One question I’d ask every outsourced sales provider about data and compliance | Air Marketing
Questions every buyer should ask an outbound provider
The Data & Compliance edition
The data behind your outbound programme shapes who you reach
and how your brand is represented. Your provider should be able
to explain where that data comes from, why it is being used
and what happens when someone asks you to stop.
Data & Software Engineering Manager, Air Marketing
A prospect asks your outbound team a straightforward question:
“Where did you get my details?”
The answer matters. So does what happens when that same person asks
you not to contact them again.
When you appoint an outsourced sales provider, you are trusting
them to represent your business before your own sales team has
entered the conversation. The data they use, the people they
approach and the way they handle objections all shape that first
impression.
That is why the question I would ask is:
“Can you walk me through a contact’s journey, from where their
data came from to what happens if they ask us to stop?”
A good provider should be able to explain that clearly, with
evidence behind the answer.
1
A database is only the starting point
It is easy to compare providers by the number of contacts they can
access. Millions of records can sound reassuring, particularly
when you are entering a new market or trying to reach a specialist
audience.
But access tells you very little about whether those records will
support your commercial goals.
Is the person still at the company? Do they have responsibility for
the problem you solve? Does the business fit your target market?
When were the details last checked?
A technically valid email address can still belong to the wrong
person for your campaign.
For me, better data starts with a clear view of the accounts you
want to engage and the people involved in buying. It then needs
checking and maintaining as the programme develops.
Otherwise, your SDRs spend their time correcting records,
navigating irrelevant contacts and having conversations that were
unlikely to progress in the first place.
You should expect your provider to explain both where the data
comes from and how they decide it is suitable for your programme.
2
“GDPR compliant” needs an explanation
A supplier describing its database as “GDPR compliant” does not,
on its own, tell you whether your planned outreach is appropriate.
The source of the data is one consideration. How it will be used
is another.
The
ICO’s guidance on B2B marketing
makes clear that UK GDPR still applies when business contact
information identifies an individual. Publicly available personal
information is also subject to these requirements. Finding
someone’s details online does not remove the need for a lawful
basis and transparency.
Where a provider relies on legitimate interests, ask how that
decision has been assessed. The
ICO describes a three-part test
covering purpose, necessity and the balance between the
organisation’s interests and the individual’s rights.
Legitimate interests cannot replace consent where PECR requires it.
The useful answer is one that connects the requirements to your
intended audience, channels and campaign.
3
The channel changes the checks
A contact record should not be treated as blanket permission to
approach someone through every available channel.
For most UK live B2B marketing calls, numbers must be screened
against both TPS and CTPS, alongside the organisation’s own
do-not-call list. Registered numbers generally require specific
consent to call.
For email, the rules distinguish between corporate subscribers and
individual subscribers, including sole traders and some
partnerships. Corporate B2B emails generally do not require consent
under PECR, but identification, opt-out and applicable data
protection requirements remain.
Ask your provider to show how those distinctions affect campaign
preparation. Who carries out the checks? How are they kept
current? What prevents an unsuitable record from entering a live
sequence?
If your programme covers several countries, ask how the approach
changes by market. A process designed for UK outreach should not
simply be assumed suitable elsewhere.
4
The real test comes when someone says stop
Imagine a prospect asks an SDR not to contact them again. The SDR
records the request, but the contact remains in an email sequence.
A week later, another message arrives under your brand.
To the prospect, this is one business failing to listen.
That is why I would ask a provider to demonstrate how an objection
moves through its systems. Where is it recorded? Which activity
stops? How does your own team receive the update? What prevents a
later data import from adding the contact back into outreach?
Where someone objects to the use of their personal data for direct
marketing, that use must stop. Keeping enough information on a
suppression list helps ensure the objection remains respected.
The
ICO’s guidance explains these requirements.
Recording a preference is useful only if the people and systems
running the programme act on it.
5
Agree the responsibilities before launch
Outsourcing introduces more people, platforms and data flows.
Buyers need a clear understanding of who is responsible for
each part.
Before activity begins, I would want to understand who can access
campaign data, which tools receive it, how errors and complaints
are escalated, and what happens to records when the engagement ends.
Those answers should be reflected in the working arrangements and
relevant agreements.
