Results/TobinLeff
TobinLeff: 34 meetings booked in the first six weeks
The client
What TobinLeff was solving for
TobinLeff advises owners of marketing and communications agencies on sell-side mandates. The partners are good at running a process. The constraint sat earlier than that: the supply of owners willing to have a first conversation depended on the partners' own network, which is finite and does not scale on demand.
The job was to create a standing flow of conversations with agency owners who were not running a process and were not in anyone's inbound.
The result
What the first six weeks produced
Sending started on 9 August 2026. The first meeting was booked on 10 August, the day after. Inside six weeks the engine produced 509 replies, 80 of them positive, 54 of those high intent, and 34 opportunities moved into Meeting Booked on TobinLeff's own board. That runs at roughly two and a half times the positive-reply rate we see across the platform as a whole.
These are blended averages. They include every segment and message variant we tested, including the ones that underperformed and have since been switched off. The campaigns still running are the survivors of that test, which is the point of treating the first month as a measurement rather than a launch.
The finding
The number that changed the targeting
Weekly positive replies ran 24, 26 and 20 in the first three weeks, then eased to 11, 8 and 9. That is not a campaign breaking. It is a narrow, high-quality universe being worked faster than it was replaced, and the answer to that is better targeting rather than more volume.
Reply rate inside the single category "marketing agencies" varied by a factor of six:
| Segment | Reply rate |
|---|---|
| Digital experience | 1.3% |
| Public affairs | 0.9% |
| Health tech | 0.8% |
| Social media marketing | 0.7% |
| PR | 0.5% |
| Digital marketing | 0.3% |
| Full-service advertising | 0.2% |
Three further segments returned nothing at all on more than 300 leads each. The two largest segments by volume were among the weakest by rate. Concentrating sending into digital experience, public affairs and social media is worth roughly four times the reply rate of spending it on full-service advertising, and no amount of better writing closes that gap.
That map is the real deliverable of a first month, which is why we publish our benchmarks including the parts that do not flatter us.
“Hey David, thanks for the outreach. We are interested in bringing the business to market, so happy to chat.”
Figures are taken from our own systems and stated as measured. Where a number is a blended average across campaigns or variants, the page says so.
FAQ
Questions about this engagement
What kind of firm is TobinLeff?
An M&A advisory specialising in marketing and communications agencies, working sell-side mandates for agency owners.
How quickly did the engagement produce meetings?
The first meeting was booked on 10 August 2026, one day after the first email went out. 34 opportunities reached Meeting Booked inside the first six weeks.
Are these the best campaigns or the average?
The average. They include every segment and variant tested, including underperformers that have since been turned off. We publish the blend rather than the best campaign, because the blend is what a new mandate should expect in month one.
Why did weekly replies fall after three weeks?
The strongest segments were worked through faster than the list was replaced. The fix was re-targeting into the segments the data showed were replying, not increasing volume.
See what this would produce for your mandate
Thirty minutes on your thesis, the size of your universe and who takes the call. Our pricing and our measured benchmarks are both published, so you can check them before we speak.
Confidential, and handled by the team that would run your mandate. Or read more client results first.