A design engagement is decided by a room that wants opposite things: a head of design or product lead who judges your taste in two minutes and a founder, CEO, or VP who treats design as a discretionary cost and is really asking whether hiring an outside studio is defensible against a senior freelancer or an in-house hire. We name the accounts with a live design initiative — a funding round, a redesign mandate, a launch, a retention or conversion problem, a new design leader — multi-thread both halves of that room with proof each one believes, and track engagement account by account in your CRM. Over 9+ years we've done this across 60+ B2B tech companies, including product studios like Artkai, and tracked $30M+ in CRM-tracked, marketing-led revenue. Built for project-based, multi-stakeholder design sales — measured in revenue, not leads.
We start with your economics and delivery reality: average project size and value, the engagement types you sell (a redesign, a design system, a launch, an ongoing partnership), your project-based and multi-stakeholder cycle and exactly who sits on the committee, how many named accounts your principals can genuinely work without starving billable delivery, and which trigger events actually open a design window in your niche. We map any existing outreach to find where the design lead engaged but the founder was never given a defensible reason to spend — or where the list was full of logos that were never in-market.
We hold your situation against the account-based programs and design studios we've worked with, including Artkai. A boutique studio chasing ten enterprise redesigns with a founder who pitches is one playbook; a larger studio running one-to-few across fifty freshly funded startups, selling to non-design founders, is another. That pattern-matching tells us fast whether your real constraint is account selection, committee coverage, the portfolio-versus-outcomes proof gap, or differentiation — and which tier model fits — so the plan is benchmarked against design deals that actually closed, not guessed.
We commit to the target list, the tier model, and the channel mix that fit your buyer and your delivery capacity — and we deliberately scope it down. A focused one-to-one program against the handful of accounts whose design window is open and whose project value justifies deep personalization beats a thin one-to-many sprayed across a list no principal can follow up on. We decide where the first effort goes and which accounts lead, knowing a design window won't stay open and your senior people's hours are the scarce resource.
We stand up the program as a system: the trigger-selected account list, the two-sided committee maps, the account research, the craft-credible and outcome-led proof, the portfolio reframed as evidence for the budget-holder, the multi-threaded engagement sequences from warm-up to activation, the handoff rules to your principals and founder, and account-level CRM tracking. The bar is that a head of design on a target account sees work they respect while the founder sees a spend they can defend. Then we launch against named accounts whose window is open.
Each cycle we combine account-level CRM data with direct feedback from your principals and founder on which accounts and which threads moved. We drop accounts whose window closed or that show no signal, double down on the ones warming across both halves of the room, refine the proof each half responds to, and adjust which contacts we pursue. The program compounds because it's optimized against account engagement and signed design work, not lead counts — and it holds up across a project-based, multi-stakeholder cycle.
We've run account-based campaigns across 60-plus B2B tech engagements and spent 9-plus years marketing product studios and design-led agencies like Artkai — so we don't build your account list or your committee map from a blank page. We already know which trigger events actually mean a design window is open (a fresh raise, a redesign mandate, a launch, a retention problem, a new head of design) versus which logos just look aspirational; that a design committee splits into a taste-judging practitioner and a cost-weighing founder who need completely different proof; and which personalization a head of design reads as 'this studio gets our product' rather than as a mail-merge they bin on sight. We start from pattern recognition about how design partners actually get chosen, not a discovery deck.
Before we launch a single play we diagnose whether ABM is even your constraint — and the design-studio failure modes are specific. Sometimes the accounts on the list had no live design initiative, so the fix is selection against real triggers, not more outreach. Sometimes the design lead loved the work but the deal died because the founder was never given a defensible reason to spend. Sometimes the work is so undifferentiated from every other studio that no account program could rescue it, and the real bottleneck is positioning. Because we've seen these patterns across design studios specifically, we usually name the real constraint in the first weeks instead of personalizing campaigns at accounts whose window was already shut.
An account-based program for a studio reaches a split room through whatever each half trusts — LinkedIn to target the exact design-lead and founder titles on a named account, founder-and-lead-designer content the practitioners actually respect, an executive-level point of view or roundtable that makes the case for design investment to a skeptical budget-holder, one-to-one assets that reframe your portfolio as outcomes, sales outreach, and tightly scoped account-level ads. But the mix follows what you sell and who decides: ten strategic enterprise redesigns run one-to-one looks nothing like a one-to-few program across fifty freshly funded startups that all just raised. We pick the channels and tier model that fit your account count, project value, and — critically — how many named accounts your principals and senior designers can genuinely work without starving billable delivery, and we leave out what only adds cost.
