In marketing, growth isn’t just about getting bigger—it’s about getting smarter.
Think of it like rowing a boat. When all the rowers are in sync, it propels the boat forward more effectively than if everyone just rowed harder but at different rates. By the same token, growth marketing aims to drive efficient revenue by minimizing wasted efforts.
Just like rowing teams track stroke rates and distance covered, adjusting their technique to gain a little more momentum, growth marketing teams use data to fine-tune strategies, ensuring no time or money is lost in the process.
What is growth marketing?
Growth marketing is the practice of generating the most revenue at the lowest possible cost, using trackable, digital marketing levers—like search engine optimization (SEO), paid social ads, email marketing, and others. When done well, growth marketing tactics help you efficiently acquire new customers and support sustainable business growth. At larger companies, a dedicated growth marketing manager typically oversees this process, but entrepreneurs can also implement growth strategies to increase revenue.
Growth marketing vs. traditional marketing
Growth marketing and traditional marketing both aim to grow a business, but there are a few key distinctions in terms of priorities:
- Growth marketing. Growth marketing is a data-driven approach that prioritizes rapid, measurable growth. By leveraging analytics and experimentation, growth marketers can quickly identify and optimize strategies to drive conversions and revenue. While this approach can yield impressive short-term results, it may not always be effective in building long-term brand loyalty.
- Traditional marketing. Traditional marketing takes a more holistic view, employing a range of tactics, such as advertising, public relations, and content marketing to build brand awareness and affinity. While traditional marketing can be more challenging to measure directly, it can cultivate strong emotional connections with customers, leading to increased brand loyalty and customer advocacy over time.
For example, suppose a company launches a brand awareness campaign with a TV ad that tells the company story. That’s a classic example of traditional marketing. The ad generates buzz and earned media that resonates with people, but it’s difficult to measure how it directly impacts revenue. The same company also launches a digital ad campaign advertising its holiday sale and then analyzes the cost per acquisition (CAC) for each one. This is a classic example of growth marketing; the transactional messaging may not build emotional appeal, but the digital ads result in a directly attributable boost in revenue.
How to build a growth marketing funnel
One popular growth marketing framework is AAARRR, also known as the Pirate Funnel—a fitting name for an acronym that sounds like a peg-legged swashbuckler. Each stage has its own set of metrics to measure success; however, the ultimate goal of growth hacking is to reduce customer acquisition costs. Here’s what the acronym stands for:
- Awareness. Where did your audience first discover your brand?
- Acquisition. Where are your customers coming from?
- Activation. Where are people finding value in your brand?
- Revenue. Where do prospects become customers?
- Retention. How long do your customers stick around?
- Referral. How often do customers send new business your way?
To build a growth marketing strategy around this funnel, create tactics targeting each stage of customer engagement. The goal is to optimize the customer journey by capitalizing on opportunities to eliminate friction points.
Here’s a growth marketing campaign that uses the AAARRR funnel:
| Stage | Tactic | How to measure it |
| Awareness | Publish authoritative articles on your website, optimize for search engines (using on-page SEO), and share on social media. | Organic traffic, branded search volume, article shares, social media engagement |
| Acquisition | Create a lead magnet incentivizing users to sign up for your email list. | New email subscribers, cost per lead (CPL) |
| Activation | Offer a discount code to new customers. | Discount code redemption rate, conversion rate (CVR) |
| Revenue | Create a frictionless checkout experience and offer upsells at checkout. | Abandoned cart rate, average order value (AOV) |
| Retention | Create a loyalty program offering rewards to returning customers, like a loyalty points system or a members-only community. | Retention rate, churn rate, CLV |
| Referral | Create a referral program giving perks to customers who refer someone to your business. | Total referrals, referrals per person, referral customer value |
Useful growth marketing techniques
A growth strategy is made up of many techniques that span the full funnel. Here are four of the most common:
A/B testing
Also called split testing, A/B testing compares two variables to see which performs best. For example, a cart abandonment email with two different subject lines can determine which one results in a higher open rate. So, 50% of users would see a default subject line (version A), and the remaining 50% would see an alternate subject line (version B).
Testing details like email subject lines, calls to action (CTAs), ad variants, or even the color of a button can produce surprising results. Take a phone case company, for example:
Subject line A: Only 24 hours left to save 40%
Subject line B: Don’t miss our 40%-off sale!
The two emails will be identical, but one subject line may outperform the other, giving growth marketing managers insights to help them optimize future marketing campaigns.
Cross-channel marketing
Successful growth marketers share consistent messaging across social media, SEO, email marketing, content marketing, push notifications, and ads to cover the full customer journey. Cross-channel content marketing isn’t just about engaging on multiple platforms, it’s also about analyzing how they work together holistically.
For example, imagine an ad for a hat with a built-in heating pad. A user sees the ad on Google and social media, then clicks on the advertiser’s handle to find videos of happy customers demonstrating how the hat keeps them warm in the winter. The user visits the website and sees they can save 15% on the hat if they sign up for the mailing list. The user signs up, purchases a hat with their discount, and can now be remarketed through email.
How do you know if your cross-channel marketing is working? Building attribution models helps to identify where conversions happen and which touchpoints are the most valuable. These models help track the customer journey and assign credit to various touchpoints that contribute to a conversion. By understanding which channels and tactics drive the most valuable interactions, marketers can optimize their efforts and maximize their return on investment. For instance, a multi-touch attribution model can distribute credit across multiple touchpoints, such as a social media ad, an email campaign, and a website visit, to determine the overall impact of each channel.
Customer data analysis
Growth marketing relies on data-driven decisions. It includes listening and responding to customer feedback. The more a brand understands its customers, the more equipped it will be to meet their needs. Define key performance indicators (KPIs) and use tools like Search Console to see ranking and traffic metrics, or Shopify Analytics to explore user and conversion metrics.
Katherine Oyer uses customer data to guide the future of her baby clothes brand, Francis Henri. “I am constantly in the numbers. I am always pulling reports in Shopify. I love to see where we’ve been, where we’re going,” she says in an episode of the Shopify Masters podcast. Some metrics Oyer measures include repeat customers, what they’re buying, and how often they return. Increasing your customer base and retention by just 5% can increase profit by over 25%, as repeat customers tend to spend more and send new business your way.
As another example, Blume, a beverage company specializing in probiotic and superfood drinks, used insights from a customer survey to create one of its most successful products: the SuperBelly collection. Eighty percent of survey respondents said they had gut issues, so Blume launched a line of probiotic water elixirs. After the company took time to listen to customers, it sold three months’ worth of products in two weeks.
Growth marketing FAQ
What are the core components of growth marketing?
Core components of growth marketing strategies include:
- Cross-channel marketing
- A/B testing
- Data measurement
- Customer retention tactics
Growth marketers test and optimize performance marketing, at all stages of the customer journey to increase revenue in the most cost-effective way possible.
What is growth marketing vs. brand marketing?
Growth marketing uses data-driven online tactics like SEO, paid ads, and conversion rate optimization (CRO) to efficiently increase revenue. Brand marketing focuses on customer lifetime value by building awareness and recall without prioritizing short-term gains in revenue.
What is an example of a growth marketing strategy?
Sephora’s Beauty Insider program is a multi-tiered loyalty program, rewarding customers with points for every dollar spent. Each tier unlocks better perks, like free shipping, exclusive discounts, and free gifts. Customers can earn points by engaging with the brand through writing reviews and attending events. Sephora collects data on its customers and uses it to recommend relevant products, offer personalized discounts, and send reward expiration reminders.
