The situation
ECG Agency runs paid media for DTC brands and was launching a new service: getting brands recommended by ChatGPT and other AI search tools. The plan was 20,000 emails to DTC brands. By day 4: 5,125 sent, 1 positive reply.
What we built
We stopped the DTC campaign on day 4 and rebuilt for B2B companies, whose buyers already ask ChatGPT to shortlist vendors. We took ECG's B2B list and kept only companies actually spending on Google Ads: 43,852 domains checked against the ads library, 16,488 running ads.
For each of 13,032 companies, an AI wrote the question their buyer would ask ChatGPT, asked it, and pulled out 2 real competitors that came back. 3,848 queries and 3,818 competitor pairs were built in 5.6 minutes. The email named the competitors.
Every positive reply got a live AI-visibility audit in the response: 6 to 10 ChatGPT web searches, an llms.txt and robots.txt check, and the sources behind each competitor. The service was proven inside the sales email.
Results
| Campaign | Sent | Replies | Positive |
|---|---|---|---|
| DTC brands, 4 days, stopped | 5,125 | n/a | 1 |
| B2B companies running Google Ads, 12 days | 34,268 | 139 | 27 |
Repliers included the founder and CEO of a developer-infrastructure company and the CEO of a 40-year-old small-business coaching firm. Figures from the dated client update of May 2, 2026. This campaign ran on SmartLead, so it sits outside the Instantly totals on the homepage.
20 numbered tests before the big send
Across 59 Instantly campaigns, ECG's workspace has sent 151,845 emails for 817 human replies and 104 positive replies. For its Meta-creative service, 20 numbered tests of about 1,065 emails each (21,084 emails, 202 replies, 31 positive) decided which offer earned the next 19,235 emails. The winner was 5 free ads made before any call, and the version with a sample built for that brand made 4x the positive replies of the generic version.
What changed because of it
Every launch now has a day-4 checkpoint against a written kill threshold, and every positive reply gets researched before anyone answers it.
