Are you ready to reach holiday shoppers on CTV? For many streamers, the season is already underway.

Last year, according to Roku internal data, holiday content searches on Roku saw an 86% increase during October. And in November, those searches rise an average of 39% weekly. This surging holiday spirit is mirrored by consumer activity, as about half of Roku streamers shopped Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals in 2025.

Meeting those shoppers is easier than you might think. Begin with the seasonal outcome you hope to drive: awareness, online sales, leads, store visits, or another measurable goal. From there, define your audience, upload your creative, set the budget and campaign dates, and establish measurement before launching. You can even create a shoppable ad unit that lets streamers buy with a click of their remote.

Our holiday playbook offers a month-by-month guide to reaching shoppers during this all-important time of year.

First-time spenders get a $5,000 match on the first $5,000 spent with code BEEHIIV5K. Terms apply.

Launch your campaign today.

Read time: 3 minutes.

Welcome to the 279th edition of The Growth Elements Newsletter. Every Monday and sometimes on Thursday, I write an essay on growth metrics & experiments and business case studies.

Today’s piece is for 9,000+ founders, operators, and leaders from businesses such as Shopify, Hubspot, Zoho, Freshworks, Chargebee, Servcorp, Zomato, Postman, and Razorpay.

Today’s The Growth Elements (TGE) is brought to you by:

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The sales engagement platform category consolidated and matured in 2026. Outreach and Salesloft remain the enterprise defaults, Apollo scaled into the all-in-one disruptor, and specialist tools filled the mid-market and SMB gaps.

The platform decides how cleanly multi-channel sequences (email + phone + LinkedIn) execute, how well Artificial Intelligence (AI) agents augment rep output, and how much of the Sales Development Representative (SDR) ramp happens inside the platform versus in Google Docs.

Here are the top 5 outbound workflow and sales engagement platforms running real B2B pipeline in 2026.

An outbound workflow platform in 2026 should solve five things:

Selection criteria to apply:

Best enterprise sales engagement platform.

Outreach is the enterprise sales engagement platform of record. Deep sequence builder, Kaia AI for call intelligence, deal insights, forecasting, and native integration with Salesforce. The default pick for enterprise B2B SaaS running structured outbound at scale.

My take: Outreach is the enterprise default. Right when the sales organization has 50+ reps and the Sales Operations function needs deep workflow configuration, sequence governance, and forecasting on one platform. Trade-off is enterprise pricing and 60 to 90 day implementation. Most teams under $30M ARR find Apollo or Salesloft lighter and faster to roll out.

Best enterprise sales engagement alternative with Rhythm.

Salesloft is the enterprise sales engagement platform competing head-to-head with Outreach. Deep sequence builder, Rhythm AI for prioritizing rep daily actions, Conversations for call intelligence, and Deals for forecasting. Preferred by teams that find Outreach’s user experience heavier than needed.

My take: Salesloft is the enterprise alternative. Right when the team’s technology comparison between Outreach and Salesloft comes down to user experience and the Rhythm AI prioritization layer. Trade-off is identical pricing tier to Outreach, so the decision is user experience and feature parity, not economics.

Best all-in-one sales engagement platform with built-in data.

Apollo is the all-in-one sales engagement platform combining 275M+ contact database, sequencing, dialer, email, and AI SDR capabilities. The disruptor pick for mid-market B2B SaaS wanting data plus engagement on one platform rather than stacking ZoomInfo plus Outreach plus a separate dialer.

My take: Apollo is the mid-market disruptor pick in 2026. Right when the team wants to stop paying for three separate tools (data provider plus engagement plus dialer) and consolidate on one. Trade-off is enterprise Sales Operations depth is weaker than Outreach or Salesloft, so teams typically migrate off Apollo past $50M ARR when workflow governance becomes the primary driver.

[4] Groove by Clari

Best enterprise sales engagement platform for Salesforce-native teams.

Groove by Clari is the enterprise sales engagement platform acquired by Clari in 2022, deeply embedded in Salesforce. Workflow runs inside Salesforce rather than a separate interface, which Sales Operations teams prefer for Salesforce-first organizations. Clari integration ties engagement data directly to Clari forecasting and revenue intelligence.

My take: Groove is the Salesforce-native pick. Right when the Sales Operations team has decided every sales workflow lives in Salesforce and does not want reps context-switching to a separate engagement tool. Clari integration specifically pays off for revenue teams running Clari for forecasting. Trade-off is non-Salesforce teams have no reason to pick Groove.

Best mid-market multi-channel engagement platform at value pricing.

Reply.io is the mid-market multi-channel engagement platform combining email, LinkedIn automation, calls, and AI sales assistant Jason. Preferred by growing B2B SaaS teams wanting multi-channel depth at pricing more accessible than Outreach or Salesloft.

My take: Reply.io is the mid-market value pick. Right when the team wants multi-channel sequencing beyond pure email (LinkedIn, calls, WhatsApp) at pricing below enterprise tiers. AI SDR agent Jason is a reasonable alternative to 11x for teams that want AI SDR capability inside their existing engagement platform. Trade-off is enterprise Sales Operations depth is lighter than Outreach, Salesloft, or Groove.

Match the tool to team size, CRM, and workflow complexity.

Decision framework:

Outbound workflow pairs with cold calling from the top 5 cold calling and sales dialer tools for 2026, cold email from the top 5 cold email outreach tools for 2026, CRM from the top 5 CRM tools for B2B SaaS in 2026, AI marketing agents from the top 5 AI marketing agents for 2026, and sales intelligence from the top 5 sales intelligence and data tools for 2026.

[1] Standardize sequences before customizing per rep. Reps who build their own sequences from scratch produce 60 to 80% variance in reply rates. Shared playbook sequences compound.

[2] Measure meeting booked rate, not just reply rate. A 15% reply rate with 2% meetings is worse than a 5% reply rate with 2.5% meetings. Reply rate is a vanity metric. Meetings booked is the one that matters.

[3] Rotate email domains and warm them up. Email deliverability tanks faster in 2026 than ever before. Rotate 2 to 3 sending domains per team and keep warm-up tools running continuously.

That’s it for today’s article! I hope you found this essay insightful.

Wishing you a productive week ahead!

I always appreciate you reading.

Thanks,
Chintankumar Maisuria