Hey everyone, I’ve been running a mid-sized agency for about four years now, and we’ve mostly relied on cold outreach to land clients in the US market. It works, but it’s exhausting—low response rates, lots of ghosting, and we’re constantly chasing leads that go nowhere.
Recently, I started experimenting with the bilingual hub’s partnership matchmaking feature instead of just blasting emails. The idea was simple: find agencies or complementary service providers already working with US brands, build relationships with them, and let those connections introduce us to potential clients through joint campaigns.
Honestly, it’s been different. Not revolutionary, but different. I’ve connected with two agencies so far through the matchmaking—one in LA doing influencer work, another in NYC focused on UGC. We’re exploring a co-branded pitch for a mid-market beauty brand they already have relationships with. The conversation started naturally, not like “hey, can you send me client referrals?”
What I’m curious about is whether this approach actually scales, or if I’m just getting lucky with timing. For those of you who’ve tried partnership matchmaking instead of traditional client hunting—did it actually replace cold outreach for you, or was it just another channel adding to your workload? And how long did it take before you saw actual revenue from partner-led introductions?
This resonates hard. I ditched pure cold outreach about eighteen months ago for exactly the same reason—the ROI on cold emails was terrible. What I found is that partnership matchmaking doesn’t replace outreach; it amplifies it. When you have a warm introduction from a trusted partner, your pitch conversation is completely different. The client already has context about you through someone they know.
Here’s what actually changed things for me: I stopped thinking of matchmaking as a client-finding tool and started thinking of it as a trust-building tool. I prioritize partners who have already figured out the market I’m trying to enter. They become my scouts. We share leads, co-develop proposals, and split revenue on joint projects. That structure works way better than random cold pitches.
One thing to watch—early matchmaking connections usually take 2-3 months before they turn into actual revenue. But when they do, the client relationships are stickier because they come with built-in partner relationships. My repeat rate on partner-sourced clients is about 40% higher than cold outreach.
How deep are you going with those two agencies you connected with? Have you agreed on any structure yet, or are you still testing?
Scaling partnership matchmaking is absolutely possible, but there’s a trap most people fall into. They try to maintain relationships with too many potential partners at once and end up spreading themselves thin. I made that mistake.
What worked better: I identified three core partner types that aligned with my service offerings and market position. Then I went deep with maybe 5-6 partners total. Quality over quantity. With those partners, we set clear expectations—what types of clients we’d refer to each other, how we’d structure collaboration, what the revenue split looks like. Once that framework was solid, partner introductions started happening naturally.
The cold outreach never really stopped, but it became maybe 30% of my new business pipeline instead of 90%. The real volume came from those partner relationships compounding over time. By month six, I had partners actively thinking of me when they encountered clients outside their wheelhouse.
The matchmaking feature on the hub helped with initial discovery, but the real work was nurturing those relationships afterward. What’s your plan for staying connected with the agencies you matched with?
I’m going to ask the data question here: are you tracking the source of each lead separately? Because I’ve seen a lot of agencies assume partnership matchmaking is working when they’re actually mixing signals.
What I mean is, if you’re doing cold outreach AND matchmaking AND showing up in the hub’s case studies, it’s hard to know which channel actually drove the introduction. When I work with DTC brands, we always tag leads by source and track conversion rates by channel. Matchmaking might be working, or it might just be that you’re getting more visible on the platform overall.
My take: set up your tracking now. Tag partnership-sourced leads separately, track deal size and close time for those deals versus cold outreach deals, and see if there’s actually a revenue difference after 6-12 months. Then you’ll know whether this is worth scaling or just a feel-good addition to your pipeline.
But yes, I’d agree with the others—warm introductions from trusted partners almost always convert better than cold emails. That’s not specific to the hub; that’s just how sales works.
Интересный опыт. Давайте посмотрим на это с точки зрения метрик. Холодный аутреч обычно даёт response rate 2-5%, и conversion rate на тех ответах примерно 10-20%. Партнёрский матчинг на хабе обычно показывает другие цифры, потому что там уже куда выше trust-уровень.
Мой анализ данных показывает, что введение от партнёра увеличивает вероятность первой встречи на 60-70% по сравнению с холодным письмом. И cycle time сокращается примерно на 30%. Но это работает только если партнер действительно тёплый к вашему сервису.
Что важно: отслеживайте не только количество интро, но и качество. Не все introduced leads одинаковые—зависит, насколько хорошо партнер вас понимает и насколько правильно фильтрует клиента. Рекомендую первые 5-10 интро оценить детально: профит от сделки, качество клиента, время на закрытие.
Если цифры показывают, что партнёрные leads конвертятся лучше, то да, масштабируйте. Если нет, может быть проблема в подборе партнёров или в неправильной коммуникации вашего адреса клиентам.
У меня похожий опыт, когда мы выходили на европейский рынок. Холодные письма казались логичным выходом, но конверсия была ужасная.
То, что нам помогло,—это действительно найти партнёров, которые уже работают на целевых рынках и при этом не конкурируют с нами напрямую. Через хаб я встретил двух человек, которые работают с европейскими брендами в маркетинге. Они начали рекомендовать нас, и это дало примерно 40% нашей первой волны клиентов в Европе.
Но важный нюанс: нужно время на отношения. Я не рассчитывал, что первая рекомендация придёт через месяц. Это был месяц третий-четвёртый, когда партнёры поняли, что мы серьёзные и надёжные.
Мой совет: стройте долгосрочные отношения, а не ищите быстрые сделки. Покажите партнёрам, что вы готовы помогать им тоже, обмениваться опытом, может быть, даже направлять им клиентов. Тогда это становится реальным партнёрством, а не просто цепочкой по обмену контактами.