Spear Growth

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am a member of the founding team at Sprinto, a platform that automates the traditionally manual and tedious process of information security certifications. We focus on making the process of becoming compliant for cloud hosting companies with industry-specific standards in a hassle-free manner and 10X faster, so that organizations can not only unblock a sales deal, expand their TAM, target unexplored markets, close deals faster, and maximize revenue.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Spear Growth, and what were your goals?

To launch performance marketing initiatives specifically Google Ads starting from India to Global. We wanted to launch and scale our inbound leads using AdWords

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

• Research and Strategy - They identified our goals and studied the company + industry thoroughly to identify new opportunities, followed by keyword research to understand what our target audience is looking for.
• Going Live - Quarter 1 with Spear Growth: Set up and scaled India, 3 compliance certifications.
• Quarter 2: 7 new regions plus 7 compliance certifications.
• Next Quarter: 8 total regions and a few more certifications.
• Optimizations - Reduced CAC by
  • Narrowing down on Intent Keywords.
  • Narrowing down intra-country location based on past data.
  • Experimenting with various landing Pages for a smooth user journey.

How many resources from the Spear Growth team worked with you, and what were their positions?

It started with 1 performance marketer, 1 copywriter, 1 designer, and 1 strategist and quickly scaled to 2 Performance marketers, 3 copywriters, 1 designer, 1 marketing strategist.

How did you select Spear Growth and what were the deciding factors?

Referral from peers. Plus the fact that they will take care of the end-to-end process for us (Including landing pages).

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Describe the impact this engagement has had on your business.

The new regions that we scaled after India was North America, Europe, the Middle East, and South East Asia.

• Got 250 SQLs in total in the last 5 months.
• Budget scaled profitably - $75,000 per month.
• 415 demo calls scheduled in the last 5 months.
• Optimized campaign and reduced per-lead cost by 44%

This covers our most important metrics.

• Avg. CTR in the industry is 2.40%, we went up to 7.24%.
• Run a total of 145 campaigns with 475 ad groups & 5581 keywords.
• Scaled to 47 countries in 6 months for multiple products by segmenting into different funnel stages.

Is there anything that the vendor did well or that you would consider a strength? 

They had good projections, which allowed us to confidently scale further without worrying about things breaking. The response time was quick which really helped us go live faster. They were open to suggestions and always happy to extend any help. Lastly, they were backed up by skilled copywriters & performance marketers to manage things efficiently & to make sure everything is on track.

UPDATED REVIEW

This review was published on April 13, 2022. 

Pritesh Vora

Head of Marketing, Sprinto

IT Services

11-50 Employees

India (356)

$10,000 to $49,999

Oct 2021 - Mar 2022

Project summary

Spear Growth provided digital marketing services for a SaaS solutions company. The team was tasked with launching and scaling performance marketing, specifically Google ads. 

Feedback summary

Thanks to Spear Growth's efforts, the client was able to scale its budget up to 100,000$. The team utilized Slack to ensure constant communication and conducted meetings to review performance and completed tasks. They were responsive, open, and helpful in the workflow.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am a member of the founding team at Sprinto, a platform that automates the traditionally manual and tedious process of information security certifications. We focus on making the process of becoming compliant for cloud hosting companies with industry-specific standards in a hassle-free manner and 10X faster, so that organizations can not only unblock a sales deal, expand their TAM, target unexplored markets, close deals faster, and maximize revenue.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Spear Growth, and what were your goals?

To launch performance marketing initiatives specifically Google Ads starting from India to Global. We wanted to launch and scale our inbound leads using AdWords

SOLUTION

How did you select Spear Growth and what were the deciding factors?

Referral from peers. Plus the fact that they will take care of the end-to-end process for us (Including landing pages).

Describe the scope of work in detail, including the project steps, key deliverables, and marking tools used.

Quarter 1 with Spear Growth: Set up and scaled India. 3 compliance certifications Quarter 2: 7 new regions 7 compliance certifications Next Quarter: 8 total regions and a few more certifications

How many resources from the Spear Growth team worked with you, and what were their positions?

