Imagine that you could before every sales call know exactly How your target customer is using their marketing budget which platforms he uses, how intensively he advertises there and what his current mix of ads looks like.

While most B2B sellers fail in cold calling with superficial personalizations such as “I saw you working as...”, precise advertising insights completely change the dynamics of your outreach campaigns.

At Scalantec, we have developed a systematic process to precisely analyze companies' advertising strategies and use these insights for an above-average successful outreach to use. The best thing about it? With the right tools, anyone can implement this process.

Of course, this approach is not equally relevant for all of our customers and partners. But especially if you sell marketing services or technology, it could be an extremely effective hook. For example, we work for one of the largest German technology newsletters and podcasts — and for such customers, it is extremely relevant to be able to address potential partners directly about their advertising activities and then build a bridge to their own solution.

The 4-step process for perfect ad scouting

1. Identify relevant marketing channels

The first step is to consider which marketing channels might be relevant to your target customers. The classic channels are typically:

• SEA (Paid Google Ads)
• Social media advertising (Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn)
• podcast sponsorship

These channels give us valuable insights into the marketing strategy of your target customers and offer excellent starting points for personalized outreach campaigns.

2. Podcast sponsorship analysis with Clay

For podcast analysis, we take a systematic approach:

Practical implementation with clay:

• Defining relevant podcasts in your target industry
• Extraction of transcripts via various databases and web scrapers
• Identifying companies that advertise on these podcasts
• Consolidate and clean up company data

The result: A high-quality list of potential target customers with specific information on which podcasts they advertise — a perfect hook for your subsequent outreach.

3. Paid traffic and SEA analysis

In the next step, we analyze how much the identified companies invest in paid traffic. This data gives us valuable indicators of overall advertising intensity.

Here's how to implement that in Clay:

• Automated SEMrush API querying for any company
• Extraction of traffic data with a focus on paid vs. organic
• Analysis of Google Ads activity via specialized scrapers
• Calculation of the percentage of paid traffic in total traffic

In our video, we demonstrate how you can do this process for automate hundreds of companies can — and get results in just a few minutes that would take you days to manually do.

4. Social media advertising analysis & consolidation

Now it's time to get down to business. With smart web scrapers, we find out in Clay how intensively your target customers advertise on various social media platforms:

Our clay method:

• Querying the LinkedIn Ads Library for active campaigns
• Meta Ads Library Review (Facebook & Instagram)
• Consolidation of all advertising data in a uniform format
• Create a complete advertising profile for any company

Real example: During our analysis, we found that at the time of data collection, a SaaS company over 200 active LinkedIn ads in the DACH region — a clear sign of massive investments in LinkedIn ads and information that we can use perfectly for personalized outreach.

The result in clay:

• Overall overview of advertising activities per platform
• Comparative analysis within the sector
• Identification of patterns and abnormalities
• Export option for direct use in CRM or outreach tool

How to use these insights for your outreach

The data obtained is much more than interesting statistics — it is the key to hyperpersonalized outreach with above-average conversion rates.

Practical application examples:

Platform-specific approach:

“Hi Sarah, I've seen that you currently rely heavily on LinkedIn Ads (currently 48 active campaigns). Have you ever thought about how you could increase your conversion rate there by 30%?”

Advertising strategy insights:

“Hi Thomas, I've noticed that you've been moving your advertising spending from Meta to LinkedIn since Q1. We've seen a similar pattern across several SaaS companies and have gathered interesting insights into why this shift is taking place.”

Benchmark comparisons:

“Hello Markus, while your competitors invest an average of 70% of their paid social budget in LinkedIn, you are much more cautious at 30%. In our last project, we were able to show how strategic redistribution led to 40% more qualified B2B leads.”

This type of speech not only shows that you've done your homework, but also provides a real added value — by sharing insights that are relevant and often surprising to the recipient

The complete system in action: Our video tutorial

In our video tutorial, we'll show you step by step how we built this entire process with Clay:

• How to integrate the various APIs
• How do you structure and prepare the data
• How to create automated workflows that provide daily updated insights

You'll see that no programming knowledge required are — with Clay, any sales or marketing professional can implement this process.

Case study: Success for a leading German tech newsletter and podcast

We have successfully implemented this method for one of the leading German tech newsletters and podcasts. Our task was to identify and address potential advertisers.

Our approach: We have built up a very specific list of companies that have already advertised on other podcasts. In addition, we have collected detailed information on which other platforms these companies advertise on.

The results were impressive:

• 2.8x higher response rate for personalized outreach emails with advertising strategy insights
• 37% shorter sales cycles through more relevant initial discussions
• 46% higher conversion rate from meeting to opportunity

The decisive factor: Our highly specific personalization immediately showed target customers that we had done our homework. The direct connection between their current promotional activities and what our customer had to offer made for a completely different conversation starter than the generic personalizations that most B2B companies use. Instead of being “just another seller”, our customer was called informed advisor noticed who really brings relevant insights.

Your next step: implement ad scouting yourself

Would you like to implement this process in your team? Here are your options:

• Do-it-yourself: Watch our video tutorial and rebuild the process yourself in Clay
• Quick start with template: Use our ready-made clay template and adapt it to your needs
• Implementation by experts: We help you set up and integrate into your existing processes

No matter which path you choose, ad scouting will fundamentally change the way you approach potential customers.

Want to know how this approach can work for your business? Schedule a non-binding consultation with our team and we will show you how we can make use of these and other advanced B2B sales methods for your company.

Nicolas Schell is co-founder of Scalantec and an expert in B2B sales and sales automation. With experience from positions at Celonis, Presize and Edgeless Systems, he has developed a practical approach for successful sales campaigns. His particular expertise lies in the use of modern tools such as Clay, with which he develops data-driven processes for lead generation and personalization. Nicolas combines his knowledge in data analysis, prompt engineering and AI to optimize sales processes at the highest level.

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