Company Type and Location

The company in this success story is a U.S.-based advertising agency focused on helping local businesses attract more customers through AI-driven marketing campaigns. Based in the United States, this agency specializes in working with small to mid-sized local businesses (restaurants, shops, home services, etc.) to boost their customer acquisition. The agency prides itself on leveraging cutting-edge technology in marketing – from data analytics to artificial intelligence – to give local businesses a competitive edge. However, like many advertising firms, they face a constant challenge: finding and qualifying new prospective clients who might need their marketing services.

Use Case

The challenge: The agency needed an efficient way to reach out to potential business clients and identify if they needed more customers (i.e. demand for marketing). Traditionally, this meant manual cold calls by the sales team – a time-consuming process with notoriously low hit rates. In fact, studies show that it can take over 200 cold calls to book a single meeting, which is roughly a 0.5%–1% success rate​. Moreover, about 80% of cold calls go to voicemail instead of reaching a live person​, underscoring how tough cold outreach can be.

The solution: The agency deployed Awaz.ai’s AI voice agent as a virtual sales caller to automate the top of the funnel. The AI agent would call local businesses (from a targeted list of prospects in the area) and engage them in a human-like conversation). Its goal on each call was to quickly determine if the business owner “needed more customers” and would be open to marketing help. In essence, the AI agent was acting as a first-pass qualifier – identifying interested prospects and weeding out uninterested ones – so that the human sales reps only spent time on warm leads. Any business that expressed a need or interest would be marked for follow-up by the agency’s sales team (or even live-transferred in real time), while those not interested would be politely thanked and the call ended. By letting the AI handle the initial outreach and qualification, the agency hoped to save their team dozens of hours of cold calling and dramatically improve their lead generation efficiency.

Automation Setup – Step-by-Step

Setting up the Awaz.ai voice agent for this campaign was straightforward. The agency configured the AI caller with a tailored script and logic to mimic a productive sales call. Here is a step-by-step breakdown of the automation setup:

Language & Voice Selection: The AI agent was configured to speak English with a natural, professional tone. Awaz.ai supports highly life-like text-to-speech voices – in fact, 95% of users can’t distinguish the AI from a real person​, the AI needed to avoid wasting time in voicemail boxes. Awaz.ai’s system can automatically detect if a call was picked up by a person or went to a voicemail greeting.

The agency configured the agent to not leave a lengthy message on the first try. Instead, if the call went to voicemail (or rang out), the AI would either drop a short, friendly voicemail or simply end the call and schedule a retry at a later time. The team set up a rule for the AI to attempt up to 2 callback tries for unanswered numbers, at different times of day, to maximize the chance of reaching a human. This automated callback logic ensured that potential leads weren’t given up after just one missed call attempt. It also saved the human team from manually tracking who to call back – the AI managed its own retry queue. (If a number consistently went to voicemail after multiple attempts, the agent would eventually mark it as unreachable and move on.)

Lead Qualification & Handoff: When the AI agent did reach a live person and that person indicated yes, they want more customers (or otherwise showed interest in the agency’s services), it would flag this call as a qualified lead. Awaz.ai allows several options at this point. In this case, the agency chose to have the AI schedule a follow-up rather than live-transfer, since calls were often happening outside normal hours.

The AI would thank the prospect and let them know a human specialist from the agency would contact them shortly to continue the conversation. Behind the scenes, the AI automatically tagged the call outcome as “Interested – needs follow-up” in the system. For particularly hot leads, the platform could also perform a warm transfer – i.e. immediately transfer the call to an available human agent. (Awaz.ai supports warm transferring a live call if a salesperson is on standby.) Overall, the qualified lead’s details (business name, contact info, and call notes) were logged for the sales team. The end-to-end call flow thus went from dialing, to AI conversation, to qualifying, to handing off interested prospects for human follow-up – all in one seamless automated pipeline.

Tool Stack and Integration

Implementing the AI calling workflow was greatly aided by Awaz.ai’s integration capabilities. The agency made use of a robust tool stack to connect the voice agent with their existing sales/CRM systems and ensure a smooth handoff of data. Key components of the integration included:

• Awaz.ai Platform: At the core was the Awaz.ai cloud platform where the AI agent was built and the call campaign was managed. Because Awaz.ai is a cloud-based service, the team didn’t need any special hardware or installations – they configured everything through the web app. (Notably, Awaz.ai is designed to plug into business workflows easily; you can integrate it with your existing tools to enhance efficiency​. The agency set up the calling campaign in Awaz.ai with their list of prospect phone numbers and configured the agent as described above.

