The strongest test in our dataSame Clients, Same 60 Days: Founder Coffee Asks Booked 2.9x the Meetings
Eighteen clients ran a founder-to-founder campaign alongside their other cold campaigns within 60 days. Two to four lines, no pitch, sent and signed by the founder or MD, asking a fellow leader for a coffee, usually with a local hook. Everything else those clients sent in the same window is the comparison. The ask is what does it: emails signed by a founder or MD with any other angle booked 0.74 meetings per 1,000.
2.9xmeetings per person contacted
4.19meetings per 1,000, founder coffee (31,014 people)
1.43meetings per 1,000, everything else (75,728 people)
16 of 18clients where it won on positive replies
The Campaigns That Hit
Our strongest campaigns by positive replies and meetings, with what each one did differently.
Founder coffee13 Meetings From 557 People
South African managed IT provider, Feb 2025. The MD wrote to fellow leaders: often in your city, coffee to swap notes? Five steps, with a 30-day pause before the fourth.
23.3meetings per 1,000
3.6%positive reply rate
557people contacted
Same Week, 13 Meetings Against 1
UK hotel direct-bookings agency, Sep 2026. The director: I'll be in your area next month, coffee? The same sender's insight email that week booked 1 meeting from 426.
13meetings
8.5%reply rate
792people contacted
37 Meetings From One Campaign
Dutch brand and design agency, Jun 2024. The MD passed on a senior strategist's suggestion, offered ideas to take or leave, and followed up with a client result in step three.
37meetings
8.8per 1,000 people
4,198people contacted
26 Meetings for a Children's Charity
UK children's charity, Jun 2024. To logistics and sustainability leads: donate your excess stock and we collect within 24 hours. Awareness pitches the same month booked less than half as many per person.
26meetings
9.2%reply rate
2,250people contacted
14% Replied to One Observation
Dutch same-day courier, May 2025. The founder spotted that a brand didn't offer late next-day delivery on the country's biggest marketplace, and offered a comparison with the big carriers.
14.1%reply rate
5.7%positive reply rate
509people contacted
A Free Game in the Post
Dutch made-to-measure plastics supplier, Mar 2025. Offered to post a 3D noughts and crosses game made from their own material. The 162 are people who said yes to the gift: conversations opened, with meetings still to win.
23%reply rate
162positive replies
2,180people contacted
It Didn't Work. Then We Changed One Thing.
Most campaigns don't land first time. These are real before-and-after pairs for the same client, and the change that made the difference.
Same MD, Same Month, Different Ask
South African managed IT and cloud provider, February 2025
Before: insight pitch
A solutions architect's take on a bank data breach, then a whitepaper: most cloud breaches come from a misconfiguration.
1.9meetings per 1,000 people
1,580 people · 0.32% positive · 3 meetings
The changeOnly the angle. Same MD, same audience, same five-step cadence: "I'm often in your city. Coffee to swap ideas?"
After: founder coffee
Short, no pitch, one leader asking another for a coffee.
15.4meetings per 1,000 people
1,106 people · 2.26% positive · 17 meetings
The lesson: The cleanest test we've run. Nothing changed but the ask, and meetings per person went up eight times.
Two Lines in Dutch Beat a Technical Pitch
Dutch Magento and e-commerce agency, October 2024
Before: technical pain
To e-commerce managers: slow store loading is hurting experience and rankings, and we fixed it for a known retailer.
2.2meetings per 1,000 people
1,395 people · 5.5% reply · 3 meetings
The changeHeads of company instead of e-commerce managers, the CTO writing as a peer, and two lines in Dutch ending in "koffie?"
After: two-line coffee
Two lines from the CTO to the people who run the company.
6.6meetings per 1,000 people
2,114 people · 9.3% reply · 14 meetings
The lesson: Then it wore out. The same email to the next slice of the market four months later booked 1.2 per 1,000. Winning angles don't survive being re-sent.
Logos Out, Neighbour In
Brussels workplace design studio, August 2024
Before: case-study pitch
We've transformed offices for well-known Brussels companies, with wellbeing-focused workplaces.
3.9meetings per 1,000 people
2,027 people · 0.39% positive · 8 meetings
The changeSame founder. The client logos went. In came "I'm also based in Brussels. Introductory coffee sometime?"
After: local founder coffee
A neighbour asking for a coffee.
6.1meetings per 1,000 people
2,471 people · 0.69% positive · 15 meetings
The lesson: Slightly fewer people replied, but far more of them said yes: positive replies were up 77%.
From Asking for Something to Asking for Advice
UK digital inclusion charity, April 2025
Before: a donation ask
From the partnerships team to IT asset leads: what happens to your old phones and laptops?
2.2meetings per 1,000 people
3,131 people · 0.45% positive · 7 meetings
The changeThe Group CEO wrote to CSR leaders ahead of a national launch event: "Would you share one insight from your experience?"
After: an advice ask
A senior sender, the people who own the budget, and a request for their view.
6.9meetings per 1,000 people
867 people · 2.19% positive · 6 meetings
The lesson: People say yes to giving advice far more readily than to giving things away.
