Proven growth marketing agency

Trying to figure out how to scale and which marketing channels will help you grow fastest can be confusing and stressful. You’re probably going to have questions and need a growth plan.

Good news: Tuff has been the go-to growth marketing agency for 50+ startups and small businesses over the last five years helping them run digital marketing campaigns and growth experiments to find big wins. Now we want to help you.

Book a strategy call

Proven growth marketing agency

Trying to figure out how to scale and which marketing channels will help you grow fastest can be confusing and stressful. You’re probably going to have questions and need a growth plan.

Good news: Tuff has been the go-to growth marketing agency for 50+ startups and small businesses over the last five years helping them run digital marketing campaigns and growth experiments to find big wins. Now we want to help you.

Book a strategy call

We’ll help you build a growth marketing foundation, with strategic vision and a roadmap, to hit your goals until you’re ready to hire in-house.

Early-stage businesses need a strategic vision and a roadmap. They need an invested part-time, on-demand, or outsourced expert who can set achievable company growth goals and then set about making them happen. We’ve got all that.

Tuff is different - take a deeper look at how we like to work

Before Tuff

Strategy without execution, things slip, limited communication, slow turnarounds, it’s tough to see where things stand, and people are running around like headless chickens.

After Tuff

An action plan, daily communication, focused strategy and execution, a dedicated growth marketing agency, results delivered, organized around KPI’s, small tests with consistent earnings, and a sense of trust sets in.

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“Tuff proactively sought business context, aligned to our objectives, and created their own growth strategy for us accordingly. They implement it, measure it, share learnings, and discuss next steps. Everything you could ask for. Our weekly stand-ups were probably the most effective 30-45 minutes of my week. I just felt like if Tuff were an employee, they would be exceeding expectations.”

kyle headshot

Kyle Ramsay
VP of Product, Hippo
Watch client story

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“The team at Tuff knows their stuff – and it’s precisely why they are not selling ‘magic’ or any kind of ‘mysterious’ sauce. Instead, they are betting on transparency and experimentation, and it seems to be working well: The agency was warmly recommended to TechCrunch multiple times via our growth marketing survey.”

Tuff in TechCrunch
See full article

Our Framework

This is the five-step growth marketing framework we use when approaching growth for any business.

Using this framework, we’ll help prioritize tactics based on return.

Paid Search Social Ads Ad Creative Strategic Messaging Content Strategy Technical SEO Data & Analytics Video Marketing Display Ads YouTube Ads Email Marketing LinkedIn Ads TikTok Ads Conversion Rate Optimization

Our Process

Our growth process: learn, activate, analyze, optimize, repeat.

We’re a trim-but-mighty growth marketing agency with a proven track record of helping companies—in nearly every industry at nearly every stage of growth—unlock their path to sustainable growth. We’ve tested on all of the major channels and lean on that knowledge to decide what and how we want to test first to drive conversions.

Learn more about our process

On demand full growth marketing stack capability

With a growth marketing strategy, we work day-to-day on the things that have the highest impact on your revenue. At its core, a growth marketing strategy is a giant, prioritized to-do list. You aren’t paying for a channel or a person, you’re paying for a group of adaptable experts who can help your business perform while layering on additional tests, channels, and experiments to drive growth.

Learn more about our services
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“I view our partnership with Tuff as more like an extension of my team. We strategize together, ask tough questions, examine the results, optimize – and it just keeps getting better. Exactly what I was looking for.”

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Brad Veach
VP of Marketing, Thnks
Watch client story

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“Tuff has been an incredible value-add to our business. They’re effective, flexible, communicative, and bright. I feel like I have another set of 6+ eyes on the growth of my business at all times.”

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Michael Correo
Co-founder, Team Bootcamp

What We Do

You’ve got growth goals? We’ll build the roadmap.

Hyper-growth businesses need a data-driven vision. More importantly, they need a clear, action-packed game plan. We partner with you to strategize, prioritize, link up cross-channel insights, and, ultimately, grow.

Pay Per Click

Prioritizing high-impact PPC campaigns to drive quick wins then scale what works.

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Social Advertising

Campaigns build just for your audience that get clicks and ultimately revenue.

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Search Engine Optimization

Ensuring you show up where it matters most.

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Tracking and Analytics 

Making strategic decisions based on hard numbers.

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Content Marketing

Ranking higher and winning over your audience with a rock solid content strategy.

