Growth Marketer vs Performance Marketer
What is the difference?
Hi there,
A client recently asked me this:
‘Should I hire a growth marketer or a performance marketer?’
They might sound similar, but they’re completely different roles, and hiring the right person is essential to the role’s success.
It feels like everyone wants to hire a growth marketer when that might not be what the company actually needs
How do the two differ?
I break it down as following:
You’ll see there definitely is some overlap, mainly in terms of:
Data-driven. Both are usually analytical, using data and insights to understand what is and isn’t working.
Test first approach. A love of experimentation and trying new things.
Leverage digital marketing channels. Experience in using growth marketing channels to drive growth (though this knowledge will be deeper for a performance marketer.
Customer-centric approach. A focus on the end customer and understanding what will resonate with them.
But their knowledge will also differ…
Knowledge of a growth marketer
A growth marketer will have, in general, a more holistic approach to growth; this means they work together with the product directly to drive growth. Whilst both are focused on acquisition techniques, a growth marketer will tend to have broader channel knowledge than a performance marketer, e.g., experience with referral, email, or maybe SEO.
It’s unlikely they know all the channels, I once counted ten different channels in a job vacancy. Please don’t do that. Rather they will know a few different channels, e.g. as a Head of Growth I know how to run Meta and Google ads as well as E-mail and Referral. I have a basic understanding of affiliate marketing, SEO / content marketing, SMS and loyalty schemes, but I’m not an expert in them by any means.
Often you are hiring a growth marketer early on which is why this broader knowledge can be very attractive. Just don’t expect them to know brand channels too such as social media, PR and television. Neither role is usually specialised in brand marketing because it requires a very different skillset (more creative).
Finally, they’ll often look broader at metrics such as Customer Lifetime Value and retention rates to ensure acquisition is sustainable.
Now this is by no means a generalisation of all performance marketers, but many that I have worked with focus more on the ad side of things. Meaning, growth marketers work with a fixed cost of acquisition or Return on Ad Spend, but spend little to no time on:
How do we optimise the landing page to drive more conversions?
If we look at the product costs and the repeat purchase rate what is the payback period of a new customer?
Are customers from different channels retaining at different rates? Why?
Which product / offering makes the most sense for the first purchase?
These are key questions to be asking to scale up channels.
Knowledge of a performance marketer
Now before you think I’m completely hating on performance marketers, I’m really not. I think they are brilliant.
Whenever a brand comes to me with a great product and website and wants to scale up a specific ad channel I say immediately:
“Hire a performance marketer.”
There is no point going broader if you know the specific skills you need. I may be able to set up and run an ad account, get it to the point needed to scale further but if you are investing 10,000s in a channel you want an expert running it.
A performance marketer is someone who knows the most recent update of those channels, understands them inside and out, and can work with brand to ensure (depending on the channel) a constant stream of new creatives.
They are often slightly more creative than a growth marketer and might have experience in more niche, but key areas for driving ad performance, e.g. influencer briefings, sourcing creatives, etc.
They’ll be great at helping drive short-term growth and working with your team to scale up customer acquisition.
Who should you hire
In the client’s case I mentioned at the beginning, I knew that with their current conversion rate and activation channels, they needed someone with an all-rounded approach to grow their overall subscriber base sustainably and ensure that email performs effectively, too, as nobody on the current team has experience there.
So, a growth marketer fits the description — someone who focuses on scalable, long-term growth and works more holistically across different channels and techniques.
But if your main bottleneck is the performance of your paid ads, I repeat, go for a performance marketer.
Get someone in who is a specialist there and knows the ad platforms inside and out.
Can a performance marketer become a growth marketer?
Most definitely, just because the person is now in a performance marketer role, it doesn’t mean they can’t grow into a growth marketing role.
Within the company
If it is about growing within the same company, it’s key that they understand the broader growth strategy and see which skills are missing that they are keen to learn, e.g., improving the activation of new customers.
Always remember they probably know more than they realise: a lot of what is helping activate customers is impacted by the ads they are running. Reassuring them of this will help them take that step up.
They can apply the same approaches they use for performance: analyse, understand, ideate, experiment and repeat.
It’s key they get internal buy-in to support that area and invest time expanding their skillset to help in that area.
Different company
If the applicant previously has only had performance marketing roles, focus on learning about their broader T Shape: what other relevant skills do you already have?
I’d encourage them, if they haven’t already, to follow relevant courses, e.g. a broader growth course as well as sharpening their skills in other channels as well (e.g. referral strategy), website optimisation and building up customer lifetime value.
Again it’s key to focus on leveraging what they do know and their base skills that make them suitable for a growth role: very analytic, strategic and also a bit creative.
Recommendation
For today’s newsletter, I want to recommend a podcast by a friend of mine and D2C Growth Marketing Consultant, Aazar Ali Shad.
He chats with top leaders in growth, from growth marketers, to performance marketers, to product-led growth experts about their key mistakes, learnings and tips in growing their businesses.
Check it out here.
Don’t confuse the two
I am the last to say the two roles don’t overlap, they definitely do. But equating the two is pure wrong and puts your own growth at risk.
You need the right person for the job so think carefully what you call the role and what are the key strengths you need from that person.
There is no copy and paste job vacancy for it, but if I can give you one tip: asking for less is definitely more.
Chat soon,
Daphne