It started with 1 performance marketer, 1 copywriter, 1 designer, and 1 strategist and quickly scaled to 2 Performance marketers, 3 copywriters, 1 designer, 1 marketing strategist.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any measurable outcomes of the project or general feedback about the deliverables?

Predictable lead generation Brought down per lead cost Since working with them, we've been able to confidently scale our budget to 100$K USD

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

There was a dedicated Slack channels for constant communication. Further we had weekly catch up calls to review performance and the work done. They were generally very quick to respond to our queries and doubts

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

Time to scale with many unknowns. We scaled to a massive 145 campaigns with 475 adgroups. 5581 keywords and they were able to manage it. Allows me to confidently scale further without worrying about things breaking. They were open to suggestions and always happy to extend any help.

Are there any areas for improvement or something they could have done differently?

Potentially, visibility into the continous work they put in. It's a lot of work involved to manage and scale a large project and without that visibility, the hard work slides under the rug. They have generally been very prompt to ask for and incorporate feedback.

Star Ratings

Overall rating: 5

Quality: 5 

Cost: 5

Schedule: 5

Willing to refer: 5

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm a fractional CMO.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Spear Growth, and what were your goals?

I hired Spear Growth to provide paid media and SEO services to a B2B SaaS client.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor and what were the deciding factors?

I've worked with dozens of marketing agencies over the years across multiple countries. Spear's creativity, hustle, and expertise in B2B SaaS made them stand out among the agencies I evaluated for this project.

Describe the scope of work in detail, including the project steps, key deliverables, and campaigns.

The scope of work included performance marketing (Google Ads, LinkedIn Ads, etc) and SEO, covering both strategy and execution for both.

How many people from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

I worked with leads and supporting team members for paid ads and SEO, as well as copy and creative teams.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any measurable outcomes of the project or general feedback about the deliverables?

The quality of Spear's work was consistently high. Although this project ended prematurely due to factors outside Spear's control, I'm confident we would've seen strong results had the project continued.

Describe their project management style, including communication tools and timeliness.

The Spear team was very communicative and easy to work with. We primarily communicated through Slack and regular video meetings. They were accommodating about meeting during US business hours, which was a big help.

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

Spear Growth's strategic acumen stood out. Their cutting-edge understanding of B2B SaaS marketing surpassed that of many US-based agencies I've worked with in the past.

Are there any areas for improvement or something they could have done differently?

N/A

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm one of the co-founders of Zluri, the leading SaaS management platform for IT teams. If you look at the SaaS adoption scenario across global organizations, it's growing exponentially. But with this growth comes the challenge of running IT operations for companies smoothly. This often means that IT heads don't have complete visibility into their company's entire tech stack. A lot of unutilized and underutilized licenses and contracts are all over the place. Essentially, the SaaS environment in these organizations is chaotic.

This is where Zluri comes in and helps companies establish SaaS governance through an easy to use platform. We help organizations discover their tech stack, manage and optimize it, and help them secure and comply with their technology. That's what we do best at Zluri, and that's what startups and Fortune 500 companies around the world love us for.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Spear Growth?

Performance Marketing is an emerging and challenging space. On top of that, the search volume for a SaaS Management is pretty low. Most companies are just starting to adopt solutions like ours. Some don't even realize they need a platform like Zluri. As such, cracking performance marketing for us needed a lot of expertise from people who have gone through similar challenges as we do. That's what we were looking for from a partnering Performance Marketing Agency, when we came across Spear Growth.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

We were working with another agency before Spear Growth. While they were doing a great job, we weren't able to reach the desired outcomes with them. We spoke with multiple agencies before zeroing in on Spear Growth. What we believe was the biggest difference between Spear Growth and other agencies was in how the Spear Growth team thought about tackling this our performance marketing. There were no assured results out there, but being open to rapid iterations and trying out different things was what we needed. That's what is required to crack a space where the search volumes are lower, and that's exactly what Spear Growth promised us. We liked their approach & went ahead with them with full confidence.

Describe the scope of their work in detail.