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Email Marketing

Auditing (or developing) your existing email flows and getting more people to take action.

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Conversion Rate Optimization

Using data to improve conversion.

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Ad Creative

Creating sticky, scroll-stopping creative that smoothes their path to conversion.

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FAQs

When you collaborate with Tuff, you gain an ever-present extension of your team. What sets us apart is our unwavering commitment to real-time, transparent communication. Collaboration is at the core of our approach, and our suite of communication tools empowers us to excel together. We cherish our shared Slack channels with our partners and rely on various resources such as weekly calls and shared documents to ensure we remain synchronized and aligned.

You receive top-tier marketing strategies paired with expert execution. Informed decision-making thrives on thorough research and strategic insights. Whether you have an opportunity you wish to capitalize on, a challenge you aim to overcome, or aspirations to embrace ambitious concepts, we can guide you in discovering the optimal path forward and then meticulously implement that plan across a range of strategies and services.

You gain a team of results-driven achievers. We are uncompromising when it comes to delivering tangible outcomes. While every channel demands swift testing and refinement (some more than others), we promptly adapt and experiment in alternative areas if we don’t witness substantial, quantifiable progress toward your revenue objectives. Ultimately, we’ll craft the perfect blend of channels that lays the foundation for genuine, sustainable growth.

As a growth marketing agency, we partner with businesses to drive and accelerate their growth through a combination of marketing strategies and tactics. Here’s how our typical process works with clients:

  • Initial Assessment: The process often begins with an in-depth assessment of your current marketing efforts, goals, and challenges. We work closely with you to understand your business, target audience, competitive landscape, and growth objectives.
  • Strategy Development: Based on the assessment, our team will formulate a comprehensive growth marketing strategy. This strategy outlines the overarching plan to achieve your goals, including specific tactics, channels, and timelines. The strategy may encompass various growth focuses, including content marketing, SEO, email marketing, paid media, and performance creative.
  • Implementation: With the strategy in place, we start executing the plan and prioritized list of activities. This can involve creating and optimizing paid campaigns, producing high-quality content, conducting SEO audits, and managing website initiatives, among other tactics. We often utilize a mix of owned, earned, and paid media to reach the target audience.
  • Data Analytics and Tracking: A crucial aspect of growth marketing is data analysis and tracking. We plug into a number of different analytics tools to monitor the performance of marketing campaigns in real-time. This includes tracking website traffic, conversion rates, user engagement, revenue, and more. Data-driven insights help us make informed decisions and optimize campaigns for better results.
  • Continuous Optimization: At Tuff, we often say “growth is a process not an outcome” because it’s truly an iterative process. Our experts will continuously analyze the data and growth marketing metrics to identify areas for improvement. We adjust strategies, refine tactics, and optimize campaigns to maximize ROI and achieve your growth goals. This may involve A/B testing, conversion rate optimization, and other techniques.
  • Scaling: As successful strategies are identified and refined, we focus on scaling up the most effective campaigns and killing anything that isn’t working. This might involve increasing advertising budgets, expanding content production, or targeting new market segments to drive further growth.
  • Reporting and Communication: In addition to integrated Slack channels and weekly meetings, we provide regular reporting and updates on campaign performance, allowing you to track progress and understand the return on their marketing investment. We also work together on monthly recaps and quarterly planning sessions.

Simply speaking, as a growth marketing agency, we’re a strategic partner that leverages a combination of expertise, data analysis, and ongoing optimization to help businesses expand their reach, acquire new customers, and increase revenue. Our focus is on achieving measurable, sustainable growth for their clients.

As a growth marketing agency, we partner with businesses to drive and accelerate their growth through a combination of marketing strategies and tactics. Here’s how our typical process works with clients:

