A 16.81% reply rate - and cold email became the channel that actually works
Published by Argorant
Clementine Media was winning clients the hard way: cold calls, one conversation at a time. Cold email had been tried and abandoned - messages disappeared into spam folders and the lists behind them were guesswork. Rebuilt on Argorant's verified decision-maker data, the same channel produced a 16.81% reply rate and became a fixed part of how the agency grows.
Clementine Media is a founder-led marketing and media agency in Germany. Client acquisition ran on cold calling, which worked but stopped at the edge of the founder's calendar. Cold email had already been tried and written off: the lists behind it were guesswork, the bounces pushed the domain into spam folders, and the channel was declared dead.
Client acquisition ran on cold calling - effective but impossible to scale past the founder's calendar.
Earlier cold email attempts failed twice over: stale lists meant bounces, and bounces meant spam folders.
The agency needed outbound that reached the right marketing decision-makers reliably, without burning its domain reputation.
Marketing decision-makers at companies that buy retainers
- 01Geography: Germany
- 02Company profile: businesses of a size that actually retains an agency
- 03Seats: the marketing decision-maker who owns the budget
- 04Seniority: decision-maker level, not marketing coordinators
- 05Verification applied at export, so the sequencer never sees a dead address
What happened, in the order it happened.
- BeforeCold email written off
Two failure modes at once: stale lists meant bounces, and bounces meant spam folders.
- RebuildThe list layer replaced
Target lists rebuilt on verified decision-maker data instead of bought or scraped lists.
- LaunchSharper copy on clean data
Short, personalized messages built on what each prospect's company actually does.
- Campaign16.81% reply rate
An order of magnitude above anything the old lists produced.
- SinceSales more than doubled
Outbound became a fixed part of how the agency grows rather than an experiment.
- A 16.81% reply rate - an order of magnitude above what the old lists ever produced.
- Cold email went from 'tried it, doesn't work' to the agency's most dependable acquisition channel.
- Sales more than doubled since outbound started running on verified data.
| Before | With Argorant | |
|---|---|---|
| Acquisition channel | Cold calling, one conversation at a time | A repeatable outbound motion beside the calls |
| Cold email | Tried it, doesn't work | The agency's most dependable channel |
| Deliverability | Bounces pushing messages into spam folders | Messages reaching decision-maker inboxes |
| Reply rate | Whatever the old lists produced | 16.81% across the campaign |
“We've gotten 16.81% in replies after working with you guys.”
Jannik Linke, Founder & CEO, Clementine Media GmbH
“We've gotten 16.81% in replies after working with you guys. Can only recommend you.”
Cold email stays a fixed channel next to the calls, with the same list definition reused every time the agency opens a new campaign.
Same verified data, same targeting, pointed at your market. No call required.
