The best growth tactics of 2025

50+ things that actually worked, as submitted by readers

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The best growth tactics of 2025

The last newsletter of the year has been my opportunity to reflect on the best growth learnings shared in Growth Unhinged (see: 2024, 2023, 2022). This time I’m doing things a bit differently.

I polled 130 readers about their #1 most impactful growth experiment of the year. Then I categorized all the responses and hand-selected the most interesting tactics.

My main takeaways:

• Despite all the enthusiasm around AI, the three biggest categories were outbound and ABM (20% of responses), partner and ecosystem (20%), and events and community (16%).

• The tactics were quite diverse and also included content and AI discovery (12%), product-led growth (10%), product launches (8%), paid advertising (6%), and a long-tail of everything else (8%).

• A few of the experiments were out-of-the-box. Most came down to picking something tried-and-true, then executing it exceptionally.

Keep reading for the best contributions: 50+ growth tactics that actually worked, as submitted by readers. I hope these inspire creative growth experiments going into 2026.

For premium subscribers: The full categorized list of 130 growth experiments is here. (You can upgrade here.)

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Outbound and ABM experiments (20%)

People like to argue that automation killed outbound. The reality is quite different.

There’s much better data to identify your best-fit accounts and who’s demonstrating buying intent. While basic signals may be commoditizing, niche and first-party signals are heating up. The outbound message essentially writes itself and still gets a reply, when backed by a compelling enough signal.

Experiments from early-stage startups

1. LinkedIn engagement-based outreach. Tracking and reaching out to people who engage with our content or competitor content brought in 10% of the pipeline.

2. Prospecting and reaching out to people who engage with competitors’ posts on LinkedIn. It verifies intent and nets predictable pipeline.

3. We’re in full experiment mode with founder-led sales still the primary motion and a handful of early adopters and nascent partners. The best experiment has been a beachhead strategy around target accounts (for us these are large and complex enterprises).

4. A mix of outbound prospecting, almost like account-based marketing, but where we automate the messages sent.

5. Full outbound AI automation on LinkedIn.

Experiments from scaleups

1. Website optimization and intent tracking for lead conversion. We now have the ability to track more intent and signal the sales teams at the right time.

2. We leveraged Clay to scape data from sources of intent signal and drive outbound plays to those audiences to meet them in the moment of need.

3. Automating outbound workflows to do intent-based selling.

4. Creating specific ABM lists with content and outbound targeting via SDR.

5. Warm connects and personalized demos for high value accounts.

6. Deploying ABM at 1:1 level accounts and building programs to engage and nurture through the funnel.

7. ABM in high value accounts that included an exec roadshow.

Best outbound resource: The best automated GTM plays you’re not running (with Brendan Short)

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Partner and ecosystem experiments (20%)

I’m not the first person to tell you that it’s getting harder to build an audience. Yet why build your own audience when you could borrow from someone else?

As Emily Kramer recently wrote, “ecosystem is a force multiplier and differentiator.” Readers agree. Partner and ecosystem experiments were extremely popular this year.

A caveat: the experiments themselves are highly diverse, spanning personal networks, B2B influencers, industry communities, agencies, and peer tech companies. You’ll need to create your own ecosystem playbook rather than copy from someone else.

Experiments from early-stage startups

1. Personal network. My GTM has completely failed, but former employers might end up becoming my first clients.

2. Maximizing our current network of connections to get as many intros as possible, especially our CEO, which has an incredible network of connections.

3. Sector influencer customer campaigns for social proof.

Experiments from scaleups

1. “Give to Get” program with our ecosystem partners. We’d move a customer from direct billing to billing with the partner, in exchange for the partner bringing more customers to the platform.

2. Joint partner marketing. We co-sponsor regional events and co-market the events.

3. Aligning with industry communities and high quality original research.

4. Partnerships scale out.

5. Partnering with a B2B influencer.

Best ecosystem resource: Ecosystem is the next big growth channel (via Emily Kramer and Lenny’s Newsletter)

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Event and community experiments (16%)

Despite (or because of) AI, events and community are having a major resurgence. The single best channel from the State of B2B GTM report surprised me: intimate events.

Readers praised big conferences, intimate dinners, and even webinars as giving them a leg up in 2025.

Experiments from early-stage startups

1. Webinars with industry influencers have been surprisingly successful. The audience is extremely engaged and happy to spend 60 minutes of their day.

2. Going all in at a conference. Huge splash, 35+ scheduled meetings in advance from meticulous manual outbound.

3. A photo contest in which people signed up in order to cast their vote.

Experiments from scaleups

1. Inviting clients to attend conferences with us. We did it to drive new logos but it ended up 3x-ing our client’s investment which is significantly more revenue.

2. Big tradeshow plus ancillary intimate events for a target account list.

3. Expanded attendance by frontline personnel to large conferences.

4. Expanding in-person events to virtual events. Much lower lift and expense, somewhat similar results as in person.

Best community resource: How Mallory Contois mastered the community-led growth (CLG) flywheel with the Old Girls Club

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Content and AI discovery experiments (12%)

At the beginning of the year I probably wouldn’t have predicted content-related tactics being the best place to double down. Elena Verna wrote in March that “company blogs are no longer worth the investment.” The reported SEO decline of HubSpot’s blog went viral.

The real story isn’t about decline. It’s about a platform shift as B2B buyers turn to ChatGPT for recommendations about which vendors to consider and which products to buy. AI discovery now accounts for 12.7% of Docebo’s high-intent leads (up 429% year-on-year) and 10% of Webflow’s signups (up 4x year-on-year).

Some positive news: this isn’t hard pivot. Late-funnel SEO is the foundation for great answer engine optimization (AEO).