6
Ask for a walkthrough
My advice is to choose one example contact and ask the provider
to take you through the process:
Where did the record originate, and when was it last checked?
Why is this account and person relevant to the campaign?
What checks support the proposed outreach?
How will the person understand who is contacting them and
how their data is being used?
What happens across the programme if they object?
That walkthrough will tell you far more than the size of a database
or a broad assurance in a proposal.
In my view, data quality and responsible handling belong in the
same commercial conversation. Together, they help your team focus
on relevant prospects, reduce avoidable friction and protect the
relationships you are trying to build.
When a provider represents your brand, you should be confident
that they can explain every step between finding a contact and
starting a conversation.
In the previous article in our
Questions Every Buyer Should Ask an Outbound Provider
series, Shaun Weston explores what a useful CRM integration looks
like in practice, from record ownership and sales handover to
reporting that connects outbound activity with pipeline.
How will your technology integrate with our existing CRM and sales systems? | Air Marketing
Questions every buyer should ask an outbound provider
The Tech edition
A CRM integration can work perfectly from a technical perspective and
still create operational problems. The real question is how the
technology will support the way your sales team actually works.
Shaun Weston
Head of Technology & Sales Optimisation, Air Marketing
Most technology integration problems are not really technology problems.
They are process problems that nobody identified before the systems were
connected.
It is relatively easy for an outbound provider to say their technology
“integrates with your CRM”. Most modern platforms connect with Salesforce,
HubSpot, Microsoft Dynamics and other common sales systems in some form.
But confirming that two systems can exchange data is only the beginning.
The more important question is what happens to that data once the campaign
is live.
“Where will prospect information sit? Which system will be treated as
the source of truth? What activity will be recorded? Who owns each
record? How will leads move from the provider’s team to yours?”
And will your salespeople be able to see enough context to pick up the
conversation properly?
If those questions are not answered early, integration can create more
problems than it solves.
1
The CRM should support the process
A good integration starts with understanding how your business already
works.
Your provider should take the time to map the journey from the first
outbound activity through to qualification, handover and sales follow-up.
That includes understanding your existing fields, lifecycle stages, lead
statuses, ownership rules, reporting requirements and internal workflows.
The technology should then be configured around that process.
Too often, it happens the other way around. A provider arrives with a
fixed setup and expects the client’s team to adapt to it.
This can result in duplicated records, unfamiliar terminology, missing
information and salespeople working across several systems to understand
what has happened.
A technically successful integration can still be an operational
failure.
The objective should be straightforward: give both teams accurate, useful
information without adding unnecessary administration.
2
Decide where the source of truth sits
One of the first decisions should be where campaign data will be managed.
Some clients want all outbound activity recorded directly in their own
CRM. Others prefer the provider to manage prospecting activity within a
separate environment and transfer qualified opportunities at an agreed
stage.
Both models can work.
What matters is that the responsibilities are clear.
If information is moving between systems, you should know:
Which records are synchronised
What information is transferred
Which system controls updates
How duplicates are identified
How record ownership is assigned
What triggers a handover
What happens when data fails to sync
Without those rules, teams can quickly end up working from different
versions of the same information.
That creates uncertainty around who contacted a prospect, when they were
contacted and what should happen next. It also makes reporting far less
reliable.
3
Visibility matters as much as connectivity
An integration should give your team a useful view of the work being
carried out on your behalf.
That does not necessarily mean transferring every task, call attempt or
minor interaction into your CRM. Filling the system with low-value
activity can make the information harder to use.
The right level of visibility depends on how your sales team operates and
what they need at the point of handover.
At a minimum, they should receive enough context to understand:
Who has been contacted
What activity has taken place
Which messages or propositions were used
What the prospect has said
Why the opportunity has been qualified
What has been agreed as the next step
A meeting appearing in somebody’s calendar with a company name and
little else is not a proper handover.
Your salesperson should not have to restart the discovery process or ask
questions the prospect has already answered.
The technology should make the transition between the outsourced team and
the internal team feel joined up.
4
Reporting needs to be designed from the start
Reporting is another area where providers often create unnecessary
complexity.
Campaign results may exist across calling platforms, email tools,
calendars and the CRM. If those systems use different definitions or
attribution rules, apparently simple questions become difficult to
answer.
“How many prospects have been reached? How many conversations became
qualified opportunities? How many opportunities progressed? What
happened to them after handover?”
