Olga Denisova presented 10 marketing lessons from hyper-growth companies. The lessons include: measuring marketing KPIs with business metrics to define growth; establishing a culture of experimentation with regular testing; building an ROI-driven budget model with separate budgets for lead generation, retention, and tests; aligning marketing priorities across departments; staying aware of industry trends; focusing on the customer journey from demand generation to capturing demand; prioritizing top-performing channels and content; using creative content to stand out; emphasizing social selling and communities; and maintaining a growth mindset.

1. KEYNOTE
Olga Denisova
MARKETING ADVISOR
SEMRUSH
Growing beyond
expectations: 10 marketing lessons
from hyper-growth companies.
AMSTERDAM, NETHERLANDS ~ SEPTEMBER 14 - 15, 2023
DIGIMARCONEUROPE.COM | #DigiMarConEurope
DIGIMARCONNETHERLANDS.NL | #DigiMarConNetherlands

2. marketing lessons from
hyper-growth companies
10
Growing beyond expectations

3. From $125mln to planned $309 mln
From 5k to 500k customers
From $500mln to $1 billion
“I have done B2B marketing for 15 years.
10 years in hyper-growth companies.
Growing 2x, 3x, 10x YoY..
I learnt a lot.
Most importantly, what is common
for hyper-growth businesses.

4. Ichecked my experience with other industry
leaders like:
And found 10 common fundamental lessons

5. How to grow beyond expectations?
These 10 lessons will show you
What enables the steady continuous growth?
How to find new growth engines?
What to try and what to ditch?
1
2
3

6. Lesson 1
How you measure it
= how you see it

7. Your growth is defined by your tracking
and attribution. Advance both
Connect marketing KPIs with business metrics: revenue
1
CAC is useless if you don’t analyze it together
with the number of sales and LTV
2
Any campaign should be assessed
in 3 dimensions: content, channel, geo
3
Build (finally!) multi-channel attribution. Assign higher
weight to the first touchpoints and closer to purchase
4
Assess branded search campaigns
separately - they will blur the picture
5

8. Lesson 2
Culture
of experimentation

9. Testing is not a one-time activity
but a constant 365 mode
Create a testing calendar for the whole year.
Aim for 100+ test per year
1
Make tests a part of MBOs for teams
2
Establish a dedicated role and function
3
Any innovation should be tested before roll out
4
Do NOT expect all tests to be a success.
You should have at least 50% failure
5

10. “At Netflix, we do not view tests
that do not produce winning
experience as “failures.
Because Netflix tests all
ideas, and because most ideas
are not winners, our culture
of experimentation
democratizes ideation.

11. In short, the motto is

12. PXL prioritization framework by CXL
Test
hypothesis:
Above the
fold?
Noticeable
within 5 sec?
(2 or 0)
Adding or
removing an
element?
(2 or 0)
Designed to
increase user
motivation?
Running on
high traffic
page(s)?
Addressing an
issue
discovered via
user testing?
Addressing an
issue
discovered via
qualitative
feedback
(surveys, polls,
interviews)?
Addressing
insights found
via digital
analytics?
Supported by
mouse
tracking heat
maps or eye
tracking?
Ease of
implementation
(less than 4 hrs
= 3, up to 8 hrs =
2, under 2 days
= 1, more = 0)
RESULT
Re-structure
and re-write
the copy on
the Tour page
1 2 2 1 1 1 1 1 0 2 12
Reverse the
order of the
home page
content blocks
1 2 0 0 1 0 0 1 0 3 8
Increase body
copy font size
for mobile
0 2 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 2 5
The tools that help do better tests
Prioritization
template
A/B Test Significance
Calculator
Calculators
Sample Size Calculator
Duration and Sample
Size Calculator
Tools
Trebuchet
HotJar
Inspectlet
Tests ideas and
best practices
tactics.convertize
goodui.org

13. Lesson 3
It’s all about
budget

14. The way you build the
budget defines your growth
Build ROI-driven budget model. Use the ratio between
revenue and spend. Aim for 1:1. Other models: LTV:CAC ratio
1
Lock a separate budget for tests that
is not connected to revenue and ROI
2
Keep a separate budget line for best-performers to quickly
allocate more to performing channels, geos and formats
3
Assign budget to retention. 5% to 10%.
4
Separate budgets for lead generation and brand.
Brand is important more than ever
5

15. 2023 has not been
easy, I know

16. Unpopular opinion
budget cuts can be a great thing
Become laser-focused on your priorities
1
Do the audit you postponed
2
Make ROI & spend efficiency a regular metric
3
Stop doing anything for the sake of doing
4
Finally, see the true value of your efforts,
not blurred by a big spend
5

