54% of B2B SaaS companies use affiliate partners for outbound prospecting and lead enrichment

Cold outreach

54%

of surveyed B2B SaaS companies use partners to help with outbound prospecting and lead enrichment

Reader Note:: Survey of 100 senior leaders at B2B SaaS companies ($50M+), run in summer 2025 by PartnerStack, which sells partner-program software, with Wynter. “Lead enrichment” means partners adding data or context to leads before outreach. Separately, 50% use partners to target strategic accounts in account-based marketing (ABM). The report says this use peaks at companies with 501–1,000 employees but gives no figures by size.
Evidence:: Self-reported behaviour
Vendor interest:: High — This comes from a company with a commercial interest in this market, so it is not a neutral source.
Sample:: Survey of 100 senior B2B SaaS leaders, including marketing executives, partnerships professionals, and revenue leaders; sampling method not clearly disclosed.

Good for

A rough sense of size and direction, and deciding what to look at first.

Exact numbers, or saying that one thing caused another.
This is an aggregated or average number that covers very different cases. Real results in a particular segment may differ.
This comes from a company with a commercial interest in this market, so it is not a neutral source.
The source says how much it looked at, but not how any of it was chosen.

45.7%

Difference in lead rate between cold emails that open by naming a problem and those that don't — problem-led openers convert worse

Narrow follow-up questions keep the conversation going, while broad ones do not

21%

Share of B2B teams using multiple outreach channels that actually coordinate messaging across them

Our Substack turns the data behind these cards into full breakdowns: what changed, why, and what to do about it.

52.5%

Lift in lead rate for cold emails that promise a fast, near-term result — the strongest-performing message pattern tested

An offer in the subject line makes 77% of B2B prospects more likely to open a cold email, while shocking subject lines put off 32%

Cold email subject line type and likelihood to open
Subject line type	% More likely to open	Makes no difference (%)
An offer	77%	14%
Personalised (name/company name)	71%	22%
A question	69%	19%
Intriguing/mystery	64%	22%
Topical/trend/current affairs	64%	26%

Longer product conversations are more persuasive