Your provider should agree those definitions with you before the campaign
begins.
They should also explain which data will be available in your CRM, which
will remain within their systems and how the two will be brought together
for reporting.
Otherwise, you can end up with impressive activity dashboards that say
very little about commercial performance.
Good reporting connects outbound activity to what happens further down
the sales process.
It helps both teams understand what is working, where opportunities are
being lost and what needs to change.
5
Ask how access and security will be managed
CRM access should not be treated as a minor administrative detail.
Your provider should be able to explain who will have access to your
systems, what permissions they require and how that access will be
controlled.
The principle should be to grant the minimum access needed to deliver the
campaign effectively.
Where possible, integration and workflow changes should be tested in a
sandbox or controlled environment before they affect live records.
You should also understand:
How user access is monitored
How data is protected
Whether third-party tools will process your information
How integration errors are identified
How access will be removed when the campaign ends
What happens to your data if you stop working together
A provider does not need unrestricted control of your CRM simply
because they are supporting your sales activity.
Clear ownership, limited permissions and transparent controls reduce risk
without preventing the teams from working effectively.
6
Integration should improve execution
Technology should make the relationship between your team and your
provider easier to manage.
It should reduce manual duplication, improve data quality, make activity
visible and create a clear route from prospecting to sales follow-up.
If the proposed setup introduces more spreadsheets, more manual updates
or more uncertainty about where information sits, something is wrong.
So, when a provider says, “Yes, we integrate with your CRM,” keep asking
questions.
Ask them to show you what the workflow will look like in practice.
Ask what your salespeople will see when an opportunity is handed over.
Ask how they will prevent duplicate or conflicting records.
Ask who will monitor the integration once the campaign is running.
And ask how the setup will support the reporting your business actually
needs.
The strongest providers will not begin with a list of platforms they use.
They will begin by understanding your sales process and then design the
technology around it.
Because the goal is not simply to connect two systems.
It is to make sure both teams can operate as one.
Previous in the series
The AI edition
In the previous article in our
Questions Every Buyer Should Ask an Outbound Provider
series, Alec Harden-Henry looks at another question buyers should be asking:
what actually happens when AI-powered dialling technology connects with a real prospect?
AI is becoming part of almost every sales conversation I have at the moment.
Most outsourced sales providers will tell you they use it somewhere, whether
that's for research, coaching, email personalisation, data analysis or
workflow automation.
And, to be clear, I'm an advocate for it when it's used appropriately.
AI can remove much of the manual work that slows salespeople down. It can
help teams use data more effectively, spot useful patterns and spend more
time having meaningful conversations with the right prospects.
But there's one question I don't hear enough buyers asking:
"What actually happens when one of our prospects answers the phone?"
It sounds fairly basic. In reality, the answer will probably tell you more
about how a provider operates than a long list of AI features ever could.
1
When efficiency creates a problem
I've recently heard about providers using AI-powered dialling technology
that calls multiple telephone numbers at the same time.
The principle is simple: calling several numbers simultaneously increases
the chance of someone answering and reduces the time salespeople spend
waiting between conversations.
On paper, that sounds efficient.
The problem comes when more than one person answers and there's only one
salesperson available.
What happens to everyone else?
In some cases, nobody is there to speak to them. They might hear silence,
experience a delay while the system tries to connect them or find that the
line disconnects before a conversation has even started.
It would be easy to dismiss that as a small operational detail. I don't
think buyers can afford to look at it that way.
The person answering the phone doesn't know which dialling platform is
being used, how many other numbers were called or how the provider's SDR
team is structured.
They simply know that your business called them and nobody was there.
That becomes their first impression of your brand. If they're a
decision-maker within an account you've specifically chosen to target, it
may also affect whether they answer the next time somebody from your
business tries to contact them.
2
Technology isn't the problem
This isn't an argument against AI or sales technology.
We use technology across our own outsourced SDR programmes because it
helps our teams work more efficiently and gives us better insight into
campaign performance.
Power diallers reduce the manual work between calls. Better data helps
SDRs prioritise the right accounts and reach the right decision-makers.
AI and automation can help teams understand what's working, where
conversations are getting stuck and what needs to change.
The combination of experienced people, good data and smart technology
makes outbound more effective. But the order matters.
