Key Highlights
- 14% reply rate across 2,000-lead campaigns with a 3-step sequence
- 48%–60% positive reply rates on targeted campaigns
- 21% meeting-to-reply conversion booking calls with B2B & SaaS CEOs
- 15–30 booked calls per month on a pay-per-call engagement
- 10% reply rate from CMOs at B2B SaaS and AI tech companies
- 90% of all clients are hosted exclusively on Smartlead
- Replaced Make + Airtable automation stack entirely with SmartAgents
Summary
Digital Creativs is a Toronto-based outbound agency co-founded by Preeti Malik, helping B2B SaaS and service businesses reach local business ICPs through email and LinkedIn.
Since adopting Smartlead in 2023, the agency has driven exceptional reply rates across some of the hardest B2B personas to reach—SaaS CEOs and CMOs—while cutting the cost and fragility of third-party automation workflows entirely.
Client Background
Preeti Malik started in cold email doing influencer outreach for Safety Wing, a YC-backed company, where she used email to acquire 50–100 affiliates per month. That experience shaped her conviction that email is the fastest channel to test value propositions and scale outreach, a principle she built Digital Creativs around.
The agency runs go-to-market outbound for B2B clients across email and LinkedIn, and uses the same infrastructure it builds for clients to power its own growth.
"Email still remains one of the easiest and fastest ways to get in front of customers, test your value proposition, and scale from there. For us, it's our number one acquisition channel—for ourselves and for our clients." - Preeti Malik
Challenges
Before Smartlead, Preeti was sending from Apollo—using the company's primary domain, paying per inbox, and hitting lead limits that made scaling expensive fast.
"Think about adding multiple domains and multiple inboxes—it would be absolutely ridiculous. We'd end up with a $1,000/month bill just for a sending tool."
Beyond cost, the team struggled with fragile Make + Airtable automation workflows that broke frequently, lacked campaign context, and required an external contractor to maintain.
Diagnosing deliverability issues when scaling client infrastructure was also largely guesswork without the right tooling.
Why Smartlead
Preeti chose Smartlead in 2023 for three core reasons: unlimited inboxes without per-seat costs, deep API documentation that fit her software engineering background, and sender bounce diagnostics that gave her real visibility into deliverability issues at scale.
"The Smartlead API documentation was super extensive—so much that we could do with the API that wasn't possible with other tools."
When a high-volume client's new inbox infrastructure started showing unexpected bounce spikes despite identical messaging and lead lists, Smartlead's bounce-code tracking helped the team pinpoint misconfigured DNS settings from the inbox provider very fast.
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Solution
Multi-client infrastructure at scale
Digital Creativs runs 90% of its clients on Smartlead, managing inboxes, domains, and sequences centrally. Sender bounce diagnostics have become a critical safeguard whenever scaling new infrastructure for clients with large TAMs.
SmartAgents replacing a full automation stack
The team previously paid an external contractor for nearly two months to build a reply agent in Make and Airtable. Smartlead's native reply agent replaced it entirely—with better context awareness and zero maintenance overhead.
The agency now also uses SmartAgents to send daily campaign stats directly to client Slack channels, replacing the Make + Airtable pipeline they had relied on previously.
"Smartlead dropped the reply agent natively in the platform and completely eliminated the workflow we had built, which broke half the time and didn't understand the context."
LinkedIn automation triggered by email replies
Using a SmartAgent template connected to AimFox, the team automatically sends LinkedIn connection requests whenever a prospect replies positively to an email—removing an entirely manual step from the follow-up workflow.
SmartDialer for post-reply calling
Preeti is actively testing Smart Dialer to streamline call follow-ups, with the call transcript appearing in Master Inbox alongside email history—giving callers full context before and after every conversation.
Results
Digital Creativs consistently achieves reply rates and conversion numbers that most agencies consider aspirational:
- 14% overall reply rate on a 2,000-lead, 3-step sequence (~6,000 emails)
- 48%–60% positive reply rates on focused campaigns of 700–1,000 leads
- 5% reply rate and 21% meeting conversion booking B2B SaaS CEO calls
- 15–30 booked CEO calls per month on a pay-per-call model
- 10% reply rate from CMOs at B2B SaaS and AI tech companies
By replacing their external automation contractor and Make + Airtable stack with SmartAgents, the team eliminated recurring overhead while gaining automations that are more reliable and context-aware—built directly inside the platform where all their campaign data already lives.
What Preeti Says
On SmartAgents:
"We spent a month and a half paying someone to build a reply agent that broke half the time. Smartlead dropped it natively, and we haven't looked back."
On support:
"I've always had a good experience. You guys reply on time, rectify issues immediately, and the team is knowledgeable. When we had the inbox bounce issue, support helped us understand exactly what was going on."
On overall rating:
"Nine out of 10. Ninety percent of our clients are on Smartlead unless they come in with an existing setup. That's the default."
Conclusion
Digital Creativs built a high-performance outbound engine on Smartlead—consistently booking meetings with SaaS CEOs and CMOs, hitting reply rates most agencies consider out of reach, and replacing an entire third-party automation stack with native SmartAgent workflows.
By centralizing campaign execution, reply management, and automation in one platform, Preeti's team spends less time maintaining infrastructure and more time building outbound systems that convert.
Your business can do the same and much more with Smartlead’s AI agents and automation features. How? Check Smartlead’s 14-day free trial to find out.
Wajahat Ali
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Frequently asked questions
What is Smartlead's cold email outreach software?
