Fabrice Renucci

What’s Wrong with the CRO Taking Over GTM? 38% more CS teams now report to the CRO according to ChurnZero. There’s a prevailing trend of marketing becoming a sales support function under the CRO with no strategic influence. The issue? Many CROs lack experience leading CS or marketing, often resulting in CS becoming a sales extension and marketing being reduced to short-term lead generation. If your CRO does have cross-functional experience, great—consider renaming them Chief GTM Officers to better reflect their broader competence. But beware: It’s quite rare for one person to have a deep understanding of sales, marketing, and CS - without such competence centralizing GTM under a CRO is likely to backfire big time. To counter this shift CS and Marketing leaders need to re-establish their functions as strategically crucial for the company. In today’s environment, this requires focusing the function around metrics that matter- revenue impact (growth) and unit economics (efficiency). What’s your take on this shift?

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Attribution is a matter of opinion. And opinions, by definition, can never get 'more' factual. Don’t get me wrong. There are instances where attributed metrics like ROAS may coincide, directionally, with a company’s backend metrics like revenue or profitability. And this is more often the case for discovery-based channels (e.g. Facebook) than it is intent-based channels (e.g. Google Branded Search). But don’t let this fool you - it’s fundamentally impossible to assign one channel or campaign’s contribution to a brand’s backend revenue, real-time. But attribution attempts to do just that by applying differing sets of logic to whatever data is made available to the attribution provider itself (e.g. the conversions we track need to have happened within 7 days of the click for it to 'count'). Stated another way - thanks to Nick Boyce for summarizing it so perfectly - attribution is a matter of opinion. And businesses should never make financial decisions based on opinion. So.. where does that leave us? How can we understand if a channel is worth the investment if attribution is too opinionated to get any ‘better’ at delivering the the truth? Fortunately, there's an answer for earlier stage brands that's much simpler and much (much) cheaper than you’d expect: Huge shout to Charles Tichenor IV for dropping this gem in a DTC call last week (and permitting me to share it more broadly 🙏). When asked what metrics he uses to quantify performance of his FB campaigns, Charley replied with "None." (And *this* is where my ears perked up.) Instead, Charley uses Google Sheets of all things to compare daily media investment levels with daily backend revenue for his clients. To the extent that channel spend fluctuations align with his clients’ backend revenue fluctuations - Charley knows that channel is performing well. You can automate this further with Triple Whale - but *ignore* their 3P pixel and attribution, he cautions. Instead just use TW's overtime graph feature to overlay revenue curves with different channel-level spend curves to derive the same conclusions you would from his handy Google Sheets method. And that's it - that's the secret many are searching for when they're asking about 'better' attribution. Because the only way to make attribution more factual is to do away with it entirely. Instead, look at something (whether that be MMM, geo-lift testing or, yes, the Google Sheets method) that shows whether your efforts are *actually* advancing your goals, all opinions aside. If you agree or, better yet, disagree - let me know in the comments below!

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If you've been implementing CRO and are still struggling to see results, here's the REAL reason why. Spoiler: it’s not rocket science. Conversion Rate Optimization should increase sales and engagement. Bottom line. But many businesses invest heavily in CRO yet see little return. They follow all the best practices, but conversions remain stagnant. It can feel like banging your head against the wall… (we do not recommend doing this). If this sounds familiar, there’s likely one critical factor you’re overlooking. 🔑 Personalized User Experience - Most websites treat traffic the same. They optimize for generic users and buyer journeys. - But people have diverse needs, behaviors and problems, so a one-size fits all approach misses your ideal customer. - Personalization dynamically tailors experiences to each visitor - content, design and CTAs need to reflect those looking. 🔑 Gather Meaningful Data - There is no end to analytics in the modern world. You can easily get lost and overwhelmed in the volumes available. To personalize at scale you need deeper insights - Behavioral data - Survey responses - Heat maps - Session replays - This type of data creates opportunities and unlocks more conversion potential than generic optimizations. So prioritize gathering and making decisions based on this data. 🔑 Test, Test and Test - We can’t emphasize this enough! Test relentlessly, but strategically. That means don’t test everything under the sun. - But have a systematic plan focused on variations designed for your key segments: - Hypothesize - Prioritize - Test - Analyze - Iterate. - This unlocks rapid learning. Implement these 3 pillars and your conversion rates will skyrocket. Personalized, data-driven and strategic experimentation will identify the highest-impact optimizations. You see, it’s not that difficult. - PS - We've helped our clients unlock over $1 BILLION dollars from their websites with conversion rate optimization. No additional ad spent. If you want us to help boost your conversion rates by 25% in the next 3-6 months, click the link under my name or in my bio.

