Why AI Infrastructure Buyers Are Hard to Reach
Heads of AI infrastructure, ML engineering leads, and AI platform architects sit at one of the most-solicited intersections in B2B: they control GPU procurement, model deployment decisions, and the tooling stack that every AI vendor wants access to. Their inboxes are saturated.
The cold email open rate for this persona has tracked near zero in 2026. The outreach that gets responses is anchored to a specific topic they are actively wrestling with — and delivered as an invitation to a live conversation with peers, not a product pitch.
Apollo gives you everything you need to build that list and send those invites at scale.
Step 1: Build Your AI Infrastructure Target List in Apollo
Navigate to Apollo's People Search and apply these filters:
- Job title: includes "Head of AI Infrastructure," "ML Platform," "AI Platform Engineer," "ML Engineering Lead," "Director of ML Engineering," "VP of AI"
- Company size: 100 to 5,000 employees (adjust based on your ICP)
- Industry: Computer Software, Internet, Information Technology, Artificial Intelligence
- Technology: filter by cloud providers (AWS, GCP, Azure) or ML frameworks (PyTorch, TensorFlow, Kubernetes) your product integrates with
- Geography: United States (or refine by metro if running in-person events)
Export a list of 300 to 500 contacts. This is your raw universe.
Step 2: Enrich With Clay Before Sending
Before running any outreach in Apollo, push the list to Clay for enrichment. In Clay, run the following:
- LinkedIn activity pull: flag contacts who have posted or engaged with AI infrastructure, GPU scaling, or model deployment content in the last 90 days
- Job posting signals: flag companies with open Head of AI Platform or MLOps Engineer roles — these accounts are actively building and therefore actively evaluating tooling
- News mention pull: flag accounts that have appeared in press about AI infrastructure investment in the last 6 months
After enrichment, rank your list. Contacts who hit at least 2 of the 3 signals go into your "hot" segment for direct event invite outreach. The rest go into a slower nurture or save for a later event.
Step 3: Set Up the Event Invite Sequence in Apollo
Create a new Sequence in Apollo with the following structure:
Email 1 — Day 1 — The invite: Subject line: "[Their company name] + [1-2 peer companies] — AI infrastructure roundtable, [date]" Opening line: personalization token pulling a specific detail from their LinkedIn or company news (from Clay enrichment). Body: one sentence on the event topic, one sentence on who else is attending (name 2-3 peers by company, not individual names), one-click RSVP link. No pitch. No product mention.
Email 2 — Day 4 — The social proof follow-up: One line noting that two spots filled since the first invite. Add one specific detail about the agenda or a peer attendee that makes the event more credible.
LinkedIn connection request — Day 6: Short note referencing the event invite. Do not resend the invite. Just extend the connection with a human note.
Email 3 — Day 10 — Last call: Two sentences. "Closing registrations for [event name] on [date]. One spot left if you want to join [peer company name] and [peer company name]."
Three-touch sequences consistently outperform longer sequences for this persona. Stop at three.
Step 4: Track, Hand Off, and Follow Up
After the event, export attendee data back into Apollo. Tag all attendees as "Event Attended — [Event Name]." Create a follow-up sequence triggered by the tag with a message that references something specific from the session.
LinkedOtter by Asaf Katz Advisory builds and runs this entire workflow — list building, Clay enrichment, Apollo sequencing, event design, and post-event follow-up — as a done-for-you program. Events start from $6,000.