5 Strategies for Scaling Marketing from $20M to $200M ARR
Scaling a company’s revenue from $20M to $200M ARR is no small feat.
Luckily, Nicolas Algoedt, VP of Revenue Marketing at Insider, has been at the forefront of this growth.
In a recent conversation with Steffen Hedebrandt on the Attributed podcast, Nicolas outlined five key strategies that have driven Insider's remarkable expansion.
Let's dive deeper into each of these strategies and provide actionable tips for marketers aiming to replicate similar success.
Make marketing responsible for revenue
Build a trustworthy data foundation
Embrace experimentation and iteration
Strengthen your brand as you scale
Leverage community and social influence
You can check out the entire conversation here.
1. Make marketing responsible for revenue
Marketing teams should not just focus on generating leads or driving awareness—they must be directly accountable for revenue generation.
Nicolas suggests giving marketers revenue targets just like their sales counterparts, shifting their role to take ownership of the entire customer journey.
This ensures that marketing efforts don't stop at generating interest but continue through to closing deals and driving actual revenue.
If you're a marketer and you are not able to actually source a significant portion of the revenue for your region or department, you will not be successful.
This approach empowers marketing teams to actively contribute to the company's bottom line, aligning their goals with sales and ensuring that prospects are nurtured all the way to closed-won deals.
Tip: Shift your marketing team’s mindset from lead generation to revenue generation. Set clear revenue targets for your marketing team and hold them accountable. Start by tracking how marketing-driven efforts contribute to closed-won deals, and ensure alignment with sales for seamless follow-through.
2. Build a trustworthy data foundation
Data is the backbone of any scalable marketing operation.
Nicolas emphasized the importance of building a solid, trustworthy measurement system that the entire company can rely on. Without data, scaling revenue becomes nearly impossible.
You can only optimize things that you can fully understand and measure, so building trustworthy data and measurement is pretty key. You can’t really grow revenue if you don’t have that in place.
This means having a single source of truth that tracks the customer journey and aligns teams around what’s working and what’s not.
Off-the-shelf tools like Dreamdata collect, model, and activate your B2B go-to-market data, allowing you to analyze the performance of all your marketing activities.
Actionable Tip: To put this into practice, start by auditing your current data infrastructure. Make sure your marketing, sales, and customer success teams are looking at the same data sources and set up regular meetings where both teams review data together to ensure alignment and transparency in what’s driving revenue.
3. Embrace experimentation and iteration
When it comes to experimentation, Nicolas and his team test new ideas at high velocity to avoid stagnation and complacency.
We try to have very high velocity when we try new things… If you don’t, you just don’t move fast enough.
A great example of Insider’s iterative approach is their use of G2 reviews.
While some companies collect reviews passively, Insider went deep—understanding G2’s algorithm, actively soliciting feedback, and optimizing their profile. As a result, they’ve ranked in the top five for best software products on the platform.
It's not only about reviews; but do you truly understand how the algorithm of those platforms are working for you to be ranked higher than your competitors and how much time and effort you are putting into optimizing every single one of them.
Most companies don’t go deep enough into the mechanics of a channel or tactic to truly maximize its potential. For G2 reviews, Nicolas and his team did not stop at simply gathering feedback. Instead, they dug deep into understanding how the G2 algorithm worked, identifying the specific criteria that would help them rank higher than their competitors.
For more on B2B experimentation, check out this conversion with Guillaume “G” Cabane.
Tip: Create a culture of experimentation within your marketing team. When you think a channel has maxed out, go deeper. There’s often much more potential to unlock through detailed, ongoing optimization, so measure results carefully, iterate, and scale what works.
4. Strengthen your brand as you scale
Once a company surpasses the $100M ARR mark, brand awareness becomes a major growth driver.
Nicolas marked shifting from focusing solely on lead generation to investing heavily in brand activation, particularly at industry events.
When we reach the 100 million ARR, I found myself talking about brand much more often, almost every day.
As traditional channels plateau, a strong brand becomes necessary to continue scaling. Whether it’s through bigger, more visible presences at trade shows or strategic brand marketing campaigns, invest in building a brand that resonates with their target audience on a larger scale.
Tip: Start integrating brand-building efforts into your marketing strategy. Focus on high-visibility events or channels where your target audience congregates. Allocate a portion of your budget to brand marketing initiatives like strategic sponsorships, PR, or thought leadership, which will help elevate your company’s visibility.
5. Leverage community and social influence
Nicolas believes that the future of B2B marketing lies in harnessing community influence and social proof.
Social media and community are currently disrupting the buying process… Nailing down social media and influencer marketing, even for enterprise, is going to be pretty key.
Be sure to explore ways to build customer communities and tap into influencer marketing, even in a B2B enterprise setting. By fostering relationships with customers who have a strong personal brand or influence in your industry you can amplify their message organically.
For more on community building check out this conversation with Colin Campbell.
Tip: Identify your most loyal and influential customers, and turn them into brand ambassadors. Create an ambassador program or incentivize your customers to share their experiences on social media, participate in case studies, or speak at events. Peer validation and word-of-mouth from respected figures in your industry can significantly boost credibility.
Conclusion
Scaling from $20M to $200M ARR requires more than just executing marketing campaigns—it demands a shift in mindset and strategy.
Nicolas’ experience at Insider provides a roadmap for any company looking to make a similar leap.
To recap:
Make marketing responsible for revenue
Build a trustworthy data foundation
Embrace experimentation and iteration
Strengthen your brand as you scale
Leverage community and social influence
Start small, iterate, and keep pushing so you can replicate this success.
About the Speaker
Nicolas Algoedt is the VP of Revenue Marketing at Insider, a rapidly growing customer experience platform that went from $20M to $200M ARR under his leadership. With over five years at Insider, Nicolas has been instrumental in transforming the company's marketing function into a revenue-driving machine across 26 regions. Passionate about experimentation and brand building, Nicolas is a thought leader who continuously seeks innovative ways to push marketing’s impact on revenue.
