Global Demand Generation at GetAccept | Paid Ads & Growth Advisor | Prove the impact of running LinkedIn Ads by identifying influenced deals and revenue with Fibbler 🦁

Hey! 

I’m Adam. Dad, marketer, and full-time founder.

Right now, I’m building Fibbler, the future of Paid Ads Attribution for SMBs. We’ve grown to 400+ paying customers in our first 20 months, fully bootstrapped.

If you’re into LinkedIn Ads, founder-led growth, brand building, or just want to see me try to build this company without external capital while competing with VC giants, follow along here on LinkedIn.

Adam Holmgren

FIBBLER JUST HIT 500 CUSTOMERS

A year ago we had around 140.

Two regular guys from Sweden building an attribution tool for paid ads in the SMB segment.

Completely self-serve and 60% of our customer base is in the US at this point.

For a long time our entire go-to-market was me posting on LinkedIn and running thought leader ads.

And it worked.

But it also meant that every time a post flopped, I could see the numbers dip. 

Every week where I didn’t have a good content idea felt like I was letting the company down.

So late 2025 into early 2026 we started layering on new tactics. 

YouTube. SEO. Creator programs. Outbound emails.

For the first time growth isn’t just tied to me being in the feed every day. I can’t describe how much lighter that feels.

The other thing we didn’t expect: companies with 100-250 employees are now our fastest growing segment.

We built Fibbler for individual marketers like myself. The person who just wants to swipe their card and prove that paid ads actually work at their startup.

Turns out the same problem exists at larger SMBs too. They just didn’t have an alternative between “do it manually in spreadsheets” and “pay five to six figures for an enterprise tool.”

So now we’re at 500 paying customers.

Still two full-time employees.
Still fully bootstrapped.
Still working from a small town in Sweden.

We have a very clear vision of where we want to take this. 

To build the future of paid ads attribution for SMBs.

And honestly, this is the most fun I've ever had at work. 

P.S.

Fibbler shows you which companies actually view or engage with your LinkedIn and Google Ads, ties them to pipeline and revenue in your CRM, and alerts sales when it’s time to reach out. Try it free for 30 days at https://www.fibbler.co/.

Co-founder & CEO at Fibbler | Building the future of Paid Ads Attribution for SMBs | 10+ years in B2B marketing

I’ve never sat in business class in my life.

When you’re bootstrapping a company you just don’t. You book the cheapest flight and move on.

But on our flight to New York yesterday, my co-founder surprised me with an upgrade.

We’ve grown MRR 30% since January 1st and have more than 500 customers now. 

His way of saying we should celebrate a little.

But here’s what I find interesting.

If I look at how those customers actually found us, almost none of them follow a clean attribution path.

𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗮𝗰𝘁𝘂𝗮𝗹𝗹𝘆 𝗵𝗮𝗽𝗽𝗲𝗻𝘀 𝗹𝗼𝗼𝗸𝘀 𝗺𝗼𝗿𝗲 𝗹𝗶𝗸𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝘀:

They see one of my posts while scrolling during lunch but don’t engage → A week later they catch an ad but don’t click → A peer mentions they use us for attribution → They check our company page on LinkedIn and leave → A month goes by, they see more ads, and then one day the pain gets real enough → They Google “fibbler,” land on our site, and sign up.

CRM says: organic search.

Reality: tons of touchpoints over weeks that we’ll never fully track. 

This is the part most B2B marketers still get wrong.

Buyers don’t move in a straight line, they bounce around, and slowly build trust until the timing is right.

So yes, CTR matters.

It’s a strong signal for how engaging and memorable your creative is.

But the real goal with LinkedIn Ads isn’t just engagement.

It's about reaching as many potential buyers as possible at a healthy frequency, and staying in front of them until the timing is right.

P.S.

Fibbler shows you which companies actually view or engage with your LinkedIn and Google Ads, ties them to pipeline and revenue in your CRM, and alerts sales when it’s time to reach out. Try it free for 30 days at https://www.fibbler.co/.

I hit 30,000 followers yesterday and I still don’t fully know how, but I think it comes down to one early decision.

About 4 years ago I started posting on LinkedIn with no real plan, just sharing what I was learning in demand gen.

