I Ranked Every Way to Get Clients in 2026 (TIER LIST)

For any service business, the way you get clients is hands down probably the most important thing for a business. Over the last eight years, scaling two of my own agencies to a seven figure level, I have pretty much dabbled with or tried every single way to get clients for a marketing agency. Not only have I scaled two of my own agencies to a seven figure level, but I've also consulted 50 plus agency owners. From 2020 till now, the ways to get clients for an agency have changed quite a bit. Which strategies you're using is very dependent upon where you're at within your personal agency journey. So today, I'm going to be ranking every single way to get clients for an agency on an S to D tier list. By the end of this video, you'll know which strategies to focus on and which strategies are going to make the most sense for where you're at right now with your agency. Alright, let's go ahead and jump in. The first two are actually kind of bundled into one. Dripify and PROSP are LinkedIn automation softwares. These are softwares that connect to LinkedIn Sales Navigator. If you aren't familiar with what LinkedIn Sales Navigator is, LinkedIn Sales Navigator is an extension that you can basically purchase. It's around $100 per month, and this is an extension off of LinkedIn. Now, Sales Navigator in itself, I think is a great tool. When you combine Sales Navigator with Dripify and Prosp and you try to automate the process, in my opinion, that is when things really start to go downhill. With these softwares like Dripify and Prosp, what they basically allow you to do is instead of actually being a real human and actually using LinkedIn as it's intended to be used, these softwares allow you to send out connection requests. with a press of a button based on a sales navigator search so you would basically put filters in there for whatever your icp is and the software is going to go ahead and every single day send out a certain amount of connection requests to your audience not only do these softwares send out connection requests but they'll also send out templated automated dm messages to people within your linkedin dm inbox My problem with these LinkedIn automation softwares is that the whole LinkedIn platform is being absolutely bombarded with these cheesy, templated, not personalized, one-off automated messages. I would actually encourage you to log into your LinkedIn account right now, go into your inbox, and you'll probably see a lot of these automated messages. And ask yourself, have you responded to any of them? The answer is probably no. Everybody on LinkedIn is sick and tired of getting these automated messages, and I completely advise against using these LinkedIn automated softwares. Another important thing to note is if you send out too many automated connection requests or if you send out too many automated DMs within these automated softwares, you can actually get your LinkedIn account shut down. So final verdict on Dripify and PROSP, D tier ways to get clients for marketing agencies in 2026. Next up on the list, we have manual DM acquisition. Inside my program, instead of having people do LinkedIn outreach on an automated level using these softwares, I actually encourage people to do manual, real connection, real human being connection in a very specific way on the LinkedIn platform. This strategy is working really, really well for a lot of my students. It's received really well by the prospects because we're actually taking the time to kind of get an understanding of is this person going to be a good fit or not for our services we're actually showing real interest in who they are as a person we're showing real interest in their business and we're actually taking a minute or two to take a look at their profile and let them know that hey i'm a real person i'm actually messaging you i'm actually looking to network here this isn't just a one-off automated message that i'm sending the same thing to hundreds of people every single day within my program we actually have a specific outbound framework that we teach people to use so that you actually know step by step how to go about sending dms on a manual level and build real connections with people within the linkedin platform that strategy i am going to go ahead and put in the s tier next up on the list we have ig dms igdms is actually the first strategy that i ever used to get my first agency off of the ground i actually scaled to 20k myself with igdms there is a specific strategy to networking within the instagram platform it's very important that you actually show real interest in people and same idea it's very important that you're not just sending out templated dm messages take the time to actually view their profile maybe like one of their posts, maybe comment on one of their posts. And if you actually think that their business or that individual is going to be a good fit for your services, then at that point, it would be a good idea to reach out into their DM with some genuine intention. So for IG DMs, I'm going to put the IG DMs in the A tier. Next up, we have Facebook DMs. Generally, in my experience, Instagram goes a little bit better than Facebook, hence why I have Instagram in the A tier. Facebook DMing has gotten very, very saturated. So due to the saturation, I'm going to put Facebook DMs in the B tier. The reason why I think IG DMs is better than Facebook DMs is just because the Facebook strategy... has gotten a bit saturated the whole idea with the facebook strategy is you send out around 20 facebook friend requests every single day you get involved in facebook groups where you believe that your prospects your niche where you believe they're hanging out you just start networking on the platform and then again from there you go into the dm you start conversations with these people with the end goal of getting them to a booked call next up on the list we have meta ads so meta ads this is running paid advertisements on facebook and running paid advertisements on instagram this is hands down one of the ultimate best strategies to get clients for a marketing agency the downsides to running ads on facebook is it does require ad spend you have to be willing to spend money so it's normal to have a cost per acquisition of maybe five hundred dollars thousand dollars your cost per acquisition can even be all the way up to two thousand dollars that you have to spend in order to acquire a client for your marketing agency it's a strategy that i would highly recommend for a more experienced agency So if your agency is already doing 10K plus per month using some of these other strategies, you may now be in a position where it would be a good idea to start running meta advertisements for your agency. Generally, when I'm working with an agency owner, before I ever have them start running advertisements on meta, it's really important that we have a good sales process in place and that we also have done some sales training and we know how to close a deal because the last thing you want is to be spending all of this