• CRM Integration (Salesforce/HubSpot): The agency integrated Awaz.ai with their CRM system (in their case, Salesforce) so that call outcomes would sync automatically. Using Awaz.ai’s Zapier integration, every time the AI completed a call, a record was created or updated in the CRM. For example, if a call reached John’s Plumbing and the owner expressed interest, the AI (via Zapier) would create a new lead in Salesforce (or update an existing record) with a note that John’s Plumbing wants more customers and is a qualified lead. The call disposition (Interested, Not Interested, Wrong Number, etc.) and any key details were logged. This eliminated the tedious task of the sales team manually entering call notes. Awaz.ai’s Zapier connector makes it easy to sync AI call data with CRM – ensuring that the CRM is up-to-date with each contact’s status​.Conversely, the integration also allowed triggering calls from the CRM: for instance, adding a new contact to a specific Salesforce campaign could automatically trigger the Awaz.ai agent to call them​. In summary, the CRM integration meant seamless data flow – the AI and the CRM worked in tandem to track leads.

• Workflow Automation (Zapier): Zapier (a no-code automation tool) was the glue that connected Awaz.ai with other apps. The team set up “Zaps” to handle events like call completions and lead qualification. One Zap listened for the Awaz.ai “call completed” event and then performed actions: if the call outcome was a qualified lead, it would, for example, tag the lead in the CRM as “Qualified by AI” and send an email notification to the sales manager. Another Zap could notify the sales team via Slack instantly when a hot lead was identified. Using Zapier, the agency also implemented voicemail alerts – if the AI had to leave a voicemail after multiple tries, a Slack message would post with the business name and number, so a human could decide if a personal touch (like a direct email) was warranted. This kind of cross-tool automation ensured that the AI agent’s work was tightly integrated with the team’s broader workflow. (Awaz.ai’s integration through Zapier supports 7000+ apps, so they could have connected to HubSpot, Google Sheets, or any other tool as needed​. In this case, Salesforce was primary.)

• Call Data and Analytics: Both Awaz.ai and the CRM provided data dashboards to track performance. The agency monitored metrics like calls made, pickup rate, and lead conversion in real time via Awaz.ai’s dashboard. They also used the CRM to run reports on how many AI-qualified leads converted into actual sales or appointments down the line. The integrated stack meant that from call initiation to final sale, the entire funnel was tracked. This gave a clear view of ROI. Awaz.ai’s platform even records calls and transcribes them, so the team could review a sample of AI conversations for quality assurance and tweak the script if necessary. All call recordings and transcripts were stored in a cloud archive for reference.

Overall, the tool stack – Awaz.ai + CRM + Zapier – worked together to automate the outreach process end-to-end. The AI agent operated within the agency’s existing ecosystem, demonstrating how easily Awaz.ai can slot into a company’s sales tech stack. (According to Awaz.ai, it offers flexible options to connect with your existing tools like CRMs or helpdesk systems to “maximize productivity”​) With the integrations in place, the agency’s human team was immediately alerted of new opportunities and had all the context from the AI calls at their fingertips.

Results and Metrics

After running the AI-driven call campaign, the advertising agency saw impressive results. Over the course of the campaign, the Awaz.ai voice agent attempted hundreds of calls to local businesses. Here are the key metrics from this campaign:

• Total Dials: 395 outbound calls were placed by the AI agent.
• Live Pickups: 113 calls were answered by a person (i.e. reached a decision-maker or business owner).
• Voicemails: 194 calls went to voicemail. (Thanks to the voicemail detection, these were handled via automated retries or brief messages as configured, rather than full conversations.)
• Failed Calls: 30 calls failed to connect (e.g. disconnected numbers or call errors).
• Busy/No Answer: 22 calls were met with a busy signal, and 22 more simply rang with no answer. These were also retried later per the logic.
• Qualified Leads (Results): 14 leads were qualified as interested and passed to the sales team as a result of this campaign.
• Campaign Spend: $58.65 was spent on the AI call campaign (this reflects the usage cost of the Awaz.ai service for the 395 calls).
• Cost per Qualified Lead: $4.19 per lead – calculated as total spend divided by 14 qualified leads.

To put these numbers in perspective: out of 395 calls, 14 quality leads emerged. That is a 3.5% conversion rate from cold call to qualified lead. This might sound modest, but it is several times higher than industry norms. Traditional cold calling campaigns often see only about 0.5–1% of calls turn into opportunities​. In some industries, a 2% success rate is quoted as average​. This AI-driven campaign achieved ~3.5%, punching well above the typical cold-call performance. In other words, the AI voice agent was exceptionally effective at turning cold calls into actual leads – far more effective than a typical manual campaign. The high success rate can be attributed to the agent’s tireless and consistent approach: it dialed every number diligently, never got discouraged by rejection, and delivered the pitch perfectly each time. Every answered call was a potential to convert, and the AI maximized those chances through its scripting and objection handling.

Another standout metric is the cost per result. At only $4.19 per qualified lead, the cost is dramatically lower than what most agencies pay to get a sales-qualified lead. For comparison, buying leads or running ads can often cost $15 to $100+ per lead in the marketing industry​. Even cold call campaigns using human callers have implicit costs – consider the hourly wages of a salesperson and how many hours it takes to prospect. By using Awaz.ai, the agency spent under $60 to generate 14 interested prospects. Had they employed a human SDR to make 395 calls, the labor cost would have been much higher for likely fewer results. In essence, Awaz.ai’s voice agent delivered leads at a fraction of the cost of traditional methods (on the order of 3–20× cheaper, depending on the benchmark). This kind of cost efficiency is a game-changer for a small agency with limited budget – it means they can fill their pipeline without breaking the bank.