Over time, people actually started paying attention and it opened doors to interviewing some of the smartest marketers in the world on my own podcast.

And that’s when I made the decision that changed everything.

I decided what I wanted to be known for.

I had a deep passion for paid ads and I felt like so many people had the completely wrong idea about what advertising is actually for.

Everyone was obsessing over clicks and conversions when the real job of ads is to build really strong brands.

So that became my thing. 

I talked about it every single week and never stopped.

My narrative shifted over the years, but when I started building Fibbler, everything clicked. 

Suddenly I wasn’t just talking about it, I was building the product to prove it.

And now here I am, 30,000 followers later, sitting in a pool of pink lions because apparently that’s what my life has become.

If you’re trying to build a personal brand on this platform, here’s my biggest tip: find your narrative and talk about it every single week. 

That’s it.

I found the cheat code for being memorable at events, and it’s not caps, hoodies, plushies, or branded board games.

Look down at anyone’s feet at these things. 

It all looks the same.

So I reached out to this great shoe artist and got these made.

Custom Pink Lion Air Max 1s.

If you don’t know, the pink lion is Fibbler’s mascot. It’s on our clothes and ad creatives. 

Now it’s on my feet.

This afternoon I’m taking the stage at LinkedIn’s yearly Partner Connect.

Once a year LinkedIn brings together their official marketing partners. It’s the room I most want to be remembered in.

I’m talking about what I’m seeing from SMB marketers on buyer journeys, measurement and attribution.

But honestly? I want people to remember the shoes first. 😬

They’ll give me that extra bit of confidence up there.

And maybe, just maybe, a few more people will remember me after.

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It's 4:30am in a hotel room in San Francisco and jetlag has me wide awake. So I'm building a feature I can't believe I didn't think of myself.

Last week Patrick Cumming sent me a simple idea that hit me hard.

"You should build something where you can compare LinkedIn influenced deals versus deals that weren't touched by LinkedIn."

I just sat there.

We've been building Fibbler for almost two years. 

How did I not think of this before.

Because this is the one thing every marketer struggles with. 

You can show reach. 
You can show engagement. 
You can even show impact on pipeline.

But when your CEO asks "would these deals have closed without LinkedIn?" 

You have nothing.

So that's what I've been building these early mornings.

A lift analysis that compares deals touched by LinkedIn versus deals that weren't:
→ Close rates 
→ Sales cycle length 
→ Deal sizes

Side by side.

Is it proof that LinkedIn caused the deal? No. 

But when LinkedIn touched deals close 18% faster and are 30% larger? That's not something you just ignore.

Sometimes you're so deep in your own product that it takes one message from someone else to see the obvious.

P.S. 

Fibbler now lets you compare LinkedIn-touched deals vs. untouched ones, side by side, so you can finally show your CEO the real lift on close rates, deal size, and sales cycle length. Try it free for 30 days at https://www.fibbler.co/

We spent $80,000 on LinkedIn Ads over the last 12 months. That’s roughly 10% of our ARR as a bootstrapped startup.

Not to chase form fills.
Not to distribute gated content.

But to become the brand people think of when they think LinkedIn Ads attribution.

Last year I shared what I learned spending $27k. We tripled that over the last 12 months.

This is what our strategy looks like now:​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

1️⃣ Engagement benchmarks above everything

We hold ourselves to two numbers:
1%+ CTR on image ads
10%+ CTR on Thought Leader Ads

If we're below that, the creative is not good enough. These benchmarks force us to make ads that make people actually feel something.

2️⃣ 70% of our budget goes to Thought Leader Ads

TLAs let me amplify organic content that's already performing well and push it far outside my network. And when you're a founder building in public, TLAs are the closest thing to a cheat code on LinkedIn.

3️⃣ Build your retargeting pool like it's your most valuable asset

We now have around 10,000 people in our ICP retargeting pool. We keep ad penetration above 75%, so we’re reaching nearly everyone who’s already shown interest, with a frequency around 3-4 excluding text ads over a 30-day window.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

4️⃣ Brand compounds. And eventually the numbers prove it.

The hardest part of spending $80k on awareness is explaining it to yourself or your executive team. 