money on ads and then you don't actually have a sales process in place. to convert those leads into paying clients and if you don't know sales if you don't know how to close you're also going to have a really hard time actually converting the traffic so generally i just like to make sure that you have a really good sales process in place i like to do some call reviews do some sales training and just make sure that we're ready to start running the paid advertisements i'm going to go ahead and put meta advertising in the s tier meta ads have played a very large role in me reaching seven figures within my agencies next up on the list is organic short form content so when i talk about short form organic content i'm talking about 15 to 30 second long videos these aren't paid ads these are posts that you put up for free on social media the nice part about short form organic content is you can take one short form video and you can post that on ig reels you can post that on facebook reels you can post it on tick tock you can post it on youtube shorts and now linkedin has even rolled out short form video format so you can take that one video and you can post it across all your different social media channels content is something that you can do completely for free to start generating inbound opportunities to get potential clients for your marketing agency business there is one downside to the short form content strategy and that is that it takes time don't think that you're just going to post one organic video on your tick tock and suddenly have all this inflow of lead generation for your agency be prepared to post consistently over a long period of time even if you're running paid advertisements having some organic content out there and consistently posting organic content is going to actually amplify all of these other strategies. So that's another really important thing to note with short form organic content. This is going to be another strategy that we put into the S tier. Next up on the list, we have Google ads. I could be completely wrong on this, but in my experience within my seven figure agencies and all of my friends who run seven figure agencies, I've just never seen Google ads be a main way that people are acquiring clients profitably for their marketing agency. There may be people out there that I don't know of, but in my opinion, if you're going to spend money on ads and you have an ad budget, it's going to be better that you put that budget towards meta ads or even TikTok advertising, which we're going to talk about later, which is why Google ads is going to fall in the D tier category. now look one thing to note is the actual lead generation strategy is just one piece of the puzzle when it comes to getting new clients for your agency business if you only focus on lead generation you're going to be spinning your wheels it's important that you also consider your offer it's important that you also make sure you have a good sales process in place and it's also very important that you know how to close a deal and that you've gone through some sales training I've helped dozens of agency owners scale well past 10K. I've helped many even scale to seven figures and everywhere in between. If you're serious about taking your agency to the next level and want to at minimum double your agency's revenue, you can book a free consultation. Link is in the description. All right, let's get back into it because I have some methods to rank that might surprise you. Next up on the list, we have cold calling. Cold calling, surprisingly, I'm a big fan of cold calling. It's tough. It's a numbers game. You have to understand that for every 100 cold calls you make, you'll book a few appointments and hopefully be able to get one deal out of that. But if you can make 100 calls in a week, that's a new deal every single week. This is a very beginner-friendly strategy. It requires zero budget. the thing to know with cold calling is it does require some skill sets it does require sales training so if you've never done sales if you've never done sales training if you've never done cold calling if you don't have experience closing you're going to have a really really really hard time with cold calling so cold calling is generally going to be a strategy that i recommend to people who are starting their agency but happen to have sales experience this is going to be a really good strategy for you for that reason cold calling again that's going to go in the a tier next up on the list we have cold email The reason why it says instantly is because instantly.ai is the software that I recommend people to use for cold email. Cold email in my personal experience has never been my favorite, but I have seen it work for many of my mentees. With cold email, the real trick is understanding that it has to be at an extremely high volume. So you want to be sending out thousands of cold emails every single day. The other reason why I don't love it is because... the context of the call isn't great. So even when you do start getting booked calls from your cold email efforts, they're not necessarily coming into the call super warmed up because they just saw a random email. Now they're on a call with this random person. They don't know who you are. They didn't see any of your content. And again, it is a strategy that can work. I have seen it work for other people, but it's not going to be an s tier or even an a tier strategy it's a good beginner friendly method this is something that i would recommend to someone who's more of like an it someone who's more of a tech guy who wants to get in there set up all these different domains and set up all that tech work that goes into being successful with cold email so for some people it can be a really good strategy to get the agency off the ground for that reason i'm going to put instantly cold email in tier b next up is hyper personalized email so instead of doing cold email at a super high mass to me i think a better idea for most people is going to be doing hyper personalized email at a lower scale so maybe 10 to 15 hyper personalized emails every single day apollo is a really good software that's going to assist in this process it's a lead scraper and it's going to allow you to execute on hyper personalized email It's a good strategy. It does require a lot of work because instead of just automating the whole process, you actually have to do some digging into people. And we're generally teaching a strategy called show me, you know me. So when you follow the show me, you know me strategy, it requires you to actually do some research on the individual and write out a hyper personalized email. So even though it does require a little bit more work, when you actually do get calls from personalized email, they're going to be a lot more warmed up. They're going to be a lot more receptive to hearing you out in terms of your pitch for your services. I'm also going to put this one in tier B. Next up, we have Loom. Loom can absolutely be a very good strategy for your business, but it's another one of those strategies that