Technology should help good salespeople have better, more relevant
conversations. It shouldn't create activity for activity's sake or
prioritise dial volume over the experience of the prospect receiving
the call.
For me, that's where AI adds the most value: improving the thinking,
targeting and preparation behind the outreach.
3
Why buyers need to understand the process
When you outsource sales, you're trusting another business to represent
yours in the market.
Your prospects are unlikely to see the provider as a separate
organisation. As far as they're concerned, they're speaking to your sales
team. Or, in the case of a silent call, trying to.
A silent or abandoned call can make your business appear careless,
intrusive or badly organised. The difficult part is that you may never
know that impression has been created.
The prospect might not complain or ask to be removed from your data. They
may simply be less likely to answer the next call, open the next email or
engage with your business in the future.
There's a compliance question too.
In January 2026, Ofcom reminded organisations that their systems and
processes should be designed to prevent silent and abandoned calls. Its
guidance specifically refers to over-dialling and situations where a
call is answered but no agent is available. Ofcom also makes clear that
responsibility can apply to organisations and the call centres working
on their behalf.
Buyers don't need to become experts in every piece of regulation before
appointing an outbound provider. But they should expect that provider to
explain clearly how its technology and processes support compliant
delivery.
"I'm sure the software takes care of it" isn't a good enough answer when
your brand is the one being represented.
4
More activity doesn't automatically mean better performance
A provider might be able to make significantly more calls using AI or
automated dialling. That can look impressive in a proposal or monthly
report, particularly when it's presented as a major increase in SDR
productivity.
But is the technology actually producing more of the right conversations?
Dial volume has always been one of the easiest outbound metrics to make
look impressive. It's also one of the least useful when viewed in
isolation.
I'd rather understand how many relevant decision-makers were reached,
what was learned from those conversations, how many qualified
opportunities were created and whether those opportunities progressed.
Those are the measures that tell you whether an outbound programme is
contributing commercially. The objective should be a more predictable
flow of qualified B2B leads and sales opportunities, not simply more
activity at the top of a report.
If a provider told me its AI allowed the team to make ten times more
calls, my response would be: what has that actually improved?
Has it increased contact and conversion rates? Are the conversations with
the right people? What's the impact on prospect experience? And how is the
additional activity contributing to pipeline?
Technology should make the sales process better for the buyer, the
salesperson and the prospect. If it only makes the activity report look
busier, I'm not sure it's solving the right problem.
Cost comparison
Comparing in-house and outsourced SDR costs?
If you're currently assessing your options, compare the estimated
cost of building an internal SDR team against outsourcing —
including salaries, recruitment, management and technology.
Use your own figures and see the comparison side by side.
No sign-up required.
"How does your AI or dialling technology work when someone answers the
phone?"
A good provider should be able to explain:
Whether a salesperson is immediately available when somebody answers
Whether the system calls one prospect or several at a time
How silent or abandoned calls are prevented and identified
How call quality and prospect experience are reviewed
Who is responsible for compliance
How the technology improves conversations, conversion and pipeline
None of this should require a technical background to understand. The
answer should be straightforward because the provider should already have
thought through the process.
If the response is vague, I'd keep digging. And if it focuses entirely on
how many more calls the technology can make, I'd be asking what that
increase is actually delivering.
AI is going to play a much bigger role in outbound over the next few
years. But I don't think the providers that stand out will simply be the
ones using the most AI.
They'll be the ones that can explain how they use it, where they don't
use it and what safeguards sit around it.
Because when a prospect answers the phone, they aren't judging your
outsourced sales provider. They're judging your business.
Related reading
Technology is only one part of assessing a potential sales partner.
Read
How to Choose the Right Outsourced Sales Agency in the UK
for the wider questions to ask about experience, delivery, reporting,
cultural fit and commercial alignment.
Need help applying this to your business?
Our expert team can help you find the right approach. Complete the form below and we’ll get back to you within 24 hours.
Why Cold Calling Still Works in an AI World | Air Marketing
Has AI killed cold calling?
It's a fair question.
Artificial Intelligence can research prospects in seconds, write personalised emails, analyse buying intent, summarise meetings and automate tasks that once consumed hours of a salesperson's day. So why would anyone still pick up the phone?
Because despite everything AI has changed, one thing hasn't.
