How do you cold outreach with no case studies?
Replace borrowed proof with proof made for that one prospect: a finding about their business they can check in a minute. Some buyers hold a thin portfolio against you. The poster in a May 2025 r/agency thread (28 comments when checked on 24 October 2026) said they ignore cold emails because most come from people with little portfolio, just starting out and with no marketing budget. One commenter who had replied to only a handful of cold emails in about six years said the ones that worked held real value, such as an idea they hadn't heard, or an unusually compelling offer.
Survey data says the same. In Hunter's State of Email Outreach 2026, 65% of decision makers said cold emails fail because they feel too sales-focused, and 61% blamed irrelevance. A finding about the reader's own business answers the relevance complaint directly, and it reads as help rather than a pitch.
A commenter on an April 2026 Indie Hackers post, where a founder blamed 342 unanswered emails on having no testimonials, described building a small tailored demo for each prospect instead, and put it this way: "It needs the email to BE the proof."
What proof can you make before your first client?
Anything the prospect can verify without trusting you. Six kinds, sorted by our rough estimate of the time each takes per prospect (yours will vary):
| Proof | What you send | Time per prospect | Tool | Fits |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Speed check | Two or three Core Web Vitals readings against Google's thresholds, and the first fix you'd make | 15 minutes | PageSpeed Insights | Web, dev and conversion agencies |
| Accessibility scan | The number of detected errors and the most common one | 15 minutes | WebAIM's WAVE | Web and design agencies |
| Page teardown | Three observations on one page: headline, call to action, booking or checkout | 30 minutes | None | Copy, design, conversion |
| Sample in their style | One finished piece, such as one product shot in three variations | 30 to 60 minutes | Your own | Creative and content |
| Niche scan | One finding across 20 to 50 companies like theirs, plus where they rank | Half a day once, then 5 minutes each | PageSpeed Insights or WAVE | Any agency with a niche |
| Public teardown post | A link to a teardown of a well-known site in their industry | An hour once | Building proof for many prospects |
The numbers you need are published. Google's PageSpeed Insights documentation rates Largest Contentful Paint as good up to 2.5 seconds and poor above 4 seconds, Interaction to Next Paint as good up to 200 milliseconds, and Cumulative Layout Shift as good up to 0.1. Its Lighthouse category scores count 90 or above as good and below 50 as poor. Lighthouse itself is open source and audits performance, accessibility, SEO and more.
Accessibility scans almost always find something. The WebAIM Million 2026 report found detected WCAG 2 failures on 95.9% of the top million home pages in February 2026, an average of 56.1 errors per page, with low-contrast text on 83.9% of pages. WebAIM notes that automated tools can't detect every failure, so call it a scan, not an audit.
What does audit-first outreach look like in practice?
Small, specific and fast, judging by the founders who have posted their numbers. All of these are self-reported and small samples.
- Accessibility scans to agency founders. A founder building an accessibility scanner reported in March 2026 sending 60-plus personalised LinkedIn DMs to UK web agency founders, each with a scan of the agency's own site. Two replied: one not interested, one chief executive who said they would test it. The founder said leading with each site's specific problems got more engagement than a generic pitch, and that being a 15-year-old student messaging chief executives was a credibility barrier.
- Samples instead of demos. The co-founder of a brand-visuals tool wrote in October 2026 that both interested leads from about 650 emails asked for samples, and nobody wanted a demo. The response was to make 3 to 5 free visuals in each prospect's style. One commenter suggested capping it at one product shot in three variations and timing each sample.
- Site issues as the opener. A small web agency owner reported in July 2026 sending 43 emails that each referred to something real on the prospect's site, to businesses that visibly needed help. 17 replied and 1 became a client for a $230-a-month SEO audit. The founder also sells the prospecting tool used.
The same advice turns up in a June 2026 r/Freelancers thread from a student starting a web agency with a friend: one commenter suggested picking one buyer type with one painful reason to care, making one sample teardown in public, then sending a short note that points to the mock-up of the fix. If you are starting without a network as well, our plan for first customers with no network covers where to find people describing the problem.
How much free work is too much?
Send the diagnosis free and charge for the fix. The AIGA position on spec work defines spec work as work done for free in the hope of getting paid, and lists the risks: rushed work for the client, a designer being taken advantage of, and legal risk if intellectual property or trademark issues come up. By that definition any free audit is a little speculative, so keep the stake small: a 15-minute finding risks little, while a finished redesign sent unasked risks a lot.
Do the arithmetic before you start. On our estimates, at 30 minutes per custom teardown, 50 prospects cost 25 hours. A niche scan of 50 sites done once in about four hours, plus a 5-minute personal note per prospect (about another four hours), covers the same 50 people in roughly 8 hours, and every prospect gets a number that compares them with their peers.
Three cold emails you can copy
Each one leads with the finding and admits you are new where it matters. Swap the brackets for your own details.
