Imagine building a demand generation agency from scratch, signing six or seven new clients off a single cold email campaign, and then riding that momentum to hire more staff, formalize your business, and partner with top industry platforms. That’s exactly what happened to Stan Stojanović, Founder of frontBrick.io and self-described “architect of sophisticated pipeline generation strategies for ambitious B2B teams.” In this detailed case study, we explore how Stan harnessed Smartlead to catapult his AI-powered outbound agency to new heights, from improved deliverability to multi-channel outreach. If your goal is to scale enterprise-level outreach without hitting the spam folder, read on.‍
Stan Stojanović began his career in SaaS, working as an Account Executive at a business analytics company called Databox. There, he absorbed core sales fundamentals from people with backgrounds at HubSpot, Salesforce, and other major players. That environment was his first glimpse of the power and potential of structured outbound programs, even if he wasn’t fully immersed in outbound strategies just yet.
A shift came in 2021: Stan moved into business development for a Canadian web design agency. As the first sales hire, he quickly recognized the need for a predictable pipeline—inbound alone wasn’t enough.
So he built an outbound motion from the ground up. The climate for cold emailing was more lenient then, but Stan never liked “spray-and-pray.” He focused on targeted, segmented approaches, combining creative strategies with solid deliverability measures. Over time, he developed a knack for “creating sophisticated systems that drive pipeline in the long run.”
That knack led him to formalize frontBrick.io, an AI-driven demand generation agency with the tagline:
“Take The Lead. Brick By Brick. AI-Powered Demand Generation Agency for Predictable Revenue Growth. We use AI and automation to identify, engage, and convert high-intent leads before your competitors do.”
But how do you actually launch an agency from scratch? You need case studies, you need leads, you need client wins. This is where Smartlead enters the picture, fueling Stan’s big breakout campaign.
Stan needed a reliable, scalable platform for cold emailing that wouldn’t trash his domain reputation. As a new brand, frontBrick.io had minimal domain authority. The last thing he wanted was to end up blacklisted because he was pushing large volumes of outbound.
Market Reality: B2B leads, ecially in industries like web design, marketing, or enterprise software—get blasted by emails daily. If your approach even hints at spam, you’re done. Also, modern spam filters analyze sending volumes, domain age, bounce rates, personalization depth, and more. Meanwhile, Stan also wanted to experiment with AI-based personalization so each email felt relevant, not generic.
Key Requirements:
In short, Stan needed a platform that could keep him off spam lists while letting him scale. As he puts it, “I do a lot of sophisticated systems, not just lead gen for the sake of it.” So the technology had to match his ambitions.
Stan first heard about Smartlead through LinkedIn recommendations—someone in his network had praised the platform’s advanced domain warm-up features and the fact that it doesn’t charge per seat. Intrigued, he tested the waters, launching a single pilot campaign in the mid-2020s. The result? A mind-blowing success that sealed his decision to formalize frontBrick.io.
Primary Reason to Try: “Other tools back then charged per seat. Smartlead let me scale outreach cost-effectively.”
Immediate Win: He launched a campaign with 470 leads to test deliverability and personalization at scale.
Stan got 52 replies, a reply rate of approximately 18.37%—notable for cold outbound. Even better, 41 of those replies were positive, a huge majority. This single campaign netted 7 or 8 new customers, basically jumpstarting frontBrick.io’s client base. The influx allowed him to hire staff, build an agency brand, and collaborate with other AI or automation tools.
That one campaign, as Stan put it, was “the most successful campaign I’ve ever run,” demonstrating how Smartlead’s approach to domain health and personalization can yield near-immediate ROI.
Stan’s philosophy is that “relevance matters more than personalization.” If your outreach is triggered by actual signals—like company expansions, funding rounds, or new product lines—you’re not sending random blasts. Instead, you’re targeting prospects at the right moment with a real solution. frontBrick uses:
By stacking these tools, frontBrick.io was able to set up robust pipelines for their clients. In Stan’s words, “It’s about building systems that produce consistent pipeline over time, not quick hacks.”
When asked what top features matter most in Smartlead, Stan highlighted:
Additionally, Stan praised the webhook integration for hooking into CRMs or lead-sheets. That synergy with other AI-based data-collection tools (like Play or Clay) forms the backbone of frontBrick.io’s entire approach.
