Outsourcing Sales and Marketing Companies – Everything You Need to Know

Introduction

If you’ve been around B2B sales for more than five minutes, you’ve heard some version of this:

• “We tried an outsourced SDR firm once. Total waste of money.”
• “Our agency booked a ton of meetings… none of them closed.”
• “Honestly, outsourcing saved our quarter. We’d still be hiring SDRs if we hadn’t pulled the trigger.”

Outsourcing sales and marketing companies are everywhere now, and the results are all over the map. Some teams quietly print pipeline with the right partners. Others burn budget and swear off outsourcing forever.

Here’s the reality: about 59% of companies already outsource at least some part of their lead generation, and hybrid in-house + outsourced setups are now the norm rather than the exception. 【1†turn1search2】 At the same time, a fully loaded in-house SDR now runs $9,750–$14,425 per month in North America, once you factor in comp, tools, management, and overhead. 【2†turn1search5】 That kind of math is exactly why outsourcing is on every CRO’s whiteboard.

In this guide, we’re going to cut through the noise and walk through everything you need to know about outsourcing sales and marketing companies from a B2B perspective:

• What “outsourcing” actually means in modern sales development
• When it makes sense vs. hiring in-house
• Types of partners and how to evaluate them
• How to structure pilots, SLAs, and KPIs
• How to plug outsourced teams into your existing SDRs, AEs, and marketing engine

No theory, no fluff-just the playbook teams are actually using in 2025 to build pipeline without building a massive headcount line.

What Outsourcing Sales and Marketing Actually Means in B2B

When people say they want to “outsource sales and marketing,” they usually don’t mean they want a stranger closing six-figure deals on their behalf. In B2B, outsourcing is almost always about top-of-funnel and execution, not handing over your entire revenue function.

Core motions outsourcing companies typically own

The most common services you’ll see from outsourcing sales and marketing companies:

• SDR / BDR outsourcing (sales development)
• Cold calling into target accounts
• Cold email outreach and follow-up sequences
• LinkedIn/social touches as part of a cadence
• Qualifying prospects and booking meetings for AEs

• Lead generation and list building
• Identifying accounts and contacts that match your ICP
• Enriching data (titles, emails, phone numbers, technographics, etc.)
• Cleaning and refreshing existing CRM lists

• Appointment setting
• Running outbound campaigns focused strictly on booking meetings that hit predefined criteria
• Handling reschedules and basic pre-call qualification

• Marketing execution (less common, but growing)
• Running LinkedIn or display campaigns to feed SDRs
• Content syndication and webinar promotion
• Nurture email sequences and basic marketing automation

You’ll notice a pattern: strategy, positioning, and pricing usually stay inside, while the outsourced partner brings people, process, and tech to execute at scale.

Why outsourcing exploded in the last few years

A few macro trends made outsourcing sales development and lead gen go from “nice to have” to “kind of obvious”:

• Costs ballooned. A single SDR can cost more than $130,000 per year fully loaded once you add benefits, tools, management, ramp, and overhead. 【3†turn1search8】
• Ramp times grew. It typically takes 3-4 months for a new SDR to hit full productivity, meaning you’re paying for months before seeing consistent pipeline. 【4†turn1search3】
• Hybrid GTM models became standard. Roughly 68% of B2B firms now use some form of sales outsourcing, especially for SDR and top-of-funnel coverage. 【5†turn1search3】
• Buyers went digital. Gartner projects that by 2025, 80% of B2B sales interactions between buyers and suppliers will occur in digital channels, making specialized, channel-native teams (phone, email, social) more valuable than ever. 【6†turn0search10】

So if you feel behind for not having an outsourced motion yet, don’t. But you’re also not crazy for looking at the numbers and thinking, “We can’t brute-force this with internal hires alone.”

When Does Outsourcing Make More Sense Than In-House?

Let’s talk about the question that actually matters: build vs. buy vs. hybrid.