But here’s what happened over 12 months for us:

Branded search: 1,500 to 3,000 per month
Signups: 150 to 400+ per month
ARR: $120k to $660k

You can’t attribute this to a single campaign, but look at the trend and tell me it’s not working

What's next?

✅ We're building an outbound motion based on ad engagers (using Fibbler)
✅ We're also running more TLAs featuring customers and creators

And one last thing.

Last year I said we'd double our budget. We tripled it.

LinkedIn Ads work for all kinds of startups, included bootstrapped ones.

But only if you treat it as a long game, hold yourself to high creative standards, and be willing to put a decent sum of money on it.

P.S.

Fibbler shows you which companies actually view or engage with your LI Ads, ties them to pipeline and revenue in your CRM, and alerts sales when it’s time to reach out. Try it free for 30 days at https://www.fibbler.co/

Five years ago I attended my first SaaSiest event, and now we’re there as a vendor with Fibbler, a real full-circle moment.

Let me back up to that first event.

I was working in-house as a B2B marketer and honestly didn't know what to expect.

I'd been to plenty of events before where you sit through sessions that sound great on paper but turn out to be theoretical fluff. 

And then everyone awkwardly stands around during the breaks.

SaaSiest was different.

The sessions were actually practical and useful. 

But more importantly the vibe was just different.

People genuinely wanted to talk to each other. Not in a forced way but in a "hey, what are you working on?" kind of way.

And for someone like me who is a bit of an introvert, that was a big deal.

People actually came up to talk.

I've been to pretty much every SaaSiest since then.

And every time I left with new connections and that feeling of being around people who are building stuff and figuring it out as they go.

Fast forward to now. 

On May 5-6th we're joining our first ever event as a vendor at SaaSiest, and me and our pink lion Fibbs couldn't be more excited.

From 5x attendee to vendor with my own company. 

That's a full-circle moment I didn't see coming five years ago. 🥹

I spent the last 10 years in startup marketing and I've never seen things shift this fast. And most companies won't adapt fast enough.

We grew Fibbler to 400+ paying customers in 20 months. 

And almost everything I learned along the way goes against what most B2B companies are doing right now.

1. Brand is your only moat

There are 200,000+ SaaS companies right now. Features get copied overnight. The reason people pick Fibbler over tools with way more features than us? A pink lion they cant stop seeing in their feed.

2. Go deep on one channel before you try to be everywhere

We only focused on LinkedIn. One channel. Made it easy to see what was working and to do it really well.

3. Your CRM is lying to you

It says a deal came from "organic search" but in reality that company saw your content 500 times before they ever Googled you. You're giving credit to the wrong channels and killing the stuff that actually works.

4. Founder-led growth has a ceiling

I had 25,000 followers on LinkedIn before we even launched. Got us to 50 paying customers fast. But if your company brand don’t start growing you will eventually plateau.

I break all of this down way deeper in the full YouTube video including what to actually do about each one.👇

Teaching my son to ski while answering support tickets from the mountain. That’s my life right now and I love it so much.

I have two beautiful kids (4 and 2) who are finally sleeping through the night and actually listening to their parents (kind of..)

A partner who is my best friend and everything I could have wished for in someone to build a family with.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

And a co-founder who is also a true friend, building something in a space I’m so passionate about, seeing results we couldn’t have dreamed of when we started.

But all that aside, there are times that get really intense.

The last 3 weeks have been totally crazy.

1 week in San Francisco hanging out with some awesome people at LinkedIn’s HQ and meeting customers.

Then 1 week skiing with the family in Sweden.

And next week is another week away, this time NYC for LinkedIn’s yearly partner event and meeting customers.

At the same time, my day-to-day at Fibbler is busier than ever.

More support, more demos, more campaigns.

And naturally, this gets harder and harder when you’re moving through different timezones..

And we’re trying to launch our biggest feature to date, adding Google Ads as our second paid channel.

But I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Living the startup dream right now. 

And it’s more intense than anything I’ve ever done.

𝗧𝗵𝗿𝗲𝗲 𝘆𝗲𝗮𝗿𝘀 𝗮𝗴𝗼 𝗜 𝗵𝗮𝗱 𝗮𝗻 𝗶𝗱𝗲𝗮:​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​ Build a product for startup marketers who want to know if their LinkedIn Ads actually drive revenue.