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How can Revenue leaders prepare for the CEO's job? As someone who transitioned from the CRO to CEO role not too long ago, my journey in the new seat has been replete with "before-after" perspectives. A lot of what seemed obvious as a CRO makes no practical sense as a CEO and vice versa. It's been a process of deep self-discovery, daily learnings, and adjustments. Here are some learnings that have felt profound: 1. You've got to develop an organizational thesis that goes beyond revenue growth - Going from $20M to $100M ARR in 5 years isn't an organizational thesis. That thesis needs to live at the intersection of product vision, customer base, culture, and growth/profit, and something everyone can relate to. 2. P&L-based decision making requires a different set of muscles from topline-focused decision-making. There will be situations where the topline isn't even a consideration. Master the science & art of P&L!     3. The boring stuff is really important - Compliance, legal, and back-office isn't something a Revenue leader would think a lot about outside customer contracts. As a CEO, if that isn't sorted, you'll have sleepless nights.   4. Surrounding yourself with people with complementary skills is key to job effectiveness - Product, Engineering & back-office are three obvious domains where you want experts informing your decisions, AND you still need to learn the "first principles" guiding each function. 5. Just because you've sold tech does not mean you understand how tech is built and run - acknowledging and bridging the gap is critical to managing the R&D function. 6. Not every department moves at the same pace, and that's by design - High velocity & intensity may create momentum in one department and may have the exact opposite effect in another. 7. You've got to communicate something 7 times for it to truly land with the entire company across all departments - Yes, that's the number!     8. A high-octane, high-energy talk may motivate the sales team but may shut down another team. Finding the right tone & language is key to team motivation. 9. Your team may have closed 3 high ACV deals in a day, and you may still be having a tough day in the office. Remember, Sales is just one of the 7-8 functions you are now responsible for.     10. Don't ignore your craft—keep polishing it. If you crushed it as a CRO, those skills may come in more handy than ever before, especially now with a more well-rounded organizational perspective.     11. You are responsible for people's livelihoods, and the weight of that responsibility is something you've likely not experienced before. Ultimately it's about the people! The key to navigating the transition is finding your trusted confidant—that could be your PE/VC partner, a Board member, or someone on your leadership team. Someone who gets the big picture and your role in it all. Someone who will help you identify and fix your blind spots (you'll have plenty!).

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I would be much more likely to join an in-person event if the best GTM operators were speaking about their expertise. Sadly, at many events, these are the main speakers: • Event sponsors • VCs • CMOs or CEOs    Don't get me wrong, some of these people are fantastic. But I think we're in an era where people want to listen to someone who is in their shoes, who has experienced the same issues recently, and who has insights on how to overcome them. 𝗜𝘀 𝗶𝘁 𝗷𝘂𝘀𝘁 𝗺𝗲 𝘀𝗲𝗲𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝘀? What events are doing it right? Metadata has its yearly online event, DEMAND, usually featuring great speakers who have actually done the job. If someone replicated what they do in-person, I think it would be incredibly successful.

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The #1 Mistake in CRO (and How to Fix It) 🚫 Most CRO experts focus on numbers and psychological best practices. But here’s the problem: They forget the most important thing - understanding the customer. Quantitative data tells you what’s happening. But it won’t tell you why. Is your product page confusing? Are people stuck trying to find their size? The solution isn’t more numbers. It’s talking to your customers. Surveys, user testing, and interviews uncover the real issues. They show you what your users want, need, and struggle with. But too many CRO agencies stick to “best practices.” They create one-size-fits-all strategies that miss the point entirely. If you want better results, do this: Understand your customers deeply. Solve their problems. Serve them better than anyone else. The secret to sky-high conversions isn’t a formula or an algorithm. It’s empathy. Are you putting your customer first?

