B2B Outbound Best Practices: What’s Working Now with Cold Email and Paid Ads (with Alex Fine)

#245: Cold Email | Danielle Messler sits down with Alex Fine, co-founder of Understory, the agency behind some of the most effective outbound and paid strategies in B2B right now. Alex is leading the charge on a smarter approach to outbound called “Allbound”, a tightly integrated blend of outbound, paid media, and LinkedIn tactics that actually convert.If you’re tired of cold emails that go nowhere or ad campaigns that burn cash without ROI, this one’s for you.Danielle and Alex cover:Why most B2B outbound strategies fail and how Allbound fixes the disconnect between ads, email, and LinkedInThe cold email deliverability tactics that actually work in 2025 (including tools like Instantly, Smartlead, and Clay)Real-world examples of hyper-personalized, AI-powered outreach that book meetings with high-ACV prospectsTimestamps(00:00) - – Intro (02:00) - – What Is “Allbound”? (04:00) - – Cold Email Isn’t Dead (But It’s Evolved) (06:30) - – Tools to Improve Deliverability (08:45) - – Personalization That Actually Works (10:15) - – Real Example: Fraud Detection SaaS Cold Email Strategy (12:00) - – How to Keep Messaging Consistent Across Channels (14:00) - – Treating Each Channel Differently (16:00) - – Ads as a “Cheat Code” in B2B (18:30) - – Building Genuinely Personalized Emails at Scale (21:30) - – From Swiffer to SaaS (25:00) - – What Sales Teaches Marketers (33:45) - – Where to Find Alex + Upcoming Exit Five Event Plug Join 50,0000 people who get Dave's Newsletter here: https://www.exitfive.com/newsletterLearn more about Exit Five's private marketing community: https://www.exitfive.com/***Brought to you by:Optimizely - the AI platform for marketers. Build your own AI agents or pull from a directory of 50+ pre-built ones for marketing use cases. Their new Virtual Teammates can join meetings, complete tasks, support campaigns, and keep your website optimized. Learn more at optimizely.com/exitfive.Webflow - A website platform built for the agentic web, letting modern marketing teams build fully custom sites that perform in AI search with no developer needed. Learn more at webflow.com/for/exitfive.Zoom Webinars & Events – The virtual event platform built to help B2B marketers run webinars that actually drive pipeline, with branded registration pages, live engagement features, and built-in tools to repurpose sessions into clips and content. Learn more at zoom.com/exitfive.Compound Growth Marketing - A full-funnel demand gen agency helping high-growth cybersecurity and enterprise software companies show up earlier in the buying journey, combining AEO, modern paid advertising, and a dedicated go-to-market engineering team. Podcast listeners get two free media planning sessions to find out what channels are driving the best ROI. Learn more at compoundgrowthmarketing.com/exitfive. ***Thanks to my friends at hatch.fm for producing this episode and handling all of the Exit Five podcast production.They give you unlimited podcast editing and strategy for your B2B podcast.Get unlimited podcast editing and on-demand strategy for one low monthly cost. Just upload your episode, and they take care of the rest.Visit hatch.fm to learn more