I’d spent 10 years as an in-house B2B marketer and I knew the pain. 

Every month end was the same conversation: “We think LinkedIn is working but we can’t really prove it.” 

My friend Adam Hartsner said yes before I even finished the pitch. 

We split it 50/50 and started building from a small town in southern Sweden.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

Population: not many.

The first version was bad. And it took us 8-10 months to get it out the door (this was before AI coding…)

But 50 people from my LinkedIn network signed up and paid anyway.

Fast forward to now and things look a little different.

We just got back from NYC where I was on stage at LinkedIn’s Partner Connect event. 

One guy from a small town in southern Sweden, sharing the stage with companies 15x our size, talking about B2B measurement and the future of attribution.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

But honestly one of the best parts of that trip was hanging out with the teams from Dreamdata, Factors, and Channel99. 

And instead of it being weird or competitive we had a blast. 

Talking about where the market is going, comparing roadmaps, sharing what we’re learning.

Also, before NYC I was in San Francisco for a LinkedIn Live production about founder-led growth (check it out if you haven’t seen it).

Got to share our story of growing Fibbler without any funding, using primarily LinkedIn.

I keep having these moments where I look over at Adam and think… how is this actually our life?

We have 500+ customers at this point and get to travel the world with LinkedIn to meet marketers just like myself.

The thing nobody tells you about building a software company is that the early days feel mostly horrible. 

Everything breaks constantly and you need to literally put in all of your time fixing it.

But now we finally have a stable product and I can’t wait to see where we go in 2026 after launching additional ad channels, MCP servers and audience building capabilities.

One year ago I started putting our mascot into popular memes and running them as LinkedIn Ads. Still our best-performing creative format ever.

And I’m sharing our exact process because nobody else is doing this and they should be.

It started as a dumb experiment. 

I wanted to see if anyone would actually engage with something that felt more internet than LinkedIn and still remember our brand from it.

Here’s how we build them for Fibbler: 

𝐒𝐭𝐞𝐩 𝟏 𝐢𝐬 𝐟𝐢𝐧𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐫𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 𝐬𝐢𝐭𝐮𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

Not just any meme. I’m specifically looking for scenarios that capture the relationship between a B2B marketer and their exec team. 

When you nail that dynamic in a meme format people stop scrolling because they see themselves in it.

𝐒𝐭𝐞𝐩 𝟐 𝐢𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐦𝐞𝐦𝐞 𝐡𝐚𝐬 𝐭𝐨 𝐛𝐞 𝐫𝐞𝐜𝐨𝐠𝐧𝐢𝐳𝐚𝐛𝐥𝐞​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

If people have to think about what they’re looking at you’ve already lost them. It needs to be something they’ve seen a hundred times. The familiarity is half the joke. 

But here’s the real win: they already know the meme, so now they attach our brand to that situation. That’s memorability you can’t buy with a standard ad format.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

𝐒𝐭𝐞𝐩 𝟑 𝐢𝐬 𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐢𝐭 𝐭𝐨 𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐝𝐞𝐬𝐢𝐠𝐧𝐞𝐫​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

He uses a mix of AI tools to edit our pink lion mascot smoothly into the scene. We also tweak the meme enough that it’s not a direct copy of the original. It needs to feel native, not slapped on.

𝐒𝐭𝐞𝐩 𝟒 𝐢𝐬 𝐝𝐞𝐜𝐢𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐰𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞 𝐢𝐭 𝐠𝐨𝐞𝐬​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

Cold audience ads focus on proving your ads are actually working and how hard that can be to argue for.

Retargeting ads poke fun at spending a fortune on attribution tools when you don’t have to (by that point people already know who we are so we can just lean into the joke.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​).

The creative I’m attaching to this post might be our best one yet. 

Genuinely think it’s going to be our highest performer.

If you’re running LinkedIn Ads and you have a mascot, try this. 

You can thank me later.

I used to think outbound was just buying a list, blasting emails, and hoping someone replies. Turns out… there's a bit more to it 😅

With Fibbler, we've grown to 450+ customers through inbound. LinkedIn content, LinkedIn Ads, word of mouth, community.

