Growth marketing for startups
The journey
What are the stages of startup growth?
The AARRR framework, put forward by Dave McClure, splits growth into five stages: acquisition, activation, retention, referral and revenue. Open a stage to see the questions to ask and the metrics to watch.
Acquisition
Where do the right people come from?
Ask yourself
- Which channels bring users who go on to activate, not just visits?
- What does an active user cost us, channel by channel?
- Do people searching for our problem land on the right page?
Metrics
- Qualified visits by channel
- Customer acquisition cost (CAC)
- Sign-up rate
Activation
Do they reach the first moment of value?
Ask yourself
- When does a user first get what the product is for?
- Where do people who sign up and never return drop off?
- How many steps stand between sign-up and that moment?
Metrics
- Activation rate
- Time to first value
- Onboarding completion
Retention
Do they come back?
Ask yourself
- Who returns after the first week, and what did they do differently?
- Which signals show up before someone churns?
- What do your longest-staying customers use most?
Metrics
- Cohort retention
- Churn rate
- Weekly or monthly active users
Referral
Do they tell others?
Ask yourself
- Do happy users have an easy way to invite someone?
- Is the product worth more when several people use it together?
- Where do the users nobody paid for come from?
Metrics
- Invites sent and accepted
- Share of new users from word of mouth
- Viral coefficient
Revenue
Do they pay, and enough?
Ask yourself
- At what point does it make sense to ask for payment?
- Does the price track the value the customer gets?
- Does a customer's value pay back what it cost to win them?
Metrics
- Monthly recurring revenue (MRR)
- Customer lifetime value (LTV)
- LTV to CAC ratio
Referral feeds back into acquisition: happy users bring in new ones.
Priorities
Which experiments should you run first?
Use an ICE score: rate each idea from 1 to 10 for impact, confidence and ease, and start with the highest average. Change the scores of the sample ideas below and the order updates itself.
| Idea | Stage | Impacthow far it would move the metric | Confidencehow sure you are it will work | Easehow simple it is to do | ICE |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Email to users who haven't opened the product in two weeks | Retention | 7.7 | |||
| Annual plan on the pricing page | Revenue | 7.0 | |||
| Comparison page against the most-searched alternative | Acquisition | 6.7 | |||
| Guided onboarding up to the first result | Activation | 6.3 | |||
| Invite a colleague and unlock a feature together | Referral | 5.7 |
It all happens in your browser: nothing is sent anywhere.
Top of the list: Email to users who haven't opened the product in two weeks
The rhythm
How does a weekly experiment cycle work?
Each week at least one experiment closes with a decision and a new one goes live. Experiments stay up until they have gathered enough data to be read.
Monday
Read
Read the results of the experiments that have run their course against the threshold you set beforehand, then decide: keep, repeat or drop. It all goes into the experiment log.
Tuesday
Choose
Update the ICE scores with what you've learnt and pick one or two new experiments, no more.
Wednesday
Hypothesis
Write the hypothesis in one sentence (if we do this, that metric moves, because…) and fix the success threshold before you see any data.
Thursday
Build
Make the smallest version that can give an answer: a page, an email, an onboarding step, a campaign.
Friday
Launch
Ship it with tracking checked and an end date. Until it's read, nobody tweaks the experiment.
Channels
Which channels work at each stage?
The right channel depends on the stage you're trying to move: SEO and ads bring people in, the product activates and keeps them. For acquisition we work with startup SEO and Google and Meta Ads.
| Channel | Stage | Works when | What to measure |
|---|---|---|---|
| SEO and contentStartup SEO | Acquisition | People already search for the problem you solve; results build over time and last. | Organic visits that sign up |
| Google AdsGoogle and Meta Ads | Acquisition | Demand is already expressed and you want to test messages and pricing quickly. | Cost per activated user, not per click |
| Meta Ads | Acquisition | The product makes sense from an image or a video, and the audience is easy to describe. | Cost per sign-up and cohort quality |
| In-product onboarding | Activation | Always: every new user goes through it. | Activation rate |
| Email and notifications | Retention | You have a real reason to bring the user back: a result, a useful reminder, something new. | Returns and unsubscribes |
| Referral programme | Referral | The product is worth more with more people on it, or users care about recommending it. | Accepted invites that activate |
| Pricing page and plans | Revenue | The value is already clear and you want to learn how much and how people pay. | Paid conversion, plans chosen |
Experience
What experience do we have with growth metrics?
The most direct kind: Athleex is our own SaaS for personal trainers and coaches, and we grow it ourselves. It has a business dashboard showing recurring revenue, churn and customer value, and a Churn Radar that flags athletes at risk of leaving before they go.
Those are the questions on this page, seen by people with a product to grow, which is why we design tracking alongside the product rather than after it. SEO, Google Ads campaigns and tracking are handled by My Web Lab, the group's web agency. After the first round, the work carries on at the seed and go-to-market stage.
Questions about growth marketing
What is growth marketing?
It's an approach to growth that covers the whole customer journey, not just acquisition: you form hypotheses, run measurable experiments and keep whatever moves a metric chosen in advance. It brings marketing, product and data analysis together.
What's the difference between growth marketing and growth hacking?
Growth hacking usually means quick, low-cost tactics to grow the user base. Growth marketing is the broader method that contains them, with continuous experiments across every stage, from the first visit to retention and revenue.
Growth marketing or performance marketing?
Performance marketing optimises paid campaigns for conversions; growth marketing also covers product, onboarding, retention and referral. A startup needs both, but without activation and retention your campaigns are filling a leaky bucket.
When should a startup start growth marketing?
Once you have a product some customers genuinely use and a metric that matters. Before that, the job is to validate the idea and the product; after it, experiments show which channels and changes drive growth.
How much budget does growth marketing need?
It depends on your stage, your channels and what it costs to win a customer in your market, so there's no single right figure. Start with small tests, measure the cost per activated user and move budget only to channels that bring customers who stay.
Further reading
Want to find where your growth stalls?
We reply within one business day.
Write to us