One shining example from the transcript is a single campaign Stan ran to target founders on a specialized platform (like Webflow experts). He combined:
1. Out of 470 leads, he got 52 replies (~18.37% reply rate), with 41 positives.
2. That’s roughly 78–79% positive ratio among those who replied, which is phenomenal for a cold outreach scenario.
3. He ended up signing 7 or 8 brand-new clients, fueling the birth of frontBrick.io as a formal agency.
In short, the synergy of advanced segmentation plus deliverability optimization through Smartlead turned a list of 470 leads into a profitable client pipeline.
Based on the transcript, Stan sees two main shifts in the outbound space:
It used to be easy to export lists from a database and blast them. Now, if you do that, Google or Microsoft flags you almost instantly. Tools like Smartlead, with advanced domain and inbox management, are essential to avoid meltdown.
The race to stand out in the inbox has led to more sophisticated personalization strategies. Basic mail merges are losing effectiveness. frontBrick.io leans on AI to create lines referencing each prospect’s context, ensuring they “feel” relevant at scale.
“Whoever is managing to stay a bit more ahead of time in deliverability and segmentation can still have great results,” Stan says. The key is avoiding the old approach of dumping 10,000 leads into a single sequence. No one wants that.
Though Stan is a big advocate of Smartlead, he did mention some improvements he’d love to see:
He’d like deeper, possibly more interactive analytics to slice data historically and export leads by tags or statuses.
If you’re an agency with 10 HubSpot-using clients, you might want each one integrated. Currently, hooking multiple HubSpot accounts can be a bit tricky, but it’s on Smartlead’s roadmap.
For instance, if you want to export only the positive replies from a specific client’s campaign, it can be a challenge. Having robust filtering or search for leads across campaigns would speed up the offboarding process.
He also expressed an interest in seeing how the new global analytics and dashboards evolve. Being from a data analytics background, Stan craves deeper insights. That said, he values that Smartlead “rolls out features so fast,” with plenty of new updates arriving regularly.
frontBrick.io has grown into a legitimate AI-powered demand gen or cold email agency, thanks to successful outbound campaigns with tools like Smartlead. The synergy is straightforward:
Stan also joined the Smartlead experts program, acknowledging that he’s not just a user but a partner, providing feedback and suggestions to shape the product’s direction. For him, real synergy comes from forging alliances with best-in-class platforms so they can both evolve with the ever-changing spam filter landscape.
For any B2B software company or outbound agency reading this, here are a few things to note from Stan’s journey:
1. Deliverability Is King: “We used to blast out 10,000 leads in a single go,” says Stan. Not anymore. Strategic domain warm-up, multiple subdomains, and a warm-up tool are non-negotiables if you want consistent results.
2. AI & Segmentation: frontBrick.io doesn’t believe in “spray-and-pray.” Instead, they identify triggers or intent data to ensure each email resonates. Tools like Smartlead let them scale that approach safely.
3. Measurable ROI: That single campaign that yielded 7 or 8 new clients from 470 leads demonstrates that high-volume, targeted outreach can pay off big if done right.
4. Keep Evolving: The outbound game changes monthly (or even weekly). Working with a platform that updates features—like better analytics or multi-CRM connectivity—keeps you a step ahead.
5. Partnership Over Tool Usage: frontBrick.io sees Smartlead as more than just software. They see it as a partner in building robust pipeline generation systems. That synergy is key for surviving the modern spam filter arms race.
Stan’s Final Word: “Outbound isn’t dead; it’s just that the bar is higher now. With the right approach—like focusing on domain health, triggers, and actual personalization—you can do wonders. Smartlead allowed me to unify advanced deliverability with multi-channel sequences, and that was a game-changer for our 2,000+ daily emails.”
At the end of the day, Stan’s story with frontBrick.io shows that cold emailing, even in 2025, can be a powerful revenue driver—if you do it right. The synergy between specialized tools like Smartlead and a strategic demand gen approach can catapult your brand from “just another spammer” to “the next unstoppable pipeline engine.”