But outbound? I've just avoided it.

Not because I didn't believe in it.

But because most outbound I've seen in B2B is terrible: "I noticed you breathe oxygen, thought we should connect."

I didn't want Fibbler to be that.

So when I finally decided to take outbound seriously, I wanted to do it differently.

We're now working with Kiin.co - Linkedin Ads Agency and Philip Ilic to build a real outbound engine. 

And the strategy already has me excited.

𝐖𝐞'𝐫𝐞 𝐫𝐮𝐧𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐡𝐫𝐞𝐞 𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐥𝐞𝐬:

1. Cold outbound to companies running LinkedIn Ads

Marketing teams spending money on LinkedIn but most likely have zero visibility into how it connects to pipeline and revenue. We reach out, show them the gap, and make it hard to ignore. Subject lines like "[CEO name] thinks your ads don't work."

2. Warm outbound using Fibbler on ourselves

My favorite one (surprise...). We use our own product to find companies that have already engaged with our LinkedIn ads. Send them to Clay, enrich with ICP contacts, and email them. In the email, we tell them exactly how we found them. The outreach IS the product demo. They experience the value before they even reply.

3. Fully automated signals-based outbound
Someone visits our website. Likes one of my LinkedIn posts. Leaves a comment. That signal fires, the lead gets automatically enriched, and a personalized email goes out. 

The cool part is that angle 2 is powered by our own product.

So every outbound email we send is basically proof that Fibbler works.

The outreach itself becomes the case study.

That's what I always wanted outbound to feel like. Just showing people what's possible with their own data.

We're just getting started so I don't have results yet.

But I'll keep you posted on everything.

Open rates, reply rates, meetings booked. All of it.

Doing it all in public, as usual!

I’m not a positioning expert at all. But launching my own startup forced me to be ruthlessly clear about what we do and who it’s for.

And what a journey it has been.

Fibbler started out as a “Revenue Attribution platform for LinkedIn Ads.”

And honestly, it was pretty laughable to call what we had in the beginning a platform.

So we made it simpler.

It became a “LinkedIn Ads Attribution tool.”

Clear in terms of what we do. 
Clear in how we could help marketers.

But still very unclear on who we were doing this for.

Our pricing said SMB. But bigger companies kept knocking on our door with security assessments that took weeks for us to fill out.

So we got even clearer.

We became “LinkedIn Ads Attribution for SMBs.”

And that’s where the real unlock happened.

Inbound grew massively in the right segment. Activation numbers followed. Marketers could connect in seconds and get value in minutes.

Now it’s time for the next stage.

We’re adding multiple ad channels to Fibbler to support marketers across all their paid investments, starting with Google Ads.

It’s getting closer and closer to what I dreamt of having when I was an in-house marketer for 10 years.

And our positioning needs to shift slightly to reflect that (in reality, we’ve already been doing this quietly over the past few months).​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

We’re building the future of Paid Ads Attribution for SMBs.

And I’ve never been more pumped for anything in my professional career than to see where we’ll be at the end of this year.

P.S. Just landed back home after a fantastic week in San Francisco. I’ve never seen so many AI billboards that say absolutely nothing!

I’ve looked at hundreds of LinkedIn Ad accounts over the last few years. The same mistakes show up almost every time.

Default bidding that burns through budget. Audience Expansion turned on.
Demo ads running to people in cold.

And then the conclusion is always: 

LinkedIn Ads are too expensive.

They’re not. They’re just unforgiving if you don’t know the settings that actually matter.

Here’s what I cover in the episode:

1️⃣ Structure your campaigns in layers

Your audience isn’t going to buy the first time they see you. I structure everything into three layers: cold (just get on their radar), retargeting (connect your product to the problem), and high-intent (the only place you earn the right to ask for the next step). Most companies skip straight to layer three and wonder why nobody converts.

2️⃣ LinkedIn’s default settings are designed to spend your money faster

Maximum delivery bidding, Audience Network, Audience Expansion… all on by default. All should be off. I recommend starting with manual bidding at one-third of LinkedIn’s recommended bid and usually get the same results at roughly 20% lower cost.