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Founders, your SaaS product is your baby. You nurtured it from a scrappy idea to a (hopefully) thriving platform. But even the cutest babies need a little...adjustment sometimes. That's where feedback comes in. Learn how to turn frowns upside down (and bad reviews into stellar ones) with these tips: 1️⃣Don't take it personally. Feedback is about your product, not you. 2️⃣Embrace the data. Numbers don't lie. 3️⃣See it as a chance to iterate. Remember, the MVP is just the Minimum Viable Product, not the Perfect one. 4️⃣Listen to your users (and staff too) make data-driven tweaks, and watch your baby blossom into the SaaS superstar it was always meant to be. Remember, founders who can handle (and even love) feedback are the ones building the empires of tomorrow! #feedback #saas #product

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🚨 Why Traditional CRO is Failing Your Business 🚨 (It's not what you think...) For years, we’ve been told that increasing conversion rates were the holy grails of CRO. But here’s the truth: traditional CRO is outdated. Modern CRO goes deeper, beyond just tweaking landing pages or running tests on button colors. Here are 7 Key Differences between Traditional CRO and the Modern Approach: 1️⃣ Structure - Traditional: Focused on quick, linear changes. - Modern: Holistic strategies that connect the dots across the entire customer journey. 2️⃣ Scalability - Traditional: Stuck in incremental improvements. - Modern: Uses data to scale improvements across the full funnel. 3️⃣ Customer Insights - Traditional: Tracks what users do. - Modern: Focuses on why they do it. 4️⃣ Optimization Scope - Traditional: Stuck on landing pages and checkout flows. - Modern: Optimizes every customer touchpoint—from ad clicks to post-purchase follow-ups. 5️⃣ Focus - Traditional: Fixated on short-term wins. - Modern: Designed for long-term growth and retention. 6️⃣ Tools & Techniques - Traditional: Relies on heatmaps and simple A/B testing. - Modern: Leverages AI, personalization, and real-time data. 7️⃣ Strategy - Traditional: Reactive and tactical. - Modern: Proactive, focusing on creating seamless user experiences. 💡 The takeaway? If your CRO strategy only fixes problems when they happen, you’re leaving money on the table. Modern CRO is about understanding the entire customer journey and delivering a better experience at every step. Are you still using traditional CRO tactics? Or are you ready to evolve? 🚀 Let me know your thoughts 👇

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SaaS GTM has evolved rapidly. We just dropped a brand new blog on TACK Network (our media property) if you want to read the whole thing. Here’s how to adapt and thrive: 1. Team & People Alignment Start internally with your employees, culture, and purpose. • Define or refine your company's vision and mission • Establish or review your principles and values • Craft or update your brand story and point of view • Evaluate and restructure your team for optimal customer-centricity • Implement or revise your operating rituals and cadences • Set or realign your annual goals to prioritize customer needs • Conduct research to identify evolving customer problems 2. Strategic Planning Understand your ideal customer deeply. • Reassess your total and serviceable addressable markets • Redefine your account and buyer fit criteria • Update your account segment and buyer persona definitions • Revisit your segmentation strategy based on fit and intent data • Develop a compelling strategic narrative and thought leadership positioning 3. Revenue Drivers Revamp your revenue strategy. • Refine your category/solution and product messaging • Highlight value-based use cases and customer success stories • Evaluate and optimize your pricing and packaging models • Align your product roadmap with customer feedback and needs • Analyze your financial model, funnel metrics, and revenue assumptions • Map out the updated customer journey and sales methodology • Assess and enable your revenue teams with the right tools and training 4. Strategic Execution Execute integrated revenue campaigns. • Identify and cultivate strategic internal and external partnerships • Revisit your offer mix and channel activation across the customer lifecycle • Monitor results and revisit every 90 days Key Takeaways: • Put people at the core of each decision and interaction. • Adopt a holistic GTM approach: team alignment, strategic planning, revenue drivers, and execution. • Shift to a People-first GTM to foster connections, build trust, and achieve long-term success. Forget Company-first GTM. People-first is the Future. Drive sustainable growth by making people the heart of every decision and interaction. This checklist is everything you need to harness this transformative approach. Check it out for yourself. I will drop it in the comments below. PS: Anything you don't agree with or things you'd add? Would love to hear it.