A Winner Wore Out. A New Voice Brought It Back.
Dutch brand and design agency, 2024 to 2025
Before: a winner, re-sent 14 times
The MD name-drops a senior strategist and offers ideas. It booked 37 meetings in 2024 (8.8 per 1,000), then faded across 26,887 more people.
0.5meetings per 1,000 on the re-runs
14 campaigns · 0.26% positive · 13 meetings
The changeA new team member's intro: just started, new to the city, fancy a coffee or a glass of wine? Sent to heads of brand and design.
After: the new-joiner coffee
A human reason to meet, from someone the prospect hadn't heard from before.
12.7meetings per 1,000 people
1,336 people · 2.54% positive · 17 meetings
The lesson: The work is finding the next angle.
The pattern behind all of them. Across every client, winning angles wore out when they were re-sent to the next slice of the same market: 6.6 meetings per 1,000 fell to 1.2, 6.1 to 2.9, 8.8 to 0.5. That's why we keep testing.
Campaign Styles, Compared
Same agency, same tools, different styles of campaign. Rates are per person contacted, across every campaign of that style.
Founder to Founder
Sent and signed by the client's founder or MD to heads of company. Two to four lines, no pitch, a coffee ask, usually with a local hook. Follow-ups are one line.
Event Invite
The client hosts an event and the email offers a seat. The first ask is the seat; the call comes once they've said yes.
Event Hook
A third-party event is the reason to write: heading to the same show, saw you exhibited, missed you there.
Signal or Trigger
Opens on a reason to reach out now: company news, funding, hiring or a new role.
Standard Cold
A problem, observation or offer pitch with no special device. Our best single observation email sits here.
Social Proof
The sender brings in a named senior colleague, offers ideas or a teardown, then a client result with a number.
Dream Client
Offers our take on who the prospect's next dream client should be, then shows who we've done it for.
January 2025 to October 2026, campaigns that reached at least 100 people. Meetings are replies tagged as booked in Smartlead, so they are a minimum, especially for 2026. Too few campaigns to compare yet: new-joiner coffee (2 campaigns, 12.7 meetings per 1,000), podcast guest invites (3, 6.7) and website visitor outreach (2, none). Webinar invites (11 campaigns) are left out because one campaign makes up nearly all of the result and its count may include sign-ups.
What Happens After the Reply
A reply is where the work starts. Since 18 September 2026 every reply across every client programme, on email and LinkedIn, has gone through the same reply desk. This is what happened next.
4,209replies handled across 14 client programmes
22 minmedian time to answer, 64% within the hour
28%of interested conversations became a meeting
75%of meetings booked within 24 hours of the first yes
34%of meetings came from a follow-up, a reply to a polite no, or a check-in months later
26%of our replies were written in Dutch or German
Replies 20 Sep to 27 Oct 2026, meetings 18 Sep to 26 Oct 2026 · see 188 of the replies, anonymised and filterable
Check-in, months laterQuiet since April, booked for November
A partner at a UK private equity firm went quiet in April. A short, researched check-in at the end of September got a yes the next day. The first call was missed; three light rebooking notes landed a date in November.
Reply to a noA cancelled seat became a call
A head of marketing at a Dutch staffing platform cancelled their seat at a client's event. One gracious reply, no pitch, turned the cancellation into a call booked the same day.
Not now"No capacity until December"
An occupational health lead in the UK public sector said they had no room until December. Instead of a reminder in two months, we offered two specific December dates. One was accepted the same day.
First follow-upCurious, not now, then a meeting
A partner at a US branding agency said "curious, but not now" in August and nobody followed up. Our first follow-up came with a short list of European prospects that fitted them. They asked for a meeting the next day.
LinkedIn Against Email
Same clients, same months, both channels. Sixteen client programmes from 1 May to 26 Oct 2026, then 18 Sep to 26 Oct 2026, when every reply on both channels was classified the same way and meetings were counted per channel.
Email
People approached, May to Oct175,398
Reply rate1.8%
Positive reply rate (Sep to Oct)0.6%
Meetings per 1,000 people (Sep to Oct)1.2
Interested replies that became meetings20%
LinkedIn
People approached, May to Oct59,272
Reply rate4.2%
Positive reply rate (Sep to Oct)2.0%
Meetings per 1,000 people (Sep to Oct)3.0
Interested replies that became meetings15%
What it means: LinkedIn converts, email scales. LinkedIn got 2.3 times the reply rate and 2.5 times the meetings per person, and it beat email for 15 of the 16 clients. Email reaches three times as many people, so it still books plenty of meetings, and an interested email reply is slightly more likely to turn into one. The one client where email won was a Danish creative technology studio: 5.2% on email against 2.0% on LinkedIn.
LinkedIn in Numbers
Every LinkedIn campaign across 19 client teams in GetSales, 24 June 2025 to 27 October 2026, warm-up activity excluded.
98,719connection requests sent
21.3%accepted
20%of accepted connections replied
59%acceptance on our best campaign (209 of 354)
The Next Pivot Story, by Email