Interested in seeing how frontBrick.io leveraged advanced domain warm-ups or multi-channel sequences? Head over to Smartlead to explore the possibilities. Or, if you’re serious about supercharging your own outbound, join the ranks of forward-thinking agencies that count on Smartlead’s domain warm-up, spintax personalization, and flexible pricing to keep them out of spam and in the black. Because, as Stan would say, “Outbound still works. You just need the right system behind it.”
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Founder, StackOptimise
Smartlead's combination of automation, unlimited inboxes, and easy campaign management has completely transformed how we run cold email campaigns.
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Founder, Cold Email Hackers
We have about 15 companies and we use Smartlead for all of them.
Founder, DutchSave Media
One of the things I love about using Smartlead is the deliverability feature. If they landed in the bounce or spam folders, we could resolve this quickly.
Co-Founder, Growth Today
I want to continue to use Smartlead to make operations more seamless - the plan is to bring more clients here and build more SOPs.
Founder, FueltoFly
Smartlead listens to the agencies and customers and builds according to what people want, that has really made things easier for us.
Founder, OutboundSync
We build an infrastructure product, and OutboundSync communicates with Smartlead itself. I love the webhook and API. They're really well done and keep getting better.
Founder, Axoleads
With SmartDelivery, you can put all of that in the hands of the tool. It ensures your emails land in inboxes, and by running a simple test, you can see if you're hitting the mark.
Founder, Claygen
Deliverability is the cornerstone of cold email outreach. You could have the best email copy in the world, but if no one is seeing it, it's useless. I really love the feature where you can actually give client accesses to your clients.
Co-Founder, Cymate
I do not want to switch to another software. Pick a solution you trust, stick with it, and keep refining your copy.
CMO, Avalanche Capital
Managing large volumes of emails through multiple inboxes used to be a logistical nightmare. With Smartlead, the process is seamless. We book thousands of discovery calls through cold emails. These campaigns are generating leads at a scale we never thought possible.
Founder, Growth Engine X
We came for the unlimited inboxes, and we stayed for the API. 1.5M cold emails/month, 7,767+ inboxes managed.
Head of Community & Ecosystem, TxtCart
You cannot replace having 10,000 touches with potential clients. When you have that much distribution and reach, you really start to see incredible results. The simplicity of Smartlead made all the difference. It doesn't require you to be a technical wizard.
Founder, Hyperke
Smartlead has been a game-changer for us. It increased our appointment volume, improved ease of use, and offered valuable features. 80% increase in appointments/month, peak of 276 appointments in a single month.
Founder, Kinetyca
Smartlead has been our cold email backbone from day one. The platform evolves constantly, keeping pace with how deliverability and personalization need to work today. 21% overall reply rate, $175K in 4 months for multiple B2B clients.
Founder, Reachflow
Smartlead is centered around deliverability and constantly evolving. Their API is not like any other platform. Smartlead covers all our needs. The focus on core features like deliverability and API integration is unmatched.
CEO, Halfwarm
Our approach to crafting conversational emails led to reply rates that many of my peers thought were unattainable.
Co-Founder, letstrike
We've grown on zero capital, zero marketing, purely cold emailing - and that's the story we love to tell. The best approach is no approach if you can't handle domain meltdown. The second best is something like Smartlead that's built from the ground up for deliverability at scale.
Founder, Fenixtal
Smartlead's white-labeling and automation let us punch above our weight. The 12M euros sales potential? That's what happens when you combine human creativity with Smartlead's precision.
Co-Founder, Digital Creativs
Nine out of 10. Ninety percent of our clients are on Smartlead unless they come in with an existing setup. That's the default.
Co-Founder, BuildingReach
At the end of the day, you have to take a bet on one tool or another. It was a no-brainer taking that bet on Smartlead. We had to even turn down the volume of our marketing campaigns - Smartlead was capable of driving more volume than our sales team was able to fulfill.
Founder & MD, Prospectiv
Since starting the business in January of this year, we've already generated $200K in sales exclusively from cold email. Smartlead has been central to our operations and has exceeded our expectations.
Founder, Growthlynk
There's so much stuff built on top of it. I would be dead if I had to rebuild it with another tool. I can manage hundreds of senders easily. I can send hundreds of thousands of emails.
Founder, Corebits
The platform's HubSpot integration, real-time Slack updates, and advanced campaign customization have been game changers for our business and our clients'.
Founder, Apex Ascension
From day one, we've never used anything else.