There’s no universal right answer-but there is a right answer for your stage, ACV, and goals. The way to get there is to look at three buckets:

1. Cost and ROI
2. Speed to market
3. Focus and expertise

1. Cost and ROI: know your real numbers

Most teams compare an outsourced quote to base SDR salary and call it a day. That’s how you end up thinking, “Why would I pay $8k/month for a pod when I can hire someone for $75k?”

Reality check: by the time you include employer burden, tools, management, ramp, and attrition, that SDR’s monthly TCO is more like $9,750–$14,425. 【2†turn1search5】

When you translate that into cost per meeting using realistic productivity numbers, the picture is even clearer:

• In-house SDR (fully loaded):
• Monthly cost around $11,500
• 10-14 qualified meetings/month
• Cost per meeting: $821–$1,150 【7†turn1search4】

• Outsourced SDR (retainer model):
• Monthly cost around $5,000
• 10-14 qualified meetings/month
• Cost per meeting: $357–$500 【7†turn1search4】

• Pay-per-meeting models:
• $250–$600 per meeting depending on quality and niche 【7†turn1search4】

On top of that, industry benchmarks show outsourced lead gen programs often deliver 3x–7x pipeline ROI and 2x–4x closed-won ROI when you run the math from spend to closed deals. 【8†turn0search4】

The takeaway isn’t “outsourcing is always cheaper.” It’s: you can’t compare these options off salary alone. Once you compare cost per qualified opportunity and cost per closed-won, outsourcing becomes pretty attractive for a lot of teams, especially below enterprise.

2. Speed to market

Time is the silent killer in sales development. While you’re writing job descriptions, interviewing, and onboarding, your quarter doesn’t pause.

Typical in-house SDR timeline:

• 4-8 weeks recruiting and hiring
• 6-12 weeks onboarding and training
• 3-4 months to full productivity 【9†turn1search9】【4†turn1search3】

Realistically, you’re looking at 5-7 months from “we should hire SDRs” to “this team is reliably feeding our AEs.”

A solid outsourced partner can usually:

• Spin up a program within 2-4 weeks
• Start booking meetings in the first month
• Hit a steady cadence within 60-90 days

If you’re testing a new ICP, launching a new product, or trying to salvage a quarter, that speed difference alone can justify an outsourced motion.

3. Focus and expertise

Even if you can afford an in-house SDR team, you still need:

• A manager who actually knows how to build and coach SDRs
• The right tech stack (dialer, sequencing, data, intent, AI, etc.)
• Playbooks, scripts, cadences, and QA

Most outsourcing sales and marketing companies have battle-tested processes from running campaigns across dozens or hundreds of clients. They’ve seen what works in different industries, ACVs, and buying committees.

You’re not just renting people-you’re renting patterns and muscle memory. That can be worth a lot more than the hourly rate if you don’t already have a well-oiled outbound machine.

Types of Outsourcing Sales and Marketing Companies (and What They’re Good For)

Not all outsourcing partners are built the same. If you lump everyone under “that appointment setting agency we tried once,” you’ll miss out on vendors who could actually be a fit.

1. SDR / BDR outsourcing firms

These are the companies that act like an external SDR team:

• They hire, train, and manage SDRs for you
• They plug into your CRM and book meetings directly on your AEs’ calendars
• They usually provide strategy support, list building, and messaging

Best for:

• Companies with a validated offer that want more consistent outbound pipeline
• Teams that lack SDR management capacity
• Testing new segments or regions without committing to full-time hires

What to watch for:

• Are their SDRs full-time employees or a rotating cast of contractors?
• Do they specialize in your ACV range (SMB vs mid-market vs enterprise)?
• Can they demonstrate proficiency in both phone and email (remember, 51% of all sales pipeline still comes from the phone)? 【10†turn1search1】

2. Appointment setting agencies

Appointment setters often focus on volume of meetings above all else. They may:

• Charge per meeting or per show
• Use generic scripts and broad lists
• Rely heavily on email and light qualification

Best for:

• Very simple, high-velocity sales motions
• Teams with strong internal qualification and quick discovery processes
• Situations where you’re okay with lower meeting quality to drive top-of-funnel awareness

What to watch for:

• Over-promising show rates and qualification
• Little to no input into lists or messaging
• Lack of transparency into how they represent your brand

3. Full-service B2B demand gen agencies

These folks sit more in the marketing camp:

• Run paid media (LinkedIn, Google, display)
• Produce content and landing pages
• Sometimes handle MQL handoff to SDRs

Best for:

• Companies with decent SDR coverage but weak lead flow
• Product-led growth (PLG) or inbound-heavy motions
• Teams that want pipeline beyond cold outbound only

What to watch for:

• Are they optimizing for MQLs or for opportunities and revenue?
• Do they understand long B2B sales cycles and multi-threading, or are they repackaging B2C tactics?

4. Call centers and BPO providers

Traditional call centers and BPOs (Business Process Outsourcing) typically:

• Run large teams handling customer support, renewals, or simple outbound
• Are optimized for volume and script adherence
• May lack nuance for complex, consultative B2B sales

Best for:

• Very transactional sales or basic lead qualification
• Large-scale data validation and list cleaning

What to watch for:

• Accent and cultural fit for your markets
• Limited ability to handle higher-level discovery or objection handling

5. Niche and vertical specialists

These are smaller outfits that go deep in a vertical (e.g., cybersecurity, logistics, manufacturing) or a motion (e.g., ABM outbound for enterprise SaaS).

Best for:

• Complex, regulated, or technical markets
• Enterprise deal cycles with many stakeholders
• Teams that need nuance and domain knowledge more than raw volume

What to watch for:

• Narrow bandwidth and capacity
• Higher per-meeting costs, often justified by bigger deal sizes

How to Evaluate and Select the Right Outsourcing Partner

Here’s where teams usually get burned. They buy the slickest slide deck or lowest price instead of testing for fit, transparency, and operating discipline.

Let’s walk through what to actually look at.

1. Strategy and ICP fit

Questions to ask:

• Have you worked with companies that sell similar ACVs and deal cycles?
• Can you walk me through how you define and operationalize an ICP?
• How do you handle multi-threading and buying committees in our space?

Red flags:

• “We can book meetings for anyone, in any industry.”
• No point of view on which titles, verticals, or triggers work best.

2. Channel mix and capabilities

In 2025, single-channel outbound is leaving money on the table. Data shows that multi-channel campaigns reduce cost per lead by roughly 31% and improve outcomes. 【11†turn0search7】

You want partners who can:

• Combine phone + email + LinkedIn in coordinated cadences
• Use direct mail or gifting when the economics make sense
• Adjust channel mix based on your audience

Ask for:

• Example sequences they’d run for you
• Typical connect rates and reply rates by channel
• How they prioritize phone vs. email vs. social given your ICP

3. Data, tools, and AI

Bad data will quietly kill any outsourced effort. Strong partners should:

• Use reputable data providers (ZoomInfo, Apollo, Clay, etc.)
• Run multi-step data verification (e.g., email verification, phone validation)
• Leverage AI and automation responsibly for personalization and targeting

Remember: companies using AI in lead gen report 45% efficiency gains, 25% more MQLs, and 36% higher conversions on average. 【12†turn0search7】 You want some of that on your side.

Questions to ask:

• How do you build and clean lists?
• What tools are included in your pricing?
• How do you use AI for personalization without sounding like a bot?

4. Pricing, contracts, and risk-sharing

Common pricing models:

• Retainer: fixed monthly fee for a dedicated pod or number of SDRs
• Pay-per-meeting: fee for each meeting set (sometimes only for shows)
• Hybrid: lower retainer + performance-based fees

Things to watch:

• Long-term contracts that lock you in before you’ve seen proof
• No clarity on what counts as a “qualified meeting”
• Hidden setup fees or mandatory add-ons

Best practice: start with a 3-6 month pilot with clear exit clauses and the option to scale if targets are hit.