We were working with a team of five members from Spear Growth. The good part about working with them was that they were a well-rounded team. To truly succeed, you can't restrict yorself to working with people who specialise in performance marketing. You need other supporting pillars too, like the right copywriters, designers who can think out-of-the-box by communicating messages, and channels for experimentation like LinkedIn, Retargeting ads, etc. We found all of this in Spear Growth's team.

1. The team took time to understand what exactly we do from a product perspective, the kind of pain points we solve for our customers, and what benefits we offer. Also, they made earnest efforts to broadly understand the industry by using various recordings and customer conversations, and also identify the right ICP for the solution that we are selling.
2. They came back to us using the inputs that we provided, and then shared with us some predictions in terms of the keywords that could work for this particular industry. They gave us a clear picture of the segments that will would go after, the ICPs that we would target, and the channels that we would focus on. Through this strategy, they gave actionable projections, confirming that we would get potential leads based on the data coming in from the Google keyword search results.
3. We started rapid iteration, tested out multiple messages, discovered what was working and what not, and whenever there was something that was working, we doubled down on it. The experiments that were not working were junked out over time, and I think in three months, enough tests were done to get the complete picture. From there, we were able to scale things and that's what has been delivering results so far.

What was the team composition?

We worked with five people including copywriters, performance marketers, and the operations person coordinating the campaigns, calendaring them, and so on.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

The problem with our space is that there is very little demand, and there are multiple channels through which we try to get our customers. There are paid channels, and outbound efforts as well as referrals keep happening. As such, it's very important to find the right attribution. One thing which we've been able to achieve with Spear Growth is the attribution part of it.

1. Within the attributed pipeline, we've been able to close 4x of what we have spent on ads. So that's a huge ROI for us.
2. Since we started working with the team, we have seen a 61% increase in lead velocity.
3. Our average deal size has also increased significantly. We are currently operating at the upper mid-level of a mid-market segment. The way we classify mid-market is 500 to 5000 employees. But we started working with customers who are the first ride of the mid-market segment. These are some of the outcomes that we've been able to achieve through this engagement.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

It was a very collaborative and productive engagement from a collaboration perspective. We were always on Slack. I think that was an ideal way for us to communicate. I'm glad we were able to bring the Spear Growth team into the Slack ecosystem. We conducted weekly review meetings to understand spending, the number of leads generated, and the channels gained from demand capture or demand generation. We reviewed everything weekly, and our sales team came back to us with a lot of insights from on the ground, some of which were very actionable.

We often buged the team with things like "hey, we found this is insight. Can we have a quick meeting to synthesise what's happening there?" There were a lot of ad hoc meetings, but the team was gracious enough to take our suggestions and implement them as early as possible. That's how the day-to-day collaboration was. From the communication perspective, we saw predominantly data-driven conversations with clear, aligned metrics. This made a lot of these communications pretty straightforward, crystal clear, and everything in black and white. That's how the communication and workflow was between our team.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Rapid experimentation, iterations, and a bunch of other stuff as well. I think the team is very tech-savvy. They came back to us with a lot of tools and suggestions on how some of them could be best used to drive outcomes. You can come up with several ideas, but you need that right team to execute them from a creative ideation perspective and translate them into visuals. That's where I think Spear Growth's team was able to help us, since they deeply understood our business. I think they have invested enough time into understanding what we do, and that allowed them to execute plans better.

This also gave us the confidence that we were doing the right things required for business. Another part that I thought was unique was their interest or their approach to messaging. A lot of times, agencies heard what we said and tried to implement. They built hypotheses based on what we said and then tried to implement their campaigns. What was unique about Spear Growth here was their ability to speak with our customers, understand their pain points, and then align campaigns, messaging, and positioning with the data they collected. I thought that was unique.

Is there any area for improvement or anything that could have been done differently?

none at the moment

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm the founder of SuperTokens (YC S20). SuperTokens is an open-source alternative to Auth0 that enables adding secure, hassle-free authentication to your app in 1 day. We enable startups to launch quicker and focus better on their core product offering.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Spear Growth?