- Audit first. "Hi [name], I ran [company]'s homepage through Google's PageSpeed Insights. On mobile, the largest element on the page takes [x] seconds to appear, and Google counts anything over 4 seconds as poor. The first fix I'd try is [fix]. Want the other two things I found?"
- Sample first. "Hi [name], I made one [asset] in [brand]'s style to show what we do. It's here: [link]. We're a new studio, so this is our case study for now. Should I do two more for your next [launch or campaign]?"
- Niche finding. "Hi [name], I checked the sites of 40 [type of business] in [city]. [Company] ranked [n]th for mobile speed, and the top five all [pattern]. Happy to send the full table if it's useful."
When someone says yes, offer a small fixed-scope first project and ask up front whether you can write it up afterwards. More openers are in our cold email templates. To decide who receives these, our plan for how agencies find clients beyond referrals lists the signals worth watching.
What proof should you never fake?
Testimonials, client logos and results. In the US, the Federal Trade Commission's Rule on the Use of Consumer Reviews and Testimonials (16 CFR Part 465, published 22 August 2024) makes it an unfair or deceptive practice for a business to write or create a testimonial that materially misrepresents whether the person exists, whether they used the product or service, or what their experience was. Other countries have their own consumer protection rules. This is not legal advice; check with a lawyer where you sell.
What you can show honestly:
- Concept work, labelled as concept work and not as a client project.
- Results from a previous job, described accurately and only if your contract allows it.
- Your niche scan, with the method stated.
- Your own site, built to the standard you are selling.
How do you turn your first client into a case study?
Plan the case study before the work starts, so you have a before and an after.
Agree on the write-up
Ask for permission to publish, named or anonymous, when you agree the project.
Record the baseline
Save PageSpeed Insights and accessibility results, plus the client's own number, such as enquiries a week. PageSpeed field data covers the previous 28 days, and a page with too few real visitors may show none.
Pick one metric
One number the client cares about. Report it every week.
Measure again after 28 days
That gives field data a full window after your changes.
Get a quote in their words
Ask what changed for them, then send the draft for approval.
Until then, finding the right people to send audits to is the bottleneck. Siela's AI SDR looks for signals such as a company hiring for the work you do or someone posting a pain point, and skips service providers, freelancers and consultants, so an agency doesn't end up pitching other agencies. For the founder's own profile, see our guide to LinkedIn for agency owners.
Frequently asked questions
Should a new agency offer a free audit in cold outreach?
Yes, if it is short and specific. Send one finding, one suggested fix and one question, and keep the full audit for a paid conversation. AIGA warns that free speculative work risks rushed results and being taken advantage of, so cap the effort at around 15 to 30 minutes per prospect, or do one niche scan and reuse it across many prospects.
Is it legal to use made-up testimonials for a new agency?
Not in the US. The FTC's Rule on the Use of Consumer Reviews and Testimonials, 16 CFR Part 465, makes it an unfair or deceptive practice for a business to create a testimonial that materially misrepresents whether the person exists, used the service, or what their experience was. Other countries have their own rules. This is not legal advice.
What can a new agency show instead of a portfolio?
Concept work clearly labelled as concept work, results from a previous job described accurately if your contract allows it, a niche scan with its method stated, and your own website built to the standard you sell. In cold outreach, lead with a finding about the prospect's own business and keep these as backup.
Does PageSpeed Insights work on small business websites?
Partly. Google's documentation says real-user data only appears when a page has enough visits to be in the Chrome User Experience Report. A new page or one with few real visitors may fall back to the whole site's data, or show none at all. The lab data from Lighthouse still runs on any public page, so you can always quote that.
Sources
- r/agency: I don't respond to cold emails because most are broke vendors with no portfolio or experience (16 May 2025)
- r/Freelancers: How did you get your first clients for a web design/development agency? (1 Jun 2026)
- Hunter: The State of Email Outreach 2026 (checked 24 Oct 2026)
- Indie Hackers: Cold email got me zero replies but content marketing got me real conversations (1 Apr 2026)
- Google for Developers: About PageSpeed Insights (last updated 21 Oct 2024; checked 24 Oct 2026)
- Chrome for Developers: Introduction to Lighthouse (last updated 2 Jun 2025; checked 24 Oct 2026)
- WebAIM: The WebAIM Million, 2026 report (data February 2026; checked 24 Oct 2026)
- Indie Hackers: Day 3 update: 60+ cold DMs sent, 2 replies, 0 paying customers (30 Mar 2026)
- Indie Hackers: 650 cold emails, 2 interested leads, 0 customers (so far) (7 Oct 2026)
- Indie Hackers: I sent 43 cold emails with my own tool. 17 replied. 1 paid. (15 Jul 2026)
- AIGA: AIGA Position on Spec Work (checked 24 Oct 2026)
- eCFR: 16 CFR Part 465, Rule on the Use of Consumer Reviews and Testimonials (89 FR 68077, 22 Aug 2024; checked 24 Oct 2026)