5. Reporting and transparency

If you’re living out of your own CRM dashboards and your partner is living in spreadsheets, you’re flying blind.

Look for:

• Direct integration with your CRM (Salesforce, HubSpot, etc.)
• Shared dashboards for activity, meetings, pipeline created, and outcomes
• Access to call recordings and email threads

If they can’t show you what’s happening, they can’t help you improve what’s happening.

Making Outsourcing Work: Operating Model, SLAs, and Management

Let’s assume you pick a solid partner. That’s half the battle. The other half is how you run the relationship.

1. Nail the onboarding

Treat outsourced SDRs like new hires, not temps.

Must-haves:

• Deep dive on your ICP, use cases, competitors, and landmines
• Live product demo with real Q&A
• Access to your best sales call recordings and email threads
• Clear qualification checklist and disqualification reasons

Give them battlecards, objection handling guides, and stories your best AEs use. The more context you share up front, the faster they sound like insiders instead of script readers.

2. Define SLAs and a shared scorecard

At minimum, align on:

• Meetings booked per month (and with which ICP segment)
• Meeting held rate (shows vs. no-shows)
• Opportunities created and pipeline value
• Feedback loop from AEs (quality, fit, next steps)

Layer on SLAs like:

• How fast SDRs follow up on hand-raisers or warm leads
• How reschedules and no-shows are handled
• How quickly data is updated in CRM

This is how you avoid “we think it’s going fine” until the quarter’s over and you realize half the meetings never turned into real opportunities.

3. Weekly and monthly rhythms

Here’s a simple but effective cadence many high-performing teams use with outsourced partners:

• Weekly: 30-45 minute call review and campaign standup
• Listen to 2-3 calls together
• Review new objections and refine responses
• Look at early metrics by list, message, and channel

• Monthly: 60-minute pipeline and strategy review
• Meetings booked, held, and converted to opps
• Pipeline generated vs. target
• New test ideas (segments, messaging, offers)

You don’t have to micromanage. But if you’re not in the trenches with them at least weekly, you’re leaving performance on the table.

4. Protecting your brand and buyer experience

Legit concern: “We don’t want an external team trashing our brand.” Fair.

Mitigate that by:

• Approving every core script and email sequence upfront
• Requiring use of your domains (with proper warm-up and deliverability protection)
• Listening to call recordings regularly
• Giving clear do-not-contact rules for customers or strategic accounts

Most good partners will welcome this-your brand equity is part of what makes the partnership successful.

Build, Buy, or Hybrid? Models That Actually Work

By now you’ve probably realized the answer rarely ends up being 100% in-house or 100% outsourced. In fact, data shows 59% of companies already outsource some part of their lead generation, which lines up with what we see in the field: hybrid is the default. 【1†turn1search2】

Here are a few hybrid setups that consistently work.

Model 1: In-house for strategic accounts, outsourced for the long tail

• In-house SDRs focus on named accounts, ABM plays, and complex enterprise deals
• Outsourced SDRs cover:
• SMB or mid-market accounts
• New regions or verticals
• Older CRM leads that need reactivation

Why it works:

• Your internal team stays close to your most important logos
• You still get broad coverage and volume without hiring an army

Model 2: In-house leadership, outsourced execution

• You own GTM strategy, ICP, messaging, and KPIs
• Partner owns day-to-day:
• List building and enrichment
• Sequencing and dialing
• Meeting scheduling and reschedules

Why it works:

• You keep control of the “brain” while renting the “muscle”
• Easy to shift resourcing up or down as targets change

Model 3: Channel or region-specific outsourcing

• Outsource:
• Phone-heavy outreach where you lack calling capacity
• International markets where time zones and language are tricky
• Keep in-house:
• Strategic email and social outreach to known accounts

This model plays especially well with the fact that 51% of all pipeline still comes from the phone. 【10†turn1search1】 If your internal team is email-heavy, plugging in a phone-competent outsourced partner can unlock a lot of hidden pipeline.

