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In the competitive world of outbound sales, most agencies pick a lane. One industry, one persona, one playbook. Unlock Management does the opposite.
Founded by Jaime de Wenetz, Unlock Management is a three-branch agency running go-to-market, AI automation, and cybersecurity practices simultaneously. Their clients span hospitality brands, military organizations, and SaaS companies. And across all of them, Smartlead powers the outreach engine.
As Mateo, who oversees outreach operations at Unlock, puts it simply: "50% of the business is made in Smartlead."
This case study explores how Unlock Management built a multi-industry outbound machine, what they use to run it, and how they are now hitting reply rates that most agencies only read about.
How It All Started: The Story of Jaime de Wenetz and Unlock Management
Jaime built Unlock Management around a rare combination of skills: GTM strategy, AI-powered automation, Clay expertise, copywriting, and cybersecurity. The agency's core business is go-to-market, but its ability to operate across AI and cybersecurity makes it one of the few firms capable of running outbound intelligently across very different buyer types.
Their client roster reflects that range. One campaign might target hotel chains. The next, defense contractors. The one after, B2B SaaS founders. Each ICP requires a different message, a different sequence, and a different level of precision.
Unlock Management chose Smartlead from the beginning for their email operations and has never looked elsewhere.
Key Challenges Faced Along the Way
Running outreach across radically different industries creates pressure that single-niche agencies never face.
Speed Without Sacrificing Quality
With multiple campaigns running at the same time across different verticals, campaign setup has to be fast. Every hour spent on configuration is an hour not spent on strategy, copy, or client results. The team needed a tool that could keep up without getting in the way.
Deliverability at Scale
Cold email volume is Unlock's competitive advantage. If emails go to spam, the business model breaks. With clients expecting results across industries where email norms vary widely, maintaining a clean sender reputation is not optional. It is the foundation everything else sits on.
How Smartlead Helped Solve the Challenges
Mateo and the team had a straightforward reason for trusting Smartlead: it works, and it has never stopped working.
"Everyone that's doing outbound is using Smartlead. Emails don't go to spam, so why should we change it?"
Deliverability That Just Works
From day one, Unlock Management's emails have landed in the inbox. The team actively monitors email reputation and has never dealt with a deliverability crisis. Smartlead's warmup infrastructure, rotating mailboxes, and humanized sending patterns handle the technical foundation so Mateo's team can focus on what actually moves the needle: the copy and the targeting.
Smartlead's platform, with its network of diverse mailboxes spanning Outlook, Google, Zoho, and other providers, ensures that sending reputation is built and protected automatically. The spam rescue feature adds another layer of protection, catching issues before they become problems.
Campaign Operations That Take 30 Seconds, Not 30 Minutes
Speed of execution is one of the things Mateo values most about Smartlead.
"In just 30 seconds, you can do everything. Being so simple and so effective at the same time, I think it's really important."
Sequences of three to four emails are built, connected to rotating mailboxes, and launched quickly. Duplicating campaigns, swapping out leads, and adjusting sequences happens without friction. For an agency managing multiple active clients across different industries, that speed compounds quickly.
Master Inbox and Tags for Multi-Client Management
With several clients running simultaneously, inbox management becomes a real operational challenge. Smartlead's tagging and label system lets the team filter their Master Inbox by client, campaign, or intent, so positive replies surface fast and nothing falls through the cracks.
"The tags and labels you can throw on some leads so you can then filter your inbox really, really fast."
Smartlead's Master Inbox organizes responses with sorting options including unread responses, most recent replies, and most recently sent, keeping the team on top of every active conversation regardless of volume.
SmartAgents for True Multi-Channel Execution
Unlock Management now runs LinkedIn touchpoints through SmartAgents for leads who do not respond to email. Before this integration, managing cross-channel outreach meant maintaining separate lead lists and manually deduplicating contacts who had already been reached through another channel.
"You create a campaign, you throw in the emails, and it starts a new campaign through LinkedIn for those leads that don't really answer your emails. Sometimes it's better to also contact them through LinkedIn."
The workflow is now fully connected. Email sequences run first. For non-responders, a LinkedIn touchpoint follows automatically. No duplicate lists. No manual cleanup.
AI Features That Speed Up Copy and Automation
Smartlead's built-in AI helps Unlock's team accelerate sequence drafts and reply suggestions. Given that copywriting is one of their highest-rated core strengths, they use the AI as a speed layer rather than a replacement, getting to a strong first draft faster and then refining from there.
The integration with N8N automation has also been smooth. When building workflows, Smartlead's AI provided exactly the prompts needed for the automation setup.
"The AI gave us exactly the prompt we needed to put in N8N. So I think it was really helpful."
Notable Achievements
Since making Smartlead the foundation of their outreach operations, Unlock Management's best campaigns have delivered results that stand out even by agency standards.
- 25% reply rate: On their strongest recent campaigns, one in four recipients replied.
- 18 to 20% positive reply rate: The majority of those replies were qualified interest, not objections or unsubscribes. That is pipeline, not noise.
- NPS score of 10 out of 10: When asked to rate Smartlead, Mateo did not hesitate. "We didn't have any problem. Everything works. It has to be a ten."
"We used to go a lot to volume, but now we are doing some specific campaigns that are really getting some nice reply rates, like 25% of replies and then nearly 18% of positive replies. It's something that I think is a very good metric."
Key Factors Contributing to Success
Precision Over Volume
Unlock Management shifted their approach from high-volume blasting to tighter, more targeted campaigns built around a specific ICP and sharper copy. That shift, paired with Smartlead's deliverability infrastructure, is what unlocked their best reply rate numbers.