Beyond the conversion and cost figures, there were qualitative improvements as well:

• Efficiency and Time Savings: The AI handled 395 calls in a relatively short period. A human salesperson typically makes around 35 calls per day on average. That means this campaign was equivalent to about 11 working days of calling for one human rep. The Awaz.ai agent accomplished this in a fraction of that time (since it can make calls back-to-back, and even parallelize calls if needed). This freed up the human team to focus on high-value activities like meeting with the 14 qualified prospects and closing deals. The time saved on initial outreach was substantial. One could say the AI gave the agency almost two weeks’ worth of extra productivity that month. It also removed the tedious grind of dialing and leaving voicemails, which can burn out human sales reps.

• Consistent Lead Qualification: Every call was handled in a consistent manner following the best-practice script. This consistency likely contributed to the higher qualification rate. Human callers can have off days or vary in delivery, but the AI was uniformly persistent and polite. It never forgot to ask the qualifying question or log the data. According to industry research, persistence is crucial – it often takes multiple call attempts to reach a prospect, and perseverance pays off​. The AI’s programmed persistence (multiple retries, etc.) meant no lead was left without sufficient follow-up. The result was that any business owner who was even remotely interested eventually got to have that conversation and be identified as a lead.

• Better Use of Human Skills: The 14 leads that were handed to the sales team were pre-qualified and somewhat warmed up (they had already indicated a need or interest). This significantly improves the odds of closing. It’s well known that cold calling to appointment conversion is the hardest step, and here the AI had done that heavy lifting. The human salespeople could now engage these 14 prospects knowing they were open to getting more customers. The agency reported that conversations with these AI-qualified leads were much smoother than pure cold calls, since the introduction had been made. Essentially, the AI agent acted as a virtual SDR, setting the table for the sales executives. This streamlined the sales cycle, potentially leading to faster deal closures and revenue. It also boosted team morale – instead of facing rejection  hundred times, the human reps were now spending more time with genuinely interested prospects.
  ‍
• Improved Call Coverage: Because the AI was inexpensive to run, the agency could afford to call hundreds of businesses that they might not have otherwise reached out to. Even prospects that were low-priority or in outlying areas got a call. The marginal cost of each additional call was low. This broad outreach net could uncover hidden opportunities. In a manual scenario, the sales team might have only focused on 50–100 calls and left the rest of the list untouched due to time constraints. The AI, however, covered 395 contacts, ensuring no potential lead was missed. In marketing, coverage can be critical – sometimes the best clients come from unexpected places, and thanks to automation the agency didn’t have to be choosy about who to call first. They let the AI figure out who’s interested from the entire pool.

In terms of raw performance against industry benchmarks, the outcomes were outstanding. A 3.5% cold call-to-lead conversion compared to ~1% typical means the AI was about 3× more effective at surfacing leads. A $4.19 cost per lead versus $15–$100 industry averages means it was up to 10–20× cheaper in generating those opportunities. Even factoring in that not every qualified lead will close, the return on investment is clear – just one new client win from those 14 leads would likely pay for the campaign many times over.

Finally, it’s worth noting the 24/7 potential of AI voice agents. In this campaign, the calls were done during normal business hours for best results. But if needed, an AI agent could make calls after-hours or weekends without issue. It could also instantly scale up if the agency wanted to call 1,000 or 10,000 contacts. This scalability and availability of AI is a strategic advantage. “AI is cheaper, faster, more reliable — and often outperforms humans,” as an analysis by a16z notes about the rise of voice agents for business​. This case study validated that claim. The AI agent essentially outperformed a human cold-caller on key metrics and did so at scale.

Conclusion

Through the implementation of Awaz.ai’s AI voice agent, this advertising agency transformed its lead generation process. The AI agent streamlined lead qualification, reaching hundreds of local businesses and finding the truly interested prospects with impressive efficiency. By automating the repetitive and difficult work of cold calling, the agency drastically lowered its cost per acquisition (just ~$4 per lead, vs tens of dollars normally) and saved significant time for their human team. The sales staff could reallocate their effort from endless dialing to engaging warm leads that were ready to talk, which is a far better use of their skills.

In summary, the Awaz.ai case study demonstrates a real success story: a small U.S. advertising agency punched above its weight by leveraging an AI voice agent. They achieved higher cold-call conversion rates than ever before, at a fraction of the cost, all while providing a seamless experience to prospects (many of whom likely never realized the initial call was with an AI). As AI voice technology continues to advance, tools like Awaz.ai are enabling businesses to scale outreach and customer contact in a way that’s fast, affordable, and remarkably human-like. This agency’s results show that even in the tough game of cold calling, an AI agent can be a game-changer, delivering tangible business value and growth.