Smartlead's cold email outreach tool helps businesses scale their outreach efforts seamlessly. With unlimited mailboxes, fully automated email warmup functionality, a multi-channel infrastructure, and a user-friendly unibox, it empowers users to manage their entire revenue cycle in one place. Whether you're looking to streamline cold email campaigns with automated email warmups, personalization fields, automated mailbox rotation, easy integrations, and spintax, improve productivity, or enhance scalability with subsequences based on lead’s intentions, automated replies, and full white-label experience, our cold email tool implifies it in a single solution.
How does Smartlead's unlimited mailboxes feature benefit me?
Our "unlimited mailboxes" feature allows you to expand your email communications without restrictions imposed by a mailbox limit. This means you won't be constrained by artificial caps on the number of mailboxes you can connect and use. This feature makes Smartlead the best cold email software and empowers you to reach a wider audience, engage with more potential customers, and manage diverse email campaigns effectively.
What do you mean by "unibox to handle your entire revenue cycle"?
The "unibox" is one of the unique features of Smartlead cold email outreach tool, and it's a game-changer when it comes to managing your revenue cycle. The master inbox or the unibox consolidates all your outreach channels, responses, sales follow-ups, and conversions into one centralized, user-friendly mailbox.
With the "unibox," you gain the ability to:
1. Focus on closing deals: You can now say goodbye to the hassle of logging into multiple mailboxes to search for replies. The "unibox" streamlines your sales communication, allowing you to focus on what matters most—closing deals.
2. Centralized lead management: All your leads are managed from one central location, simplifying lead tracking and response management. This ensures you take advantage of every opportunity and efficiently engage with your prospects.
3. Maintain context: The "unibox" provides a 360-degree view of all your customer messages, allowing you to maintain context and deliver more personalized and effective responses.
Can Smartlead help improve my email deliverability rates?
Yes, our cold emailing software is designed to significantly improve your email deliverability rates. It enhances email deliverability through AI-powered email warmups across providers, unique IP rotating for each campaign, and dynamic ESP matching.
Real-time AI learning refines strategies based on performance, optimizing deliverability without manual adjustments. Smartlead's advanced features and strategies are designed to improve email deliverability rates, making it a robust choice for enhancing cold email campaign success.
Can I integrate Smartlead with other tools I'm using?
Certainly, Smartlead cold email tool is designed for seamless integration with a wide range of tools and platforms. Smartlead offers integration with HubSpot, Salesforce, Pipedrive, Clay, Listkit, and more. You can leverage webhooks and APIs to integrate the tools you use. Try Now!
What is Smartlead, and how can it enhance my cold email campaigns?
Smartlead is a robust cold emailing software designed to transform cold emails into reliable revenue streams. Trusted by over 31,000 businesses, Smartlead excels in email deliverability, lead generation, cold email automation, and sales outreach. A unified master inbox streamlines communication management, while built-in email verification reduces bounce rates.Additionally, Smartlead offers essential tools such as CNAME, SPF Checker, DMARC Checker, Email Verifier, Blacklist Check Tool, and Email Bounce Rate Calculator for optimizing email performance.
How does Smartlead, as a cold emailing tool, automate the cold email process?
Smartlead’s robust cold email API and automation infrastructure streamline outbound communication by transforming the campaign creation and management processes. It seamlessly integrates data across software systems using APIs and webhooks, adjusts settings, and leverages AI for personalised content.
The cold emailing tool categorises lead intent, offers comprehensive email management with automated notifications, and integrates smoothly with CRMs like Zapier, Make, N8N, HubSpot, Salesforce, and Pipedrive. Smartlead supports scalable outreach by rapidly adding mailboxes and drip-feeding leads into active campaigns Sign Up Now!
How does Smartlead ensure my emails don't land in the spam folder?
Smartlead, the best cold email marketing tool, ensures your emails reach the intended recipients' primary inbox rather than the spam folder.
Here's how it works:
1. Our "unlimited warmups" feature is designed to build and maintain a healthy sending reputation for your cold email outreach. Instead of sending a large volume of emails all at once, which can trigger spam filters, we gradually ramp up your sending volume. This gradual approach, combined with positive email interactions, helps boost your email deliverability rates.
2. We deploy high-deliverability IP servers specific to each campaign.
3. The ‘Warmup’ feature replicates humanized email sending patterns, spintax, and smart replies.
4. By establishing a positive sender reputation and gradually increasing the number of sent emails, Smartlead minimizes the risk of your emails being flagged as spam. This way, you can be confident that your messages will consistently land in the primary inbox, increasing the likelihood of engagement and successful communication with your recipients.
What features does Smartlead offer for cold email personalisation?
Smartlead enhances cold email personalisation through advanced AI-driven capabilities and strategic integrations. Partnered with Clay, The cold remaining software facilitates efficient lead list building, enrichment from over 50 data providers, and real-time scraping for precise targeting. Hyper-personalised cold emails crafted in Clay seamlessly integrate with Smartlead campaigns.
Moreover, Smartlead employs humanised, natural email interactions and smart replies to boost engagement and response rates. Additionally, the SmartAI Bot creates persona-specific, high-converting sales copy. Also you can create persona-specific, high-converting sales copy using SmartAI Bot. You can train the AI bot to achieve 100% categorisation accuracy, optimising engagement and conversion rates.
Is Smartlead suitable for both small businesses and large enterprises?
Smartlead accommodates both small businesses and large enterprises with flexible pricing and comprehensive features. The Basic Plan at $39/month suits small businesses and solopreneurs, offering 2000 active leads and 6000 monthly emails, alongside essential tools like unlimited email warm-up and detailed analytics.
Marketers and growing businesses benefit from the Pro Plan ($94/month), with 30000 active leads and 150000 monthly emails, plus a custom CRM and active support. Lead generation agencies and large enterprises can opt for the Custom Plan ($174/month), providing up to 12 million active lead credits and 60 million emails, with advanced CRM integration and customisation options.