--- title: "Novel case study: 5 to 8 leads a day from cold email" description: "How Novel, a shoppable video app for Shopify brands, got 5 to 8 leads a day from cold email after an in-house attempt and an expensive partner." url: https://frontal.so/case-studies/novel updated: 2026-10-16 --- Case study · Novel # Novel case study: 5 to 8 leads a day from cold email, no sales call needed How Novel, a shoppable video app for Shopify brands, made cold email work after an in-house attempt and an expensive partner: 5 to 8 leads a day, with no sales call in the funnel. **Leads a day, as email sign-ups on the landing page** 5 to 8 **New customers a week** 1 to 3 **People reached** 8,600 **Sales calls needed to try the product** None **Industry** E-commerce software, shoppable video for Shopify brands **Built under** GTM Services **Tools** Clay, StoreLeads, Apollo, Instantly, LeadMagic, BounceBan **Time window** Ran until December 2024, then handed over **Published** Oct 16, 2026 Built under ColdIQ Agency, which became Frontal in 2026. Same operators, new name. [The full story →](https://frontal.so/case-studies#coldiq) Want results like these? Book a call and we’ll walk you through how it would work for your team. [Book a call](https://book.frontal.so) ## The constraint Novel is software for e-commerce brands. It turns the social content a brand already makes, TikToks and Instagram Reels, into shoppable video feeds on the homepage and product pages, to lift conversion. A brand can try it without talking to anyone: click a link, type in an Instagram or TikTok handle, and see it working. That makes the email and the landing page the whole funnel. And cold email, co-founder Joe DeWulf found, had changed. Novel had tried it in house, and doing it properly had become a job of its own: keeping up with spam trends, monitoring deliverability, cleaning contacts, making sure every address is real, and A/B testing round after round to find what works. > It’s become now really a full-time job for someone to do it effectively. And what I mean effectively is like keeping up with spam trends, monitoring deliverability, cleaning contacts, right? *Joe DeWulf, Co-Founder and CEO, Novel* He had also tried an outside partner, with standing meetings every couple of weeks. It felt overly expensive for what it returned: a very small number of leads, nothing that justified the cost. Before choosing again, Joe asked for a reference and spoke to an existing client first. [Novel testimonial](https://fast.wistia.net/embed/iframe/06czeb5x67?seo=true&videoFoam=true) ## What we built A cold email system built around one hard requirement: a link in the email. - ### The link problem Campaigns pointed to a landing page on Novel’s site where a prospect could leave their email or install the app directly. Sending that link, in the first email or the second, without losing deliverability was the technical problem the campaigns had to solve. - ### Lists of the right stores Lists were built with StoreLeads, Apollo and Clay. - Clay - StoreLeads - Apollo - Instantly - LeadMagic - BounceBan - ### Clean contacts Email addresses came from a finding waterfall (Prospeo and LeadMagic) and were verified with LeadMagic and BounceBan: the contact hygiene that, in Joe’s experience, takes a full-time person to keep up with. - ### Sending Campaigns ran on Instantly. - ### One channel, a steady rhythm A shared Slack channel with everyone in it, regular meetings so both sides knew what was happening and what came next, and ideas coming from Frontal as well as from Joe, including which new deliverability and personalization tools were worth using. > I feel super supported. I feel like I’m not the only one bringing ideas to the table. *Joe DeWulf, Co-Founder and CEO, Novel* ## Results | Metric | Result | | --- | --- | | Leads (email sign-ups on the landing page) | 5 to 8 a day | | New customers installing the app | 1 to 3 a week | | People reached | 8,600 | | Email replies | 215, of which 21 positive | | Sales calls needed | None | What Novel tracked was leads and customer installations, not replies: the conversion happened on the landing page, after the click. Joe put leads at five to eight a day and was optimistic about growing them further. When the engagement ended in December 2024, the system went to Novel’s team: the tools list, a Clay template, and hands-on sessions that covered setting up Instantly and HeyReach. > It’s two ways, like you guys could send all the emails with all the highest deliverability and the perfect message, but it’s up to the brand or it’s up to the business to have a high-converting landing page or a good sales team, right? So it takes two, and working collaboratively too. *Joe DeWulf, Co-Founder and CEO, Novel* ## What this means for you If your product sells itself in a free trial, the email has one job: get the click without landing in spam. That is a full-time discipline on its own (lists, verification, deliverability, testing), and it only pays off when the page behind the link converts. Novel’s results came from both halves working together. - [GTM Services](https://frontal.so/services/gtm-engineering) Want results like these? Book a call and we’ll walk you through how it would work for your team. [Book a call](https://book.frontal.so) ## More case studies [View all](https://frontal.so/case-studies) - [Peoplelogic HR tech · GTM Services 100 meetings a month, 86% of positive replies from one title group How Peoplelogic used outbound volume to find its ICP: 100 meetings a month, and 86% of positive replies traced to one group of job titles four months in.](https://frontal.so/case-studies/peoplelogic) - [Lyl Marketing Marketing agency · GTM Services 80+ positive, interested leads in one month for an agency client How Lyl Marketing, a three-person Australian agency, learned to build Clay-enriched lists, then ran a client campaign that returned 80+ positive, interested leads in about a month.](https://frontal.so/case-studies/lyl-marketing) - [Seller Candy E-commerce services · GTM Services About 40 booked calls in a short time, plus new agency partners How Seller Candy replaced hand-built lists and about 20 manual messages a day with outbound to Amazon sellers and agencies: about 40 booked calls in a short time, a couple of conversions, and new agency partners.](https://frontal.so/case-studies/seller-candy) ## Want to see what this could look like for you? [Book a call](https://book.frontal.so)