requires a lot, a lot, a lot, a lot of time and effort just to get on a booked call. But the upside is that if you do go out of your way, to actually film a personalized loom video, maybe doing a website audit or maybe auditing someone's SEO ranking or whatever the case might be, they're gonna reciprocate your effort. And again, when you get on that call, unlike cold calling or unlike cold email, when you actually get on a call from a personalized loom video outreach effort compared to cold calling and cold email, You'll find that people are a lot more open-minded to hearing you out about your services And you'll find that they're a lot more receptive when you actually do finally get them on a sales call It's important to note that not all leads are the same There's there's high intent leads and there's low intent leads So it's important to note which of these strategies are going to actually get you high intent leads And which of these strategies are going to get you lower intent leads and really at the end of the day what do you gravitate towards and what's going to work best for you within your agency business loom is going to be another strategy that i go ahead and place into the b tier next up on the list we have upwork it's not technically for agencies upwork is actually for freelancers one thing to note is if you do try to put your agency services on upwork you're actually going to have to compete with overseas pricing you're gonna have to compete with people who have an incredible you know us to india dollar conversion and charge way less for their services now their services aren't going to be as high quality but a lot of business owners are price shoppers and they're just going to go for the cheapest option not factor in the actual quality of the service another thing to know with Upwork is all of the communication needs to stay within Upwork so Upwork will actually kick you off the platform if you try to communicate with your client outside of Upwork. So it's really hard to be an agency to find clients on Upwork and then bring them off of the platform. That's generally, maybe you can get a couple clients that way, but that's not gonna be a sustainable way to actually scale your business long-term. Upwork is gonna go ahead and be put into the C tier category. Next up on the list, we have referrals. Having a referral program is literally going to complement all of these different strategies. So when you're doing LinkedIn, when you're doing Instagram, when you're making cold calls, when you're doing emails, whatever the case might be, you're going to start communicating with people. Not every single person that you talk to is obviously going to be a qualified person that's ready to buy your services. you have an incentivized referral program in place even for people that don't move forward that you speak with people that don't move forward on your agency services you can at least ask them for referrals the key here with your referral program is there needs to be some sort of incentive one good idea would be offering a free month of your marketing services for any people they send you that end up joining your program Referrals is going to be a great way to literally 2x all of your efforts. You just have to remember to ask. Referrals is hands down going to be an A tier strategy. There is absolutely no reason under the sun why you should not have a referral program set up within your agency. And the final... Holy grail, my ultimate favorite. The reason why I think TikTok ads is such a good strategy is because everybody in the US is spending so much time on the platform. I compared my TikTok ads to my meta ads, and I actually saw that there was four times the impressions per dollar spent on my TikTok ads compared to my meta advertising. another thing to note with tick tock ads is the algorithm does a really really good job of placing the ad in front of the right people in front of your audience in front of your niche so when you have some budget When you're at that point where your sales process is established and you've done some sales training and you've closed some deals and you know how to close a deal, the very first place that I would encourage you to look would be putting some budget into TikTok advertising. Client acquisition strategy for marketing agencies in 2026 is TikTok ads. One thing to note about these S tier strategies is not all of them, but many of them are. inbound versus outbound. So that's generally what's going to make it an S tier strategy for me may have to be willing to spend money on ads. But I definitely prefer a strategy that's an inbound lead coming to me versus me having to do outbound and outwardly go about getting leads. The manual LinkedIn acquisition strategy is the only strategy on here that's actually an outbound strategy that is put in the S tier. And last thing to note is please keep in mind, it's super important that you understand that lead gen is not the only aspect of successfully running an agency and even successfully acquiring clients. So when you think about acquiring clients for your agency, lead gen is just one piece of the puzzle. We also need to have a really good offer that stands out in the marketplace. We also need to have a really solid sales process with follow-up procedures in place with automations. And lastly, it's going to be really important that you know how to close. You do some sales training. So without those, again, you're really going to be spinning your wheels with all of these different lead generation strategies. So you've seen me rank every single way to get clients for an agency in 2026. now if you're watching this thinking but where do i actually get started i made a video specifically for that click the video above to watch my next video where i break down a very simple three-step process to go from zero to successfully starting your marketing agency business

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I break down exactly how to get clients for marketing agency owners in 2026 by ranking every major strategy in a simple tier list. If you're serious about agency client acquisition 2026, this is the no-fluff breakdown of what’s actually working right now.

I compare inbound vs outbound lead gen so you can decide where to focus based on your current stage, skillset, and budget. From there, I rank every major channel and explain when and how I would use each one.

For outbound, I cover linkedin manual outreach, instagram dm strategy, facebook dm outreach, cold calling for agencies, cold email strategy, personalized email outreach, and loom video prospecting. I explain what converts, what gets ignored, and what most agencies are doing wrong.

For paid acquisition, I break down meta ads for agencies and tiktok ads lead gen, including when paid traffic makes sense and when it’s a waste of money.

On the inbound side, I rank organic short form content, building authority, and using content to attract clients instead of chasing them. I also cover leveraging referral program for agencies to turn existing results into consistent deal flow.