  • Initial Assessment: The process often begins with an in-depth assessment of your current marketing efforts, goals, and challenges. We work closely with you to understand your business, target audience, competitive landscape, and growth objectives.
  • Strategy Development: Based on the assessment, our team will formulate a comprehensive growth marketing strategy. This strategy outlines the overarching plan to achieve your goals, including specific tactics, channels, and timelines. The strategy may encompass various growth focuses, including content marketing, SEO, email marketing, paid media, and performance creative.
  • Implementation: With the strategy in place, we start executing the plan and prioritized list of activities. This can involve creating and optimizing paid campaigns, producing high-quality content, conducting SEO audits, and managing website initiatives, among other tactics. We often utilize a mix of owned, earned, and paid media to reach the target audience.
  • Data Analytics and Tracking: A crucial aspect of growth marketing is data analysis and tracking. We plug into a number of different analytics tools to monitor the performance of marketing campaigns in real-time. This includes tracking website traffic, conversion rates, user engagement, revenue, and more. Data-driven insights help us make informed decisions and optimize campaigns for better results.
  • Continuous Optimization: At Tuff, we often say “growth is a process not an outcome” because it’s truly an iterative process. Our experts will continuously analyze the data and growth marketing metrics to identify areas for improvement. We adjust strategies, refine tactics, and optimize campaigns to maximize ROI and achieve your growth goals. This may involve A/B testing, conversion rate optimization, and other techniques.
  • Scaling: As successful strategies are identified and refined, we focus on scaling up the most effective campaigns and killing anything that isn’t working. This might involve increasing advertising budgets, expanding content production, or targeting new market segments to drive further growth.
  • Reporting and Communication: In addition to integrated Slack channels and weekly meetings, we provide regular reporting and updates on campaign performance, allowing you to track progress and understand the return on their marketing investment. We also work together on monthly recaps and quarterly planning sessions.

Simply speaking, as a growth marketing agency, we’re a strategic partner that leverages a combination of expertise, data analysis, and ongoing optimization to help businesses expand their reach, acquire new customers, and increase revenue. Our focus is on achieving measurable, sustainable growth for their clients.

Many growth marketing agencies typically price from a percentage of the ad spend they manage or a share of the revenue generated by their strategies. Both of these approaches are entirely valid. However, we’ve intentionally designed our pricing model differently: We utilize flat-fee retainers that are determined by the number of services, hours, and team we incorporate simultaneously.

Why did we choose this approach? Growth marketing is inherently unpredictable. Occasionally, even the most skilled growth marketers can anticipate that a combination of PPC, SEO content, and social advertising is the winning formula. Nevertheless, if one of these components fails to meet expectations, it’s not an indication of failure but rather a signal that it’s time to explore new avenues. Our process at Tuff is structured in a way that enables us to seamlessly introduce new services or team members, such as CRO (Conversion Rate Optimization) or creative development, without disruption until we discover the perfect mix for your needs.

The growth marketing metrics that matter most can vary depending on your specific business goals and the stage of your growth journey. However, here are some key growth marketing metrics that we typically focus on when assessing and optimizing performance:

  • Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC): CAC measures the cost of acquiring a new customer. It helps you understand how efficiently you’re spending your marketing budget to bring in new customers. A lower CAC is generally desirable.
  • Customer Lifetime Value (CLV or LTV): CLV represents the total revenue a customer is expected to generate over their entire relationship with your business. It helps you gauge the long-term value of acquiring a customer and can inform decisions about marketing investments.
  • Conversion Rate: Conversion rate measures the percentage of users who take a desired action, such as making a purchase, signing up for a newsletter, or filling out a contact form. Tracking conversion rates at different stages of the customer journey can help identify areas for improvement.
  • Customer Engagement: Metrics like active users, session duration, and user engagement rate can help you understand how engaged your audience is with your product or content. High engagement often correlates with increased customer loyalty and higher CLV.
  • Return on Investment (ROI): ROI measures the profitability of your marketing efforts. It’s calculated by comparing the revenue generated from marketing campaigns to the cost of running those campaigns.
  • Click-Through Rate (CTR): CTR is commonly used for assessing the performance of online advertising campaigns, especially in email marketing and pay-per-click (PPC) advertising. It measures the percentage of people who clicked on a specific link.
  • Traffic Sources: Analyzing the sources of your website traffic (e.g., organic search, paid search, social media) can help you allocate resources effectively and optimize your marketing channels.
  • Lead Generation Metrics: If your growth strategy involves lead generation, metrics like lead conversion rate, lead quality, and the time it takes to convert leads into customers are essential.
  • Marketing Funnel Metrics: Tracking metrics at different stages of your marketing and sales funnel, such as awareness, consideration, and conversion, helps you identify bottlenecks and optimize the customer journey.
  • Cost per Click (CPC) and Cost per Acquisition (CPA): These metrics are particularly relevant for paid advertising campaigns and can help you assess the efficiency of your ad spend.

At the end of the day, the most relevant growth marketing metrics can change as your business evolves and your goals shift. It’s essential to define key performance indicators (KPIs) based on specific objectives and continuously monitor and analyze these metrics to make data-driven decisions that drive sustainable growth.