17. A few budget optimization
ideas that always work
Cut low-performing geos. Analyze it by conversion rates,
current ROI and - ideally - predicted LTV
Perform a thorough content audit. Check all LPs,
videos, banners against CR benchmarks
Limit frequency caps. What if you show
your ads 2 or 3 times less?
Turn off low-quality placements. Use Whitebullet to filter
out questionable sources, use the placements cleaner script
Check the cookie overlap between your
placements. Turn off overlaps

18. Lesson 4
Marketing
is a team sport

19. The fact is...
marketing goes beyond
marketing organization

20. Build the wider team.. Set the clear
rules — and roles
Align on definitions. What you consider
a success should be the same for everyone
1
Have shared targets: results-focused and process-focused.
Example: shared revenue, higher time to market
2
Make marketing priorities company-wide
3
Find marketing ambassadors in company leadership and
across the board
4
Communicate priorities multiple —
MULTIPLE - times.
5

21. Lesson 5
Always be
on the lookout

22. Check what’s trending
and use it to your best
Watch the market trends.
Follow LinkedIn gurus (Ask me for the list)
1
Not all industry trends will work for you.
Invent your own best practices
2
Common practice may be not so common. For example, YouTube
is still under-estimated and #5 is adoption among ad platforms
3

23. Content trends
to keep in mind in 2024
Video is king. No even close
competitor in performance
Short-form is taking over.
Hello, short attention span
But long-form blog posts perform
too: must be the SEO-play.
People want to read about people. Show
me your success story and case study!
Once popular, infographics and gated
content are losing it.

24. Track your competition
Latest 2023 State of PPC report said: “39%
of respondents don't use any competitive research
tools”
Don’t be like them
Follow your competitors social media and leaders
1
Do bi-annual research by channel
2
Go from strategic to tactical levels:
3
what’s their messaging
who they target
what channels they use
what keywords and formats they use
what is the most shared content
what topics they are mostly quoted and linked back

25. To analyze competitor's marketing mix, and their full
marketing strategy across channels and geo-locations
1 Semrush. Trends
To assess competitor's ads and understand
their content strategy
2 Ad Clarity
To check competitor’s tactics on YouTube,
Instagram, Twitch, and TikTok
3 BuzzGuru
Tools to use for market research

26. Lesson 6
Success is a journey.
A customer journey.

27. Niche players focus on already existing demand.
To be a leader, you need to grow further.
Captivate users before they are ready to buy
Create a full customer journey including 2 parts
1 Create demand with a value
proposition. Connect emotionally 2 Capture demand with solution
benefits. Justify rationally
This is where they make a decision. This is where they find reasons
to realize the decision.

28. Show, don’t tell
Perfect value proposition =
Clear + Easy to understand +
Unique

29. When selling down the funnel — Be specific
vs

30. Lesson 7
Better cringe
than boring

31. Be anything but boring. There is only one
way to fight short attention span —
be creative with your creative
Raise taboo topics, say you’re gonna kill Google. I tried it —
getting more than 10+ free media covers.
1
Find what you are best at in your industry. And claim it
2
Listen closely to your community and see what’s resonating
3
Inject humor in your messaging. Formal communications are over!
4
Don’t be afraid to take risks. But be ready with a plan b fo a failure
5

32. Ryanair copywriting is savage

33. Lesson 8
Choose
your wins

34. Do the audit of your channels and content every quarter.
1
Cut 80% of low/mid-performers
2
Keep and focus on 20% of top-performers
3
You don’t need all channels and
all content to win. Only a few key ones
Pareto principle works in real life.

35. How to become
the dominant power
Hyper-personalize with dynamic content
a
Visualize as much as you can
b
Be consistent with your brand
c
Do a concentrated massive launch
d
Test, test, test
e

36. Focused efforts
pay off
Semrush grew 33% YoY in
revenue from email as we put
our efforts to become the best
industry NL. And we became
one, btw

37. Instead of doing yet another launch,
focus on your personalization
Amazon’s recommendations cause more than a
third of its product sales. 29% revenue increase
In-product
communications
Personalize
Ads
Emails
Sign-up flows

38. Lesson 9
People buy
from people

39. Social selling grows more than ever
27% of internet users use social
media platforms to find inspiration
for things to do and buy, while 26.2%
are seeking products to purchase
49.2% of social media users
worldwide log on to learn about
brands and see their content

40. Double down on social.
Build community around your brand.
Choose your key presence platform and engage in discussion there
Answer to every single mention, both positive and negative ones
Connect with micro influencers and grow together
Q&A is a great way to build engagement and brand
reputation. Help all those asking
In 2023 personal brands are important. Start social media advocacy
Insta for consumer
LinkedIn for business Stack overflow for tech

41. Lesson 10
It all starts with
your mindset

42. Growth starts in your head
Rethink the past
Challenge the present
Conquer the future
Create your own recipe for hyper-growth!

43. Thank you
and good luck!
Reach out to discuss
https://www.linkedin.com/in/olgamarketingpro/