Experiments from early-stage startups

1. Been experimenting with AEO for last 7 months. Tested every advice available on the internet by some of the top experienced people in GTM and Growth. Finally we’re seeing results.

2. Since 2023, we’ve been experimenting with programmatic SEO. This year, we realized JSON-LD format is critical for LLM SEO and AEO, so we started converting existing content into JSON.

3. Substack newsletter. We started inviting new users to join our Substack instead of relying only on automated emails. It’s been a much better channel to share not only product updates but also bug fixes, what we’re working on, and learnings from podcast interviews.

4. YouTube interview series. About a year ago, we launched an interview series. We’ve been fortunate to host industry experts, which gave us valuable insights. Plus, when guests shared the interviews on their socials, it significantly boosted awareness. We found that combining PLG and media is a fast way to grow in an era where anyone can build new products easily.

Experiments from scaleups

1. We created a custom GPT to help us build SEO-focused blog posts at scale.

2. Big content marketing initiatives including a new maturity model and an owned virtual user conference.

3. Deep, informative content that plays across AEO, SEO, social, webinar, etc.

4. Definitely positioning ourselves in LLM answers is a big win allowing us to gain visibility on multiple countries at once. Results are fast and help our SEO position at the same time.

5. AEO/GEO. We can see the shift in traffic from conventional organic search referrals to direct traffic correlating to qualified leads from people who found us via LLM search.

Best AI discovery resource: How to turn ChatGPT into your best pipeline source

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Product-led growth experiments (10%)

Product-led growth no longer feels new. But it has become a part of the growth equation, and has played a role in hypergrowth of AI-native companies like Lovable, Replit, and Fyxer (all featured in this newsletter).

Readers picked up wins from free products as lead generation, faster time-to-value, and a more personalized, 1:1 onboarding experience.

Experiments from early-stage startups

1. We have a proprietary lead gen directory for which we built a freemium product. We are doing quite a bit warm outreach to support adoption, but ultimately product-led growth is the goal.

2. Building mini tools to get more people curious about the product’s functionalities.

3. Building a product-driven flow that allows users to sample the experience their clients would be getting by using the product. We don’t have a free trial, but this is a direct value-driven approach that gives a taste of the end result, which is what our product is built for.

Experiments from scaleups

1. Our highest-leverage growth win was industrializing “time-to-first-value” (deliverability plus onboarding plus pre-built plays). It shortened the path from contract to first positive reply and unlocked throughput across sales, CS, and references.

2. Onboarding email flow more backed by data has seen an increase of 3 points in terms of conversion rate (huge impact on ARR). Each profile signing up to our product will get a different onboarding flow. We stopped generic flow except for non-ICP users.

3. Introducing a PLG motion for solo users.

Best PLG resource: Our first try at PLG nearly failed. Here’s what we did next. (with Raman Khanna and Natalie Marcotullio)

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Product launch experiments (8%)

Splashy product launches used to be for massive tech companies like Apple, Google, and Microsoft. Startups are increasingly harnessing these launch moments with hype videos, influencer campaigns, and coordinated plays across multiple channels.

Experiments from early-stage startups

1. A hype video for our out of stealth launch that went viral.

2. We coordinated a massive product launch with a rebrand and an influencer campaign, and while it was a nightmare to coordinate it paid off.

Experiments from scaleups

1. Major product launch attacked on all vectors including outbound, inbound, etc. Cut through the noise, it seemed.

2. Our best growth experiment was opening new markets and new categories. We’re in an industry where regulatory changes can open up new markets for us very quickly.

Best product launch resource: From 0 to 200k users in 14 months

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Paid ad experiments (6%)

Paid ad campaigns were the most polarizing category. Early-stage companies sometimes found success, seeing positive ROI from paid search, G2 ads, and ABM advertising via LinkedIn. For more mature companies, the win might’ve been pulling back or shutting down campaigns that were bleeding money.

Experiments from early-stage startups

1. Paid search was our big winner in the last year. It accounts for 50% of our customers but average order value is lower so working on improving that.

2. G2 review collection campaigns and PPC ads within G2.

3. ABM/LinkedIn ad driven campaigns.

Experiments from scaleups

1. Eliminating paid branded keyword search.

2. Terminating paid ads, saving money and not seeing any impact to productivity.

3. Brand awareness investments in paid, display, and search. We saw a significant funnel lift in inbound through very strong brand surround coupled with demand gen.

4. OOH and brand awareness efforts, which created a halo effect across channels (in person, digital, and sales) with consistent brand presence and representation.

Best paid ad resource: A very tactical guide to ABM advertising (with Emilia Korczynska)

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Everything else (8%)

Let’s wrap with a selection of other notable tactics from readers.

1. AI adoption across all internal marketing workflows.

2. Building a website scraper and AI-driven prospect classifier to understand which of our prospects were a better ICP fit based on their tech stack and specific characteristics of their business. We go after a non traditional ICP so traditional data providers have fallen short here for us.

3. Shifting personas to simplify the starting point and solving a high volume, high value ROI, low complexity problem.

4. To prompt and gamify internal team members to consistently post on LinkedIn with brand name mentions.

Best related resource: How to use AI agents for marketing

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The best of Growth Unhinged in 2025

One countdown to end the year: your top five favorite editions of Growth Unhinged as measured by page views and shares. Everyone can read these for free through the end of the year.

• #5 - A new framework for AI agent pricing (w/ Manny Medina)

• #4 - Customers don’t care about your AI features (w/ Kristen Berman)

• #3 - How to get recommended by ChatGPT

• #2 - You should be playing with AI agents for marketing

• #1 - How to use Deep Research for GTM (w/ Torsten Walbaum)

THANK YOU again for reading and being part of this community. As always, if you have a 🔥 growth story you’d like to share in Growth Unhinged, simply hit reply.