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BDRs are a CHANNEL within the GTM ecosystem. We stopped using the transactional lead gen playbook with them + adopted a long-term "demand gen" approach with them, and magic has happened 🪄 Let me share a few examples of when BDRs do + don’t work well to help get the point across: Cold outreach Don’t: give them a list of 100 new accounts every month to dial/email/DM away at, hoping that they can get 5% of them to finally cave in to taking a demo Do: give them a list of 100 accounts and tell them that over the course of the next quarter, they are to develop a relationship with each of them Remember: BDR stands for business *development* representative. Those relationships + being able to become a trusted advisor are why prospects will choose to go with you, not the fact that you have now slapped “AI” on your product. PLG and sales-assisted growth Don’t: give them a list of every prospect that signs up for your free product and assume that they are ready to buy Do: loop them into other efforts targeting this group. Marketing is likely sending a “welcome” or “training” sequence to each new signup to help teach them how to use the product and get them to adopt it. Product likely has datapoints around which signups are using the product, and which features specifically. Tip: Allow the BDRs to see this information so they can be more strategic and consultative with their outreach. This way they reach out to the signups actually using the product AND can be consultative in what they speak to based on what the signups are, and aren’t, using within the product currently. Lastly, lose the attribution obsession Like marketing, we have to lose the obsession on attributing every BDR activity back to BDRs. Embrace the “dark social” type mentality with this group so that they can align better to how today’s market actually researches and buys products. This means that you’ll probably see BDR activities lead to improved “Organic Search” and “Direct” attribution results because when the prospect is ready to start the sales process, they may just come straight to the website and submit the demo request form. That is ok! This past week, we had two examples of this occurring where a demo request came in and in the self-reported attribution, the prospect explicitly named the BDR who'd been in contact with them Our BDR approach is being helpful + consultative, not forcing prospects into the funnel early. They meet prospects where they are, provide helpful resources along the way, and say things like “hey, when you’re ready, just head to our website + fill out the form.” They recognize that not everyone is in the market today They recognize that prospects are in annual or multi-year contracts They recognize that even if they aren’t, they need to wait approvals But once the prospect is finally ready, they come back to us ready to move forward

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I’ve been writing for over two years about how SaaS websites have become progressively less clear... But maybe we're starting to turn a corner?? The former head of product marketing at Cognism told me that when they changed from the vaguer messaging on the left to the painfully straightforward messaging on the right... ...their conversion jumped 40%. And they've had the right side messaging for over a year (if it ain't broke, why fix it?) Yet, the homepage hero breaks almost all of the "best practices." (Go look at it yourself — you honestly won't believe it). It has TONS of text. The full H1 + H2 is 106 words. The main tagline is four lines long on the screen (it's not a catchy slogan but just a describe of the main thing they provide.) It has FOUR bullet points (technically five if you count the extra mini title). It's extremely functional messaging. It doesn't talk about boosting revenue, or high level business outcomes. All the promises it makes are believable given how they describe the tool. If you JUST go by the constant string of "advice" on LinkedIn, you'd imagine this page would have zero chance of working. And yet, if you think about why people READ WEBSITES IN THE FIRST PLACE.... ...it suddenly makes total sense. People read websites of SaaS companies... (wait for it) ...to LEARN INFORMATION 😱😱😱 I know you might have thought they actually read your company's SaaS page because they want to be inspired. Or maybe they read your page to double-check that you REALLY drive business outcomes 🙄 But then you can just think about the last time you read a company website you didn't know that much about (because if you already knew all about the company, why the heck would you be reading their homepage??) You were likely trying to get answers to very basic questions: → what does this company do? → who is it for? → why is it better than what I'm already using? My hope is that people have run the internal tests and have discovered that a clearer message is ACTUALLY more customer-centric than the vague, outcomes/brand-focused messaging that we normally see. It may be crazy to imagine... but the best messaging for customers is likely not the same as what gets your executive team stoked in the board room. #productmarketing #saas #b2b

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Improving your CRO success rate doesn’t have to be complicated. Review analysis is the key: → Spot customer pain points. → Build data-driven hypotheses. → Test smarter, not harder. It’s simple: understand your customers → improve your results. If you have questions or want me to run your brand’s reviews, shoot me a DM with “Review Analysis” to figure out how I can help you.

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A couple of the biggest challenges we B2B enterprise marketers face are: 1. Understanding the engagement and education journey a prospective customer needs to take to fully appreciate the value that your solution can offer their business. 2. Creating a strategy supported by systems and technology that supports a tight alignment across the "selling team" (you notice I didn't say "sales & marketing"?) Below is a really interesting perspective that reframes the way we think about deal attribution. It's less about "who gets credit?" (which, as we all know, inevitably leads to unproductive anti-team behaviors leaving team members frustrated and demoralized), but rather - "what is an effective experience that helps potential customers make an informed decision?" - which informs the selling team of where they need to be focused and how each individual can positively impact that experience. The reframe offers the potential for: --> a more meaningful evaluation journey for the customer --> a more productive GTM strategy (less time, less budget, better conversions) --> higher morale across the selling team (AI driven "data + the story" = focus and confidence on the effectiveness of each individual role in the selling process)