Model 4: Outsourcing as a testbed for new motions

Use outsourced partners as R&D labs:

• New ICP (e.g., moving from mid-market to enterprise)
• New product line
• New region (e.g., UK, DACH, ANZ)

Run a 90-day campaign, watch conversion from connect → meeting → opportunity → closed-won, and only then decide whether to hire locally or expand the outsourced program.

How This Applies to Your Sales Team

Let’s bring this down from strategy land to your actual dashboard.

If you’re a VP Sales, CRO, or Head of Growth, here’s how to think about outsourcing sales and marketing companies in practical terms.

1. Diagnose your real bottleneck

Ask yourself:

• Do we need more at-bats (meetings), better at-bats (quality), or both?
• Are AEs under-capacity because they don’t have enough pipeline, or because they’re chasing junk?
• Is our pain coverage, skill, or strategy?

Outsourcing shines when your bottleneck is coverage and execution-you know who you want to sell to and roughly how to talk to them, but you can’t put enough quality touches into the market consistently.

2. Map outsourcing to your funnel KPIs

Take your existing funnel and layer in what success would look like with a partner. For example:

• We want 40 held meetings per month from outsourced SDRs
• We expect 50-60% of those to become opportunities
• We typically close 20-30% of those at a $25k ACV

Now the math looks like:

• 40 meetings → ~22 opps → ~5 closed deals
• 5 x $25k = $125k new ARR per month

If you’re spending $15k/month on a strong outsourced program to produce $125k in monthly ARR, that’s a story your finance team can get behind.

3. Decide where you want in-house “ownership”

Most B2B teams draw the line here:

• Keep in-house:
• ICP definition and segmentation
• Core messaging and positioning
• Pricing and commercial terms
• Strategic accounts and top-tier logos

• Outsource:
• List building and enrichment at scale
• Cold calling and cold email execution
• Re-engagement of old leads and closed-lost opps
• Coverage in non-core regions or segments

The question isn’t “Should we outsource?” so much as “Which parts of our funnel should we outsource, and when?”

4. Build an actual plan, not a Hail Mary

Instead of throwing budget at a vendor and hoping for the best, write a one-page plan:

• Objective (e.g., validate mid-market manufacturing ICP, generate $500k in pipeline in 90 days)
• Scope (segments, regions, titles, offers)
• KPIs (meetings, opps, pipeline, show rates)
• Timeline (ramp, testing phases, scale-up)
• Roles (who owns what internally and at the partner)

If your potential partner can’t work inside that structure, that’s a red flag.

Conclusion + Next Steps

Outsourcing sales and marketing companies are not magic-and they’re not evil. They’re just a lever.

Used well, they let you:

• Spin up pipeline faster than you can hire
• Test new segments and offers without long-term headcount risk
• Tap into specialized process and tech you don’t have to build yourself

Used poorly, they:

• Spam your market with off-brand messaging
• Flood your calendar with low-quality meetings
• Burn budget and leave you thinking “outsourcing doesn’t work”

The difference isn’t luck. It’s:

1. Getting your ICP, offer, and qualification tight
2. Picking a partner whose strengths match your motion
3. Running outsourcing as a program, not a vendor experiment
4. Measuring success down to cost per closed-won deal, not just cost per meeting

If you’re considering outsourcing, the smart move is to start small and intentional:

• Run the cost and ROI math on your current in-house motion
• Design a tightly scoped 60-90 day pilot with clear KPIs
• Treat your partner like an extension of your team-with the same expectations and support

Do that, and outsourcing stops being a gamble and starts being what it should be: a controllable, scalable way to keep your pipeline full while your core team focuses on what they do best-winning deals.

And if you want a partner that lives and breathes this stuff, there are specialists like SalesHive that exist purely to own the unglamorous, high-discipline side of outbound-cold calls, cold emails, list building-so your sales team can spend more time in real conversations with real buyers, not chasing down the next meeting.