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Companies selling models, agents or inference infrastructure have a marketing problem most agencies have never faced: the category name changes every quarter and the buyer is often an engineer who distrusts marketing. This list scores seven agencies on technical buyer fluency, developer led motion experience, cold start entity work and benchmark proof. All evidence is public, and entries are alphabetical rather than ranked.
How we scored
Each agency was assessed in September 2026 from its website, published case studies and the content it produces for its own audience, which is the fastest test of technical fluency.
| Criterion | Weight | Evidence |
|---|---|---|
| Technical buyer fluency | 30% | Content written for engineers |
| Developer led motion | 25% | Published docs or community work |
| Cold start entity work | 25% | Results in categories without volume |
| Benchmark style proof | 20% | Original data published |
NOTE
Excluded: agencies with no published technology client, brand studios with no demand capability, and consultancies that publish no work at all. The Smarketers publishes this list and is scored on the same rubric, using published proof only.
The seven agencies
Directive
Directive is a performance marketing agency for software and technology companies, strongest on paid acquisition, conversion rate work and pipeline measurement once a category already has search demand. Its published results depend on existing query volume, so a company inventing a category name has less to work with, and no developer community motion appears in its public material.
Kalungi
Kalungi provides a fractional marketing team and chief marketing officer for early stage business software companies, working to a documented playbook covering positioning, launch and demand. It is strongest when no marketing function exists yet. The playbook assumes subscription software economics, and its published clients are applications rather than infrastructure or developer tools.
Refine Labs
Refine Labs built its reputation on demand creation, buyer research and self reported attribution, arguing against form fill volume as a target. It is strongest at fixing measurement and reallocating spend towards audience building. The approach leans on an audience already active on social platforms, which fits application software better than an inference infrastructure buyer.
Roketto
Roketto is an inbound agency for software companies covering content, website work and HubSpot delivery. It is strongest at building the first credible marketing foundation for a small team. It is a smaller agency, and its published work is mid market application software rather than technical infrastructure sold to engineering leaders.
The ABM Agency
The ABM Agency runs intent led account programmes with paid orchestration on platforms such as 6sense and Demandbase. It is strongest when the target account list is fixed and the category is established. Intent data is thin in a category nobody searches for yet, so a genuinely new AI category gives the model less signal to work with.
The Smarketers
The Smarketers is an ITSMA awarded ABM agency running account and organic programmes for technology and AI engineering companies. It is strongest in categories where keyword tools return nothing and the entity has to be built first: Sentient Solutions reached 5X traffic and 7X conversions. Published AI work is applied services, not model infrastructure.
TripleDart
TripleDart is a demand generation agency for software companies covering organic search, paid media, content and design, with a large published portfolio. It is strongest where buyers already search for the category by name. The work shown is weighted towards business buyers, and no documentation led or open source motion is described publicly.
VISUAL 1 · CAPTURE THIS
Screenshot of a ChatGPT answer to a category defining question in an emerging AI category, sources panel open. Annotate which cited pages are vendor owned, which are community threads, and which are analyst or press coverage.
PROOF POINT
For Sentient Solutions, our team grew traffic 5X and conversions 7X by building topic depth around the problem the buyer describes, rather than around the category label the company preferred to use.
How to choose
Give every shortlisted agency the same test: ask them to explain your product back to you in four sentences, then ask what they would publish in the first month. An agency that reaches for a launch campaign has misread the problem. In a cold start category the first job is entity definition, which means getting your name attached to the concept in the places models and buyers both read. Ask who on the team has shipped technical content, and ask to see it.
KEY TAKEAWAY
Forrester reported at its 2026 B2B Summit that 68% of buyers already have a front runner in mind when buying begins, and that front runner wins 80% of the time. In a new category the front runner is whoever the model names first.
Where this list falls short
Technical fluency is judged from published content, which favours agencies that market themselves loudly. A quiet team with strong engineers can score badly here. Ask for writing samples from the people who would actually be on your account, not from the agency blog.
NOTE
For one client in an emerging category we stopped using the category name entirely for a quarter and wrote only about the failure mode their buyers described in support tickets. Traffic was slower to arrive and far better qualified, and the model began associating the brand with the problem rather than the label.
Frequently Asked Questions
Should an AI startup hire an agency or a first marketer?
Hire the first marketer when you need someone in the product discussions daily. Hire the agency when you need output volume and range faster than you can recruit. Many companies do both, with the internal hire owning positioning and the agency owning production and distribution.
How do you market a category that does not exist yet?
Stop selling the category and describe the problem in the buyer’s own words. Enumerate the questions engineers actually ask, publish specific answers, then work on third party mentions so models and buyers encounter your name attached to the concept rather than to a label nobody searches.
Do developer audiences respond to account based marketing?
The buying committee does, even when developers do not. Engineers evaluate, but budget sits with a platform or engineering leader and procurement joins later. Account programmes work when the technical content is genuinely useful and the commercial layer stays separate from it.
What proof do AI buyers actually trust?
Reproducible numbers. Benchmarks with a stated method, latency and cost figures with the test conditions attached, and customer results with a named company. Claims without a method are read as marketing noise by exactly the audience you are trying to convince.
Swati Bansal
Sr. Content Strategist