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Simon highlighted an essential stat: The average B2B SaaS sales cycle is 84 days, nearly three months (HubSpot Research). For many it's even longer, sometimes closer to 12+ months. So imagine your #analytics #data only goes back 30 days? It would be useless wouldn't it? Yet that's essentially what you get with #GA4. Most users aren't aware but the lookback window for first source attribution in GA4 is a maximum of 30 days!? It makes tracking the value of blog posts / content marketing campaigns or any top of funnel activities pretty much impossible. The attribution in GA4 will probably tell you the channel responsible for that conversion was a bottom of funnel PPC click. To really understand the value of your top of funnel activities, you need a specific #attribution solution which doesn't have unnecessary limits built in to the models.

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Speed Blindness: How Waste Creeps into Your GTM Is your growth sustainable or are you simply burning money? Many teams celebrate top-line growth while ignoring the hidden inefficiencies that silently cripple their Go-To-Market strategy. Are You Paying Too Much for Growth? Efficiency boils down to one question: How much are you spending to generate $1 of net new ARR? If you don’t know, or if your GTM Efficiency Ratio is above 2, you’ve got a problem. This inefficiency isn’t just a financial drain—it’s a cultural issue that’s almost impossible to fix if it becomes entrenched. Why GTM Inefficiency is a Silent Killer Burning Cash: When your costs are twice your new revenue, it’s unsustainable. Period. “Fix It Later” Fallacy: Think you can tackle inefficiency after hitting scale? Think again. Building processes and culture on a wasteful foundation locks you into an irreversible trajectory. Many publicly traded SaaS companies are cautionary tales of this exact mistake. Symptom Check: Is GTM Waste Hiding in Your Organization? Afraid to Measure: Not tracking your GTM Efficiency Ratio? That’s your first red flag. It’s like avoiding the scale because you know the number will hurt. Siloed Teams: Are marketing, sales, and CS working in true alignment, or are they just pretending? A litmus test: Do these teams have shared revenue goals? Do sales and CS genuinely credit marketing for their success? A Culture of Waste: The Real Problem The growth-at-all-costs mindset hasn’t died—it’s just gone underground. If growth is happening, is anyone asking: How much does it cost, or is the growth sustainable? Or is raising such questions treated like heresy? Many teams default to quick fixes to appease leadership. Numbers are fudged, narratives spun, and the status quo continues. Without management willing to push for real change, systemic inefficiency thrives. Fixing GTM Waste: Where to Start Measure Your GTM Efficiency Ratio: Calculate total GTM costs divided by net new ARR over the last 12 months. If the ratio exceeds 2, it’s time to act. 1. Audit Marketing First - Is your strategy volume-based or quality-based? - Does your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) reflect sales and retention priorities? - Are marketing’s KPIs tied to revenue and pipeline? - Are you paying too much for tech that nobody is using and delivers no value? 2. Foster Alignment - Break down silos between marketing, sales, and CS - Make shared goals mandatory 3. Commit to Long-Term Change - Address systemic issues head-on—this might mean restructuring, retraining, or new hires - Build real-time efficiency monitoring systems and demand accountability from all functional leaders When the revenue is growing it's easy to ignore efficiency, but it can turn out to be the biggest mistake you'll ever make. Do you have any cautionary examples of GTM Waste? Or have you found effective ways to wake the teams up and fix wasteful practices? Share your experiences in the comments!

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"Growth is your ability to predictably, sustainably, and competitively answer the question of how you acquire, retain, and monetize customers", says Elena Verna, Amplitude's former Head of Growth. PLG is one way to do that — it’s a growth motion that leverages the product, rather than marketing or sales, to drive acquisition, retention, and monetization. But most companies still rely on marketing to drive users into their product and have a sales-led monetization motion in place. It is not a choice between product-led or sales and marketing. It is a question of how to combine the best from both worlds.

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Ran an A/B test that increased Meta performance by 83.4% That's the equivelant of going from a 2.0 ROAS to a 3.67 overnight If 2.0 was breakeven, that's a massive improvement on net margin The funny thing is it was the simplest test, changing the order of the variants to display a higher AOV bundle first On Mobile you could only see 1 variant at a time so people saw the 1 and took it, not many people saw the larger bundle option With the larger bundle presented first, conversion rate stayed the same so the same amount of people were buying But the bundle was higher value, so more value was captured, improving Ad performance

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