Hiring a full-time employee can be a valuable choice for many startups and scaleups. However, it has its own set of advantages and disadvantages when compared to bringing in a plug-in growth marketing team. The primary advantage lies in the expertise and dedicated time they bring to your organization. Securing a full-time, savvy marketing professional who can maximize results on a limited budget and seamlessly integrate with your ongoing operations can be a significant asset.

On the flip side, the major drawbacks and risks include the challenge of finding the right fit, the substantial financial investment, and the uncertainty of their adaptability when it’s time to explore strategies beyond their core competencies. In essence, an in-house hire is ideal when you are already confident in the marketing channels that work for your business and simply require someone to refine and expand those 1-2 key channels.

In contrast, when you opt for a growth marketing agency, the predominant advantage is that it typically provides a comprehensive team that can gain a holistic understanding of your business. This team collaborates to determine the most effective course of action and assigns execution tasks to specialists in various marketing channels. With an agency, you often have the flexibility to reallocate resources as you gain insights and move swiftly, leveraging the extensive collective experience of the team.

Case Studies

Proof? We got it.

From big wins out the gate to strategic, measured long-term results, we couldn’t be more excited to talk about our clients’ successes.

Ecommerce SMBs 5 min read

Tackling rising acquisition costs with an ad creative testing framework

1.4M

Increase in Impressions

45%

Increase in CRV

57%+

Increase in Total Sales

$200+

CPA

Ecommerce SMBs 5 min read

Building an inbound pipeline in a new region with account-based marketing principles

189%

Increase in MQLs in 6 months

22%

Decrease in monthly ad spend

38%

Increase in known account engagement in the US

View all case studies

Knowledgebase

Growth Marketing articles on Tuff

Link to: How Performance Creative Generates Bold, Actionable Results for Growth Marketing

How Performance Creative Generates Bold, Actionable Results for Growth Marketing

Link to: 14 Ready-to-Go Growth Marketing Spreadsheets Startups Can Use to Boost Productivity

14 Ready-to-Go Growth Marketing Spreadsheets Startups Can Use to Boost Productivity

Link to: Level up your growth marketing strategies with ChatGPT: how to write AI prompts to get the best results

Level up your growth marketing strategies with ChatGPT: how to write AI prompts to get the best results

Link to: You’re a Startup. Should You Hire a Growth Marketing Agency?

You’re a Startup. Should You Hire a Growth Marketing Agency?

Link to: Growth Marketing: What It Is and Why You Need It

Growth Marketing: What It Is and Why You Need It

Link to: What is a Growth Marketing Agency?

What is a Growth Marketing Agency?

“I view our partnership with Tuff as more like an extension of my team.

We strategize together, ask tough questions, examine the results, optimize – and it just keeps getting better. Exactly what I was looking for.”

Brad Veach
VP of Marketing at Thnks

Our Team

Meet the team = your new Growth Marketing Agency

As your business grows, so does the complexity of hiring the right people. Don’t set your business a year back by hiring the wrong growth marketer. Instead, work with multi-disciplinary executors and grow your business with less hassle and risk.

Ellen Jantsch
Founder + Growth Marketing

Kristin Dick
Operations + Growth Marketing

Hannah Burks
Creative Operations

Richard Meyer
Growth Marketing

Ethan Broder
Growth Marketing

McKenzie Fowler
Growth Marketing

Hannah Davidson
Growth Marketing

Michael Gannon-Pitts
Growth Marketing

Adam Fricke
Creative Strategy

Kelly Rye
Creative Strategy

Katie Magnus
Creative Strategy

Travis Buechner
Motion Design

Jaclyn Cataldi
Content Production + Motion Design

Cole Lemaster
Creative Design

Megan Trusley
Creative Design + Project Mgmt

Adelle Cron
Creative Design

Arturo Hurtado
Web Design

Sean Tremaine
Web Design

Lauren Keene
Copywriting

Derek Coleman
SEO Strategy

Spencer Cappelli
SEO Strategy

Kate Theobald
Social Ads Strategy

Kayla Barry
Social Ads Strategy

Jack DiGregorio
Social Ads Strategy

Emily Newport
Social Ads Strategy

Chris Alarcon
PPC Strategy

Adli Kilic
PPC Strategy

Jesse Nasadowski
PPC Strategy

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