SEO consultancy - technical audit, backlink analysis, content strategy etc

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

Considering how critical this was for us, we wanted to partner with someone who had proven expertise with respect to SEO for SaaS. We had a lot going on internally, we needed someone who could scale with us as needed. On the call with Spear Growth, we observed that their team really cared about doing SEO right.

They had previous experience working with SaaS companies similar to us, even those selling to developers, which was a big plus for us. And their no lock-in clause was an added bonus! We got to speak directly with their core team which was really helpful to us throughout

Describe the scope of their work in detail.

This was the scope of the project that we agreed upon:

1. SEO Strategy Consulting and Enablement.
2. SEO Content strategy Roadmap.
3. Content Review & basic SEO Training.
4. Technical & Backlink correction Roadmap.
5. Technical change validation.
6. GA Goal tracking.
7. Basic backlinking.
8. Website Migration - SEO support

• Pre-migration (Jan): We started with the content strategy & goal tracking and continued to do it throughout the project.
• Migration: We did the migration and the SEO team helped us with redirects, backlink changes, analyzing traffic drop, etc.
• Post-migration: This is where team SG helped us with a bulk of the work, including backlinking and technical roadmap. The technical roadmap was especially in-depth and easy to work on. They were also able to deliver this within 3 weeks."

What was the team composition?

We worked directly with their SEO Lead (Sourajit) and the founder (Ishaan). I believe, they also involved their internal content and marketing ops team from time to time.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

1. Back to initial daily impression within 8 weeks post migration, which is 88% of pre migration daily avg.
2. Clocking 90% of pre migration daily avg traffic within 8 weeks of post migration.
3. 85% of pages re-indexed within 8 weeks.
4. Almost 100% of the content created from their recommendations have generated clicks. We've just started to build out the content and implement the tech changes so we should start seeing an uptick in traffic and conversions soon.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

The team at Spear Growth was always connected to us through Slack, we also had weekly catch up calls. They were diligent with their communication and responded to our queries and doubts without delays. We always had clear visibility into the progress of the project. We got a content strategy for 12 weeks (Including new conversion funnels) and an easy to implement to-do for our tech team within 3 weeks.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

They cared about all the details, were very diligent and thorough about all the technical aspect about SEO. They always turned in deliverables within deadline and never let the project go off-track. When it came to guidance, they never hesitated to go above and beyond, even on things that were outside the project's scope. They did their research and clearly communicated the why, what and how. This helped us understand and align with the content strategy they presented to us.

Is there any area for improvement or anything that could have been done differently?

None

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the Director, Sales at DhiWise, a developer-centric app builder platform that helps you build clean, scalable and customizable code.

We're focused on intuitive app-building approaches like Figma UI-to-Code conversions, lesser boilerplate dependence, minimal code writing, better control over the app’s actions, UI, and database, and integrated security safeguards. I am responsible for Sales and Marketing at my company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Spear Growth?

We wanted to launch our marketing initiatives. Spear Growth helped us with everything from customer interviews, positioning, setting up tracking and CRM, launching our performance marketing.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

1. We didn't want generalist agency but someone who understood what is needed for SaaS startups

2. We needed experts who could guide us with strategy and budgeting. Then execute it flawlessly.

3. Someone who had clear processes and could show how they can help us in such a technical niche.

4. Someone who understood how to coordinate with our sales team.

5. We're big on culture. We wanted a team who matched our energy.

Describe the scope of their work in detail.

Stage

1 - Creating a Strategy:

a) Devised an MoM strategy after conducting extensive research and customer interviews.

b) Set up accounts and analytics.

c) Set up the HubSpot CRM and other tools. Stage

2 - Going Live & Conducting Experiements:

a) Launched ads on Google, Facebook/Instagram, LinkedIn, Carbon Ads, and Stack Overflow.

b) Waited for results and optimized the ads platform-wise.

c) Set up email workflows to convert and nurture the leads.

Stage 3 - Scaling

a) Got to predictable growth and lead numbers across our channels

b) Set processes for coordination between different stakeholders - Especially Sales, marketing & finance

c) Had proven systems to push users to take the desired actions after they've signed up.

d) Made a major pivot in our strategy as we prepared for scale - New positioning, projections, and approach. "

What was the team composition?