Multi-Channel Coordination
The combination of Smartlead email sequences and SmartAgents LinkedIn follow-ups means Unlock Management reaches prospects across the channels where they are most likely to respond. The integration removed the operational overhead that used to make multi-channel outreach messy.
Instant, Reliable Support
Customer support has been a consistent strength throughout Unlock's time with Smartlead.
"Once we need help, support is instant. So I think it's the best thing."
That reliability has meant zero downtime on client campaigns and no gaps in outreach activity caused by platform issues.
Vision for the Future with Smartlead
Unlock Management is moving deeper into multi-channel outreach, layering LinkedIn and cold calling on top of email, and Smartlead is expanding in exactly that direction. The product roadmap aligns with where their clients need to go.
SmartProspect is also on their radar. While they currently rely on Clay for prospecting given their existing investment in the platform, they see SmartProspect as a strong future alternative.
"I think we could change in the future and start to use more SmartProspect."
For an agency running go-to-market, AI, and cybersecurity practices simultaneously, having a single platform that handles email, inbox management, multi-channel execution, and AI-assisted copy is not a luxury. It is what makes the whole operation possible.
Unlock Management is not chasing new tools. They are building on infrastructure that delivers, and scaling the results that prove it.
Rajashree
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What our customers say
Founder, Lambda Group
“The best outbound email marketing software. Customer support - they are so responsive and helpful Features - you can add multiple email domains to the same account.”
Senior Account Executive, Key Outreach
"Intuitive. Game-Changing. POWERFUL. Analytics, spintax, A/B testing, quick personalization. This is a game changer if you send cold email campaign. Grateful to this team for building a product that has changed our day to day. 🚀"
Account Executive, B.I.G. Charity Law Group Professional Corporation
“Hands down the best cold email software. Smartlead is amazing, this is the best tool if you want to cold email at scale and land in the inbox. The team is super responsive with great support. While there is a learning curve to cold email, they really built a great foundation to make it as simple as possible. I am sending over 2k emails a day!!! absolute game changer for my business.”
Co-founder, Pitchlane
“Innovative, reliable, and Suitable For Technical and Non-Technical Users. SmartLead's ability to help me land in the primary inbox and automate the laborious parts of my workflow is brilliant. The customer support is incredibly good, I've had some great feedback on my cold email campaigns.”
Co-Founder, Five Element
“Smartlead is an absolute game-changer! With its exceptional features and support from the Smartlead team, I've experienced remarkable success. The customizable platform and cost-effective pricing have revolutionized our cold emailing game. I would rate it 10 out of 10 for satisfaction. A must-have tool for any B2B agency!”
Sales Director - Financial Institution Solutions Saggezza, Inc.
“Smartlead is an innovative cold email platform that helps me reach out to potential clients. There are easy-to-use templates, powerful automation tools, and intuitive analytics for email warming and campaign analytics. It provides me with everything I need to maximize my cold email campaigns.”
Founder, Leadbird.io
“I've personally built a sales engagement platform similar to Smartlead, and I am genuinely blown away by the scalability, functionality and more. We're a B2B Lead Gen Agency, and we primarily use cold email to generate leads for our clients. We're on track to double our best month in terms of client results.”
CEO, Yell Cut
"I can upload hundreds of email accounts, send thousands of cold emails per day, and still have an organized master inbox. This is unseen with any other tool on the market today. I looked..."
Founder, Office Optim
“Smartlead has been extremely helpful with seamlessly onboarding clients, warming up their accounts, and prepping campaigns to send at high volumes while maintaining high deliverability. There are multiple features that allow me to track performance over time and understand when it is time for me to make adjustments, and Vaibhav is constantly making improvements/upgrades to the platform which gives me all the more faith in the future of this great tool.”
CEO, Rock Solid Lead Generation
“Smartlead is absolutely amazing! The software is easy to understand I am not a techie but directly understand everything and if you really have a question the team always helps instantly. Additionally I love all the features. Like I said for me as a lead generation agency the software gives me everything I need and much more.”
Founder, WindGrowth
“Smartlead is simply amazing. They constantly improve their product and bring new features that make the cold email software even more complete. If you're a big automation enthusiast like me, there are no other cold email tools on the market that allow you to 100% automate your business as Smartlead does.”
Outbound Lead & Partner, Peakora
“Our campaigns weren't just about reaching out, but reaching out right, and Smartlead helped us achieve this. It has added immense value to our business by prioritizing email deliverability and customer needs. I would rate it a 9 out of 10”
Co-Founder, Five Element
“Smartlead is an absolute game-changer! With its exceptional features and support from the Smartlead team, I've experienced remarkable success. The customizable platform and cost-effective pricing have revolutionized our cold emailing game. I would rate it 10 out of 10 for satisfaction. A must-have tool for any B2B agency!”
CEO, Acquisizioneclienti.it
“Best cold outbound email software out there. Everything, is fast, reliable, scalable, you can also white-label, amazing analytics and never breaks like other similar competitors. Never once I went in spam in the last 4 months of using it.”
Owner, Storydriven.video
“I just ended my 2 year search for the right cold emailing platform with Smartlead. A stand alone tool for cold emailing unlike anything else in the market. And it looks like they're only getting started. Now I can finally train my VAs on just one platform instead of bouncing between several like they used to for different things.”
Owner, FunnelVision
“Best cold email tool in the game. Most user friendly cold email tool I've used to date. Super easy to set up, love the bulk upload feature to add multiple domains at once and support is impeccable. They respond so fast it's unreal. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.”
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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.