3️⃣ Small targeting mistakes quietly drain your budget

LinkedIn groups job titles loosely. You target marketing titles and suddenly office administrators are seeing your ads. I use three filters (company size, industry, job titles), and check demographics every week week to exclude titles that doesn’t fit.

4️⃣ Clicks only tell you 0.4% of the story

Someone sees your ad 20 times over a few months, Googles your brand, and books a demo. Last-click attribution gives LinkedIn zero credit for that. You end up cutting the campaigns that are actually filling your pipeline because you can’t see the full picture.

I just dropped a quick tutorial on YouTube walking through the full campaign setup from scratch. Targeting, bidding, formats, and how to measure what’s actually driving pipeline.

Whether you’re spending $20/day or $1000/day, this should save you a lot of wasted budget.

Most CMOs don’t cut paid ads because the channel failed. They do it because they never understood what advertising is for.

I keep seeing the same story play out. 

In surveys. In LinkedIn posts. In comments.

"We're cutting paid ads because it's not giving us results."

And it always goes the same way...

A marketing team launches ads. A few weeks go by. The team looks at the numbers and the leads aren't qualified enough. Or there aren't enough of them. Budget gets slashed.

But here's what nobody talks about.

If your main complaint is "we're not getting enough leads from our ads" that's rarely the channel's fault.

It's usually a combination of how you think about the purpose of advertising and how well you actually execute it.

Advertising builds familiarity. 

It makes your brand the obvious choice before a buying committee even starts to evaluate options.

Advertising isn't a gumball machine. 

You don't put a dollar in and get a qualified lead out.

The companies that understand this are seeing compounding returns.

Better win rates. 
Shorter sales cycles. 

Because their buyers already knew them before the first call.

The companies that don't will keep chasing the next channel hoping it's the magic gumball machine they've been looking for.

The problem was never the channel.

The problem is fundamentally misunderstanding what advertising is supposed to do for you.

P.S. Fibbs didn't take this post too well. Luckily, we're heading to SF today to take his mind off it... ✈️

Everyone who follows me knows I’m a LinkedIn Ads guy. What most people don’t know is that I’ve been just as deep in Google Ads.

Several years ago at a previous startup, I got Canberk Beker to audit our Google Ads accounts. 

If you don’t know him, he’s one of the best paid search minds in the B2B space. 

That audit was a proper education. 

I learned more in those sessions than in years of running it myself.

Main learning… 

Most B2B companies are wasting at least half their Google Ads budget.

The first place budget dies is default settings. 

As an example, when you create a new Google Ads campaign, Search Partners and Display Network are both turned on automatically. 

Your search budget quietly bleeds into banner ads and random third-party sites.

The second problem is structure. 

The best B2B accounts run distinct campaign layers, each with its own budget and intent level. And don’t even get me started on broad match…

The third problem is tracking. 

Most teams optimize for clicks, which just teaches Google to find volume. Feed it offline data from your CRM instead, and the whole platform starts working differently.

I put everything I know into a new YouTube episode. 

The full strategy I’d run today for Google Ads, from account setup to bidding phases to the tracking mistakes most teams never fix.

You know those outbound emails where someone spent 4 seconds on your LinkedIn before hitting send? When we launched ours, something weird happened. 𝗣𝗲𝗼𝗽𝗹𝗲 𝗹𝗶𝗸𝗲𝗱 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗺.

Let me back up.

Last year customers started using Fibbler's ad engagement as part of their intent data layer for outreach. A use case I never thought about.

And as a bootstrapped founder doing a little bit of everything, I didn't have time to explore it.

So I partnered with Philip Ilic and his agency Kiin.co - Linkedin Ads Agency to launch our own outbound motion 2 weeks ago.

They build the infrastructure and automations. 

I create the content.

Because that's the part most people skip. 

They obsess over the tech stack and the automation. 

I obsess over writing emails people actually want to read. 

Two weeks in, we've activated two layers:

𝗟𝗮𝘆𝗲𝗿 𝟭: Cold emails to ICP buyers with similar targeting as our LinkedIn Ads. Companies between 10-250 employees already spending some money on LinkedIn Ads.

𝗟𝗮𝘆𝗲𝗿 