In a studio the people who know whether a target account is real are your principals, design leads, and the founder who pitches — not a dashboard — so the loop with them is the program. We build the account list and the committee map with them, review every cycle which named accounts engaged and which went quiet, read which threads opened inside an account and whether it was the design lead or the budget-holder who warmed, and listen to the exact objections the room raised — 'why you over a senior freelancer,' 'we're hiring in-house,' 'is this worth the spend,' 'do you actually know our vertical.' That feedback rewrites the next cycle's targeting, the proof we lead with for each half of the room, and which contacts we pursue.
We instrument ABM at the account level in your CRM, not as a pile of lead metrics — which matters acutely for a studio because a design engagement is project-based and multi-stakeholder: a designer or product lead champions you, but a founder signs, often weeks after the first anonymous portfolio visit, and that gap is exactly where studios under-attribute their own marketing and treat it as the discretionary cost their clients treat design as. We track engagement account by account: which target accounts moved from cold to engaged, how many committee members each activated and which half they sat in, how account engagement maps to scoped inquiries and won projects, and how ABM-touched deals close versus the rest. That account-level discipline is part of how we've tracked $30M-plus in CRM-tracked, marketing-led revenue — and it's how we tell you honestly which accounts to keep working and which logos to drop.
Strategy first, channels second, sales feedback always. We measure by the qualified demand and revenue we can trace back inside the CRM.
Our founder led their marketing as Head of Marketing, running a 7-person team across SEO, demand gen, and paid — $1M/year in marketing revenue. Re-engaged in 2026 and halved cost per MQL and SQL.
ServicesFractional CMO · SEO · Demand Generation · Paid Ads
Senior operators on every account. Never a junior pod.
Rebuilt inbound from scratch — 100% YoY SQL growth, 207% more traffic, domain rating from 12 to 45, and 141 articles shipped.
ServicesFractional CMO · SEO · Demand Generation
“We've seen a 207% increase in web traffic and our domain rating improved from 12 to 45.”
Took a referral-only firm to a real new-business engine — 5 deals and $240K revenue from Meta in a year, plus 2–4 SQLs/month from ChatGPT.
ServicesMeta Ads · Fractional CMO · AI Search
“Their expertise and proactiveness have impressed our team.”
Positioned them as the recommended Salesforce partner inside the major LLMs — two $1M enterprise deals closed from ChatGPT in a 3-month engagement.
ServicesAI Search · Fractional CMO · Meta Ads
“They operated with the discipline and initiative of an internal senior marketer.”
Built the marketing function from zero — website, SEO, paid, AI search — from 166 to 2,513 monthly clicks and 3 enterprise deals won.
ServicesFractional CMO · SEO · AI Search · Meta Ads
“They defined a clear marketing strategy and established our unique value proposition.”
Turned Salesforce-niche SEO into a deal channel — 2.73× traffic and MQL-to-SQL conversion up from 17% to 29%.
ServicesSEO · Content Marketing
“We have started receiving our first inbound requests.”
Restructured the marketing team and shifted to lead-driving SEO — doubling client count and growing SQLs 133% in nine months.
ServicesSEO · Fractional CMO
Switched them from brand-awareness content to lead-driving SEO — 20 of 25 service pages ranked top 5 and the first deals closed from organic.
ServicesSEO · Fractional CMO · Content Marketing
“XQL Group's marketing expertise is a hallmark of the engagement.”
Stood up SEO as a new acquisition channel — domain rating 27 to 44, 50+ leads, and 88 articles in nine months.
ServicesSEO
“Their subject matter expertise is highly impressive.”
After six months of zero results from another agency, we delivered +70% Google clicks and grew AI-assistant traffic from 10 to 154/month in three months — and the first SQLs from SEO.
ServicesSEO · AI Search
Meta appointment funnels at scale — 466 leads and over 100 booked sales conversations from a single paid channel.
ServicesAppointment Funnels · Meta Ads
“They've brought structure, strong execution, and constant initiative.”
Set up marketing from zero — positioning, website, LinkedIn social selling, and an ABM campaign that landed four new clients fast.
ServicesFractional CMO · ABM · LinkedIn
“Their ability to combine strategic vision with hands-on execution was particularly valuable.”