People still buy from people.
The biggest deals, the longest buying cycles and the most valuable commercial relationships continue to rely on trust, commercial understanding and meaningful conversations.
In fact, we're seeing something interesting happen. As inboxes become increasingly flooded with AI-generated emails, generic LinkedIn messages and automated outreach, genuine conversations with knowledgeable sales professionals are becoming more valuable, not less.
The organisations generating the strongest outbound results today aren't choosing between AI and cold calling. They're combining the speed and intelligence of AI with the judgement, curiosity and commercial experience that only people can bring.
Cold calling hasn't disappeared.
It has evolved into a much broader outbound sales discipline.
Every decade predicts the death of cold calling. Every decade it adapts.
If you've worked in sales for long enough, you've probably heard the phrase before:
"Cold calling is dead."
It's been declared dead more times than most people can remember.
First it was email. Then LinkedIn. Then marketing automation. Then inbound marketing. Now it's AI.
Each new technology arrives with the same prediction: this time, the phone is finished.
Yet businesses across the world continue investing heavily in outbound sales every year. Not because they're ignoring technology, but because every wave of innovation has made outbound smarter rather than obsolete.
The role of the salesperson has continually evolved. The importance of meaningful conversations hasn't.
Technology changes how we reach buyers. It doesn't change how trust is built.
From telephone operators to AI copilots: the evolution of outbound sales
Today's outbound sales teams would barely recognise the telemarketing industry of the 1980s. Likewise, a salesperson from that era would probably be astonished by the technology available today.
The fundamentals, however, remain remarkably familiar.
Businesses still need to identify the right prospects, understand their commercial challenges and create enough high-quality conversations to generate predictable revenue. Everything else has evolved around those principles.
The 1950s
Businesses discover proactive selling
As telephone ownership became widespread after the Second World War, organisations realised they no longer had to wait for customers to walk through the door. The telephone became a proactive sales tool, allowing businesses to initiate conversations with potential customers at scale for the first time — marking the beginning of modern outbound sales.
The 1980s
Scale takes priority
As databases, predictive diallers and dedicated call centres emerged, outbound became increasingly efficient. But efficiency often came at the expense of relevance — large volumes of generic calls created a stereotype that has lingered long after the industry itself changed.
The 1990s & 2000s
CRM changes everything
Customer Relationship Management platforms fundamentally transformed outbound sales. Data became more valuable, follow-up more structured and processes more repeatable. Cold calling became one touchpoint within a much wider customer journey.
The 2010s
The rise of multichannel sales
Email, LinkedIn, content marketing and marketing automation changed how buyers interacted with suppliers. The highest-performing teams combined phone, email, social selling and digital engagement — the phone didn't disappear, it became one part of a smarter outbound strategy.
The 2020s
AI changes the way sales teams work
Prospect research that once took half an hour now takes seconds. Sales teams identify buying signals earlier, personalise outreach more effectively and eliminate much of the admin that used to slow them down. Yet the final step hasn't changed: someone still needs to earn attention, ask thoughtful questions and build trust.
AI has dramatically improved preparation for sales conversations. It hasn't replaced the conversations themselves.
What we've learned from ten years of delivering outbound sales
Over the past decade, Air has partnered with organisations ranging from ambitious SaaS scale-ups to global enterprise brands across the UK, United States and Europe.
One pattern appears time and time again.
Businesses don't suddenly wake up and decide they need more cold calling. They invest in outbound because something commercially significant has changed.
A new Chief Revenue Officer arrives with ambitious growth targets. Private equity investment accelerates expansion plans. The business enters a new market, launches a new product or finds that pipeline has begun to plateau. Sometimes internal sales teams simply reach capacity.
The trigger is rarely the phone itself.
The trigger is commercial ambition.
Outbound sales becomes one of the fastest ways to create the conversations needed to support growth.
A good example is global smart buildings leader Johnson Controls.
When the business wanted to accelerate growth in the UK, the challenge wasn't increasing activity for activity's sake. It was opening conversations with senior decision-makers inside carefully selected enterprise accounts.
Using an account-based outbound strategy combining phone outreach, personalised email, LinkedIn engagement and targeted content, Air engaged CFOs, CIOs, Heads of Facilities and Sustainability leaders, ultimately generating substantial sales pipeline.
