploy real money into tangible assets, operations, and projects every single month. that flow doesn't stop

your role: originate investor prospecting campaigns for licensed capital markets professionals. bring them into direct contact with decision-makers

real data:

we were spending less than $3k on stack plusvibe (sending), maildeck (inboxes), apollo (leads) - where 80% were b2b leads

in return we generate $50K–$75K/quarter engagements that are fully compliant and more lucrative than anything we've been chasing

this arm alone replaces your retainer income in weeks