Positioned a small studio in a niche AI-search category — recommended by LLMs for 2 commercial keywords, landing a big client in one month.
ServicesAI Search · AEO/GEO · Website
“They knew how to approach AI search practically, not just in theory.”
Recommended by every major AI assistant for 3 commercial keywords, plus a deal closed from Meta appointment funnels.
ServicesAI Search · Appointment Funnels
“What impressed us most was their deep specialization with software development companies.”
Positioned for an important commercial keyword and recommended by the major AI assistants within a single month.
ServicesAI Search · AEO/GEO
Took over marketing as their agency after an unsuccessful in-house run — GTM strategy, paid funnels, AI search, and LinkedIn delivered 75 leads and the first qualified pipeline.
ServicesFractional CMO · GTM Strategy · Appointment Funnels · AI Search
A targeted ABM campaign booked 13 conversations with ICP accounts and opened three opportunities in two months.
ServicesABM
Repositioned the agency, revamped the site, and built appointment funnels that booked qualified intro calls at just $34 each.
ServicesAppointment Funnels · Positioning · Website
A custom AI-assistant paid funnel produced 76 leads and 34 booked appointments at $123 per call with an ICP.
ServicesAppointment Funnels · Meta Ads
Meta appointment funnels delivered 35 leads at a $42 CPL and closed two deals on modest spend.
ServicesAppointment Funnels · Meta Ads
Thanks to XQL Group's efforts, we've seen a 207% increase in web traffic and an improvement in domain rating from 12 to 45. The team has successfully optimized our SEO strategy and gained around 160 backlinks. Overall, they're responsive and thorough in their project management.
Since working with XQL Group, our domain rating has improved from 27 to 44. In addition, we've seen a 15% increase in monthly traffic within nine months. The team completes work on time and within the agreed budget. Moreover, their subject matter expertise is highly impressive.
XQL Group's efforts have resulted in 44 leads from paid campaigns and improved web traffic from Germany by 5x. The team is responsive, quickly surfaces issues, and communicates regularly through chats and virtual meetings. Their expertise and proactiveness have impressed our team.
Organic traffic has increased by 10–15% each month, and we have started receiving our first inbound requests. XQL Group's optimization tips have also helped improve keyword rankings, and internal stakeholders are impressed with the team's collaborative approach.
XQL Group has successfully defined a clear marketing strategy and established our company's unique value proposition. The team has also helped hire critical specialists for our marketing team. They are communicative and organized, and their expertise in the tech industry is impressive.
Thanks to XQL Group's efforts, we have defined our marketing strategy and hired key developers for our website. The team has launched retargeting campaigns on LinkedIn and developed a strong content marketing strategy. XQL Group's marketing expertise is a hallmark of the engagement.
They were not just talking about AI search in theory; they knew how to approach it practically.
What impressed us most was their deep specialization in working with software development companies.
They've brought structure, strong execution, and constant initiative to improve outcomes.
They operated with the discipline and initiative of an internal senior marketer.
Their ability to combine strategic vision with hands-on execution was particularly valuable.
Their focus on results and true interest in making things work set them apart.
XQL Group's project management was exemplary.
The quality of their work is consistently high.
They solve different problems and work best layered. SEO and AI Search capture buyers who are already searching or asking an assistant who to hire, and founder-led content earns attention across the whole market so studios know you before a window opens. ABM sits between and above all of them: you name the specific accounts whose design window is open right now — the ones that just raised, mandated a redesign, or hired a head of design — treat each as a market of one, and orchestrate marketing and your principals to engage the whole buying committee on that named list. The difference is what you measure: not traffic, recommendations, or cost-per-lead, but account engagement and committee coverage on a named list, tracked account by account in your CRM. For a project-based engagement worth a quarter of revenue, a handful of the right in-market accounts can outweigh a flood of portfolio visitors.
That timing problem is the entire point of selection for a studio, so we build the list with your principals and sales lead around trigger signals that mean a design window is genuinely open — a funding round that creates pressure to ship something credible, a public redesign or rebrand mandate, a new product launch, a visible activation or retention problem the founder is feeling, or a newly hired head of design or VP of Product who wants outside firepower — combined with fit and your minimum project value. We then tier the list: one-to-one for the few strategic accounts whose window is open and whose project value justifies deep personalization, one-to-few for clusters sharing a trigger (say, a cohort that all just raised a Series A), one-to-many for a broader in-market segment. A list of accounts actually commissioning design now, that your principals will follow up on, beats a wishlist of dream logos that were never in-market.
By treating it as two audiences inside one account, not one. The practitioner champion — a head of design, product lead, or senior designer — judges your craft on sight and dismisses anything derivative or mass-produced in a glance, so we reach them with genuinely credible work: relevant product design, a teardown of their actual experience, evidence in their vertical and on their platform. The economic buyer — a founder, CEO, or VP — usually can't tell great design from good and is really asking whether paying an outside studio is defensible against a senior freelancer or an in-house hire, so we reach them with outcomes (activation, retention, conversion, time-to-ship), named-client proof, process credibility, and a clear make-or-buy case. We map who sits on each side for every account and sequence the plays so that by the time the deal reaches the table, the design lead respects the work and the founder sees a spend they can defend. Winning only one half is the single most common way a design deal stalls.
That's exactly the proof gap we design the program around. Your portfolio is the asset that wins the design lead — they scan three projects and judge your taste in two minutes — and it's close to inert for the founder, who needs a reason the spend is worth it, not another reel of beautiful screens. So inside an account we use the portfolio two ways. For the champion, we put the most relevant work in front of them, framed to their product and vertical, as craft they can vouch for internally. For the budget-holder, we reframe that same work as outcome-led evidence — the business result it produced and the risk it removed, the named client, the kind of product — so the portfolio stops being a gallery and becomes a defensible case for hiring you. Same work, two translations, aimed at the two people who decide.
It will if it's built on those same claims, which is why we start with your point of difference before we touch the account list. An ABM program that personalizes the envelope but ships the same 'senior designers, user-centered, end-to-end partner' message gives a committee no reason to pick you over the next portfolio — the personalization just makes generic sameness arrive faster. We help you stake out a defensible, specific position — a vertical you dominate, a product problem you've solved repeatedly, a platform or engagement model you've perfected, a contrarian take on how good product design actually ships — and build the account-based proof around it, so a design lead on a target account gets something from you they can't get from the rest of the list. Targeting the right accounts can't rescue work that looks like everyone else's.
No, and we'll push back if you're about to sign a six-figure suite before you have a program to run on it. Effective ABM for a studio comes from disciplined, trigger-based account selection, a real two-sided committee map, craft-credible proof for the design lead and outcome-led proof for the budget-holder, and a tight loop with your principals — not from the tooling. We work with the CRM and channels you already have, instrument account-level tracking inside them, and add intent data or orchestration software only when it will clearly pay for itself in better-targeted, better-covered in-market accounts. The tool is never the program.
We measure at the account level, not the lead level, and we instrument it for exactly this kind of sale — a designer champions you, a founder signs, often weeks after the first anonymous portfolio visit. From day one we track which named accounts moved from cold to engaged, how many committee members each activated and whether they sat on the design or the budget side, how account engagement maps to scoped inquiries, and how ABM-touched deals close versus the rest. We won't claim a single LinkedIn touch caused a project — but we can show you, account by account, which in-market companies are genuinely warming and which aren't, across the full project-based path. That account-level discipline is part of how we've tracked $30M-plus in CRM-tracked, marketing-led revenue and sustained 133% SQL growth per quarter, and it's what keeps a studio from treating its own marketing as the discretionary line item it can never quite justify.
ABM is about concentration and committee coverage, not headcount, and it's often the highest-leverage motion for a boutique precisely because you can't afford to burn a principal's billable hours pitching accounts that were never in-market. A lean program might run one-to-one against ten accounts whose design window is open and one-to-few across a couple of well-defined trigger clusters, using the CRM and channels you already have rather than expensive software. Protecting senior time is built into the design: marketing warms and activates both halves of the committee, and your principals and founder only engage accounts the program has already qualified as in-market and covered, against a shared definition of 'ready for a scoping conversation.' What changes with size is the tier model and how many named accounts you work at once given your delivery capacity — not the discipline.
Bring your offer, channels, and revenue goals. We'll show you where the biggest growth constraint is and what to build next.
For B2B tech companies selling complex expertise to serious buyers.
I’m Danylo, founder of XQL. For 9+ years I’ve helped B2B tech companies turn technical expertise into pipeline — 60+ clients and $30M+ in CRM-tracked revenue.
30 minutes, no deck. Bring your offer, channels, and revenue goals — I’ll come with a read on where your biggest growth constraint is and what to build next.