Our main POC was their Head of Marketing Strategy. They also provided copywriters, designers, media buyers, market researchers, marketing operations, email marketers. It was a team of 5-10 people working with us as needed.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

Here are some outcomes:

1. Increased our userbase from 0 sign-ups to 10,000+ sign-ups in 4 months.

2. Drastically reduced our cost per MQL by 92%

3. Built and optimized our entire marketing funnel (Ads, Landing pages, Marketing Automation, etc.)"

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

We had weekly calls to discuss the progress, optimizations, and the next steps. They were always on track with the deadlines, if any at all, and were very responsive on emails as well. They were just like a part of our team!

What did you find most impressive about this company?

The team at Spear Growth never hesitated to guide us on things that may be outside the scope of the project. If it wasn't for their experimentation with various marketing channels, we definitely wouldn't have got the deep insights of our market that we have today. We know exactly what works and what doesn't.

Moreover, they looked at everything from a very strategic standpoint, even the email workflows to qualify the leads. Another major plus point was that they never looked at vanity metrics. Infact, they worked with us to help define good quality conversions and reduce our cost per MQL. We just hired them for advertising, but we got an entire marketing strategy mapped out for DhiWise.

We also really liked their approach to the copies for landing pages, ads, website and the fact that there were hardly any follow-ups required! 

Is there any area for improvement or anything that could have been done differently?

I think they make a brilliant team of individuals and the fact that they always walk the extra mile for us without even asking for it doesn't really leave any scope of improvement. They're learning every day and that's the key to their success.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the Senior Marketing Associate at  a cloud-based end-to-end HR technology platform that makes HR across the entire employee lifecycle hassle-free. I am responsible for marketing operations, demand generation, and product marketing strategies at my company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Spear Growth?

We wanted a strategic presence across our teams that could boost our advertising campaigns and offer high-level guidance for our marketing channels. We hired Spear Growth to double down on these marketing initiatives.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

1. It is difficult to find and hire the right talent. The team at Spear Growth knew their marketing and was aligned with our vision.
2. They had proven expertise in the B2B Enterprise Software space and suggested the right next steps for us at the campaign level.
3. They were more focused on bringing in high-quality MQLs rather than just looking at vanity metrics such as clicks.
4. They're driven by extensive research and insights, which is highly valuable to us given the industry we're in.

Describe the scope of their work in detail.

1. Research and Strategy - They identified our goals and studied the company + industry thoroughly to identify new opportunities, followed by keyword research to understand what our target audience is looking for.
2. Going Live - We went live on Google and the team conducted multiple strategic experiments to find the right combination that would bring in the most MQLs. They also experimented with the bidding strategies, which reduced our CPAs dramatically.
3. Optimizations - They set up and improved tracking across different platforms.

With the insights gained, the team was able to provide inputs into our existing marketing campaigns and work on CRO successfully.

What was the team composition?

We worked closely with their Head of Marketing Strategy (POC) and Ads Specialists.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

We saw the following key results:

• 90% increase in MQLs
• 71% increase in Conversions
• 11% increase in Conversions to MQLs
• Lower bounce rate
• Improved tracking across multiple tools
• Alignment of organic and paid search
• Increased performance into marketing

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

The workflow was very streamlined. We connected over weekly calls to touch bases and were kept in loop via emails. Not much intervention was required as they stuck to their deadlines and took complete ownership of the project, just as we wanted.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Spear Growth's team very quickly blended into our processes and culture. They learned about our company, audience, and industry. Working with them was like having a team of experts that was a part of our family.

They suggested both tactical and strategic experiments and implemented them successfully. They also effectively provided inputs into our campaign and marketing channel performance. Ever since we started working with them, we've been able to make our advertising efforts efficient, double down on critical experiments and have a higher visibility into performance

Is there any area for improvement or anything that could have been done differently?

We are now currently trying out different platforms for paid advertising. One of them is Bing Ads. A prior understanding and expertise on the same from their team would've been better however they have picked up the channel quite fast.