It was one component of a coordinated revenue engine.
The challenges evolve as businesses grow
The sales challenges organisations face change dramatically as they scale.
Founder-led businesses often need help building predictable pipeline for the first time. Scale-ups need to enter new markets while maintaining aggressive growth targets. Mid-market organisations frequently reach the point where Account Executives spend too much time prospecting instead of closing opportunities, while enterprise businesses focus on regional expansion, product launches and maintaining consistent pipeline across multiple territories.
The specifics change.
The underlying challenge doesn't. Growth depends on consistently creating meaningful conversations with the right decision-makers.
We've seen this pattern across hundreds of campaigns.
Take Colossyan, an AI-powered workplace learning platform.
As the business expanded across the UK and Europe, it needed a repeatable way to engage Learning & Development decision-makers inside mid-market organisations. Success wasn't measured by the number of calls made. It was measured by the quality of commercial conversations.
Working as an extension of Colossyan's sales team, our campaign delivered:
Colossyan campaign results
36,108
Outbound activities
1,518
Conversations with decision-makers
245
Qualified meetings
Perhaps the most telling feedback came from Colossyan's VP of Sales:
For the same price as hiring one SDR, you get an entire outsourced sales department. We got exactly what we needed from Air — an experienced team that managed our outbound strategy from end to end.
— VP of Sales, Colossyan
It's a perfect example of how modern outbound sales is no longer about making more calls.
It's about building a scalable, repeatable revenue engine that combines experienced people, intelligent technology and continuous optimisation.
Modern cold calling looks nothing like people imagine
Mention cold calling and many people still picture rows of salespeople reading from scripts, working through purchased lists and measuring success by the number of dials made. While that stereotype still exists, it bears little resemblance to how successful outbound sales teams operate today.
AI-assisted account research and intent data
CRM intelligence and personalised messaging
Coordinated engagement across phone, email and LinkedIn
Continuous testing, coaching and optimisation
The phone is no longer the strategy in itself. It's often the moment that brings everything else together.
A good example is Rakuten Advertising, a global leader in affiliate marketing and performance advertising. Their objective wasn't simply to make more calls. They wanted to accelerate growth across the UK, Spain, France, Italy and Germany while engaging senior marketing decision-makers in multiple languages.
Success required a coordinated outbound strategy supported by multilingual sales professionals, personalised email campaigns, LinkedIn engagement and carefully planned telephone conversations tailored to each market.
This is what modern outbound looks like: not more activity, but better-targeted, more relevant activity.
AI isn't replacing outbound sales. It's making it better.
Artificial Intelligence has transformed almost every stage of the outbound sales process.
Research is faster, data is richer and personalisation is easier to achieve at scale. Sales teams can identify buying signals earlier, understand target accounts more quickly and automate much of the administration that previously reduced selling time.
What AI hasn't replaced is human judgement.
It can't build credibility with a sceptical buyer. It can't recognise the nuance behind an unexpected response or uncover the commercial challenge that only emerges halfway through a conversation. Complex B2B buying decisions still require curiosity, empathy and commercial understanding.
Ironically, many of today's AI businesses recognise this better than anyone.
Take Armakuni, an AWS Premier Partner specialising in cloud engineering, artificial intelligence and data transformation. As demand for Generative AI solutions accelerated, the business needed to engage organisations actively exploring AI adoption across the UK and the United States.
Using AI-assisted research alongside experienced outbound sales professionals, the campaign targeted CTOs, CIOs, Heads of Data and AI leaders with highly personalised outreach. The results included:
Armakuni campaign results
30,000+
Outbound activities
1,700
Conversations with decision-makers
157
Qualified meetings
£250,000
Estimated sales pipeline
It's a useful reminder that AI and outbound sales are not competing forces.
The most successful organisations are using AI to make human conversations better, not replace them.
If cold calling is dead, why are big global brands still investing in outbound sales?
One of the strongest arguments against the idea that cold calling is obsolete is the behaviour of the organisations leading their industries.
Global brands continue investing in outbound sales because they understand that meaningful conversations remain one of the fastest ways to build pipeline, enter new markets and accelerate commercial growth.
Take E.ON, one of Europe's largest energy providers. They partnered with Air to support business energy acquisition, engaging thousands of SME decision-makers through structured outbound conversations and generating hundreds of qualified opportunities for their internal sales teams.
Similarly, global smart buildings leader Johnson Controls used account-based outbound sales to accelerate growth in the UK, generating £28 million in pipeline by engaging carefully selected enterprise stakeholders.
Meanwhile, Rakuten Advertising used multilingual outbound sales to support expansion across five European markets, while Colossyan relied on outbound to accelerate growth across the UK and Europe.
For more than eight years, Funding Circle has trusted Air as an extension of its commercial team. During that partnership, we've delivered:
Each organisation operates in a different market. They serve different buyers, face different commercial pressures and have different growth objectives.
What they have in common is a recognition that meaningful conversations remain one of the most effective ways to create pipeline.
Why businesses still invest in human conversations
Technology has undoubtedly made buying easier.
It hasn't made buying simpler.
Enterprise purchasing decisions now involve more stakeholders than ever before, with finance, procurement, technical teams and executive sponsors all playing a role. Each group has different priorities, different concerns and different questions that need answering before a decision is made.
Very few of those questions are resolved through a marketing email alone.
They are resolved through dialogue.
That's why outbound sales continues to play such an important role within modern revenue strategies. The objective isn't simply to make more phone calls. It's to create opportunities for meaningful conversations with the people responsible for making significant commercial decisions.
The future belongs to businesses that embrace both AI and people
The future of outbound sales is unlikely to be defined by AI replacing people.
Instead, it will be shaped by organisations that successfully combine intelligent technology with experienced sales professionals.
AI will continue helping teams identify buying signals, prioritise accounts, personalise outreach and reduce administrative workload. At the same time, businesses will place even greater value on the human skills that technology cannot replicate: curiosity, commercial judgement, active listening, relationship building and strategic thinking.
These qualities are what transform conversations into opportunities and opportunities into revenue.
The organisations that embrace both AI and human expertise will be best placed to build predictable pipeline over the next decade.
Cold calling hasn't disappeared. It's become more intelligent.
Perhaps the biggest misconception surrounding cold calling is that it has survived despite advances in technology.
The opposite is true.
It has survived because it has adapted.
Today's outbound sales teams are more informed, more targeted and more commercially focused than ever before. Rather than relying on volume, they use insight to identify the right organisations, engage the right stakeholders and start conversations that genuinely matter.
How Air Marketing has evolved with the outbound sales industry
Over the past ten years, we've adapted our approach in exactly the same way the outbound sales industry has evolved.
Today's campaigns aren't built around scripts or call volumes. They're built around understanding each client's market, identifying the right buyers and creating relevant conversations through a combination of technology, insight and experienced sales professionals.
Before a campaign launches, our teams immerse themselves in your business, proposition and ideal customer profile. We combine CRM intelligence, buyer intent signals, AI-assisted account research and real sales expertise to identify where the strongest commercial opportunities exist.
From there, outbound becomes a coordinated sales process rather than a single channel. Our Sales Development Representatives combine phone, email and LinkedIn outreach with messaging shaped by real customer conversations and continuously refined through campaign performance. Every programme is supported by Team Managers, Operations specialists, Quality Assurance and ongoing coaching to ensure results improve over time.
It's an approach that's helped organisations ranging from ambitious technology scale-ups to global brands including E.ON, Johnson Controls, Rakuten Advertising and Funding Circle generate predictable pipeline through modern outbound sales.
Exploring how outbound sales could support your growth strategy?
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The future of outbound sales is already here
Has AI killed cold calling?
The evidence suggests otherwise.
What AI has done is accelerate the evolution of outbound sales. The organisations achieving the strongest commercial results today aren't choosing between AI and human interaction; they're combining both to create smarter, more relevant conversations with the people who matter most.
The phone is no longer the centre of an outbound strategy, but it remains one of its most valuable channels. Supported by data, technology, insight and experienced sales professionals, it continues to help businesses open doors, build relationships and generate predictable pipeline.
That's why organisations ranging from ambitious AI scale-ups to global brands continue investing in outbound sales.
The technology will continue to evolve, and AI will continue to reshape how sales teams work. But as long as businesses continue buying complex products and services from other businesses, one thing is unlikely to change.
Meaningful conversations will remain one of the most powerful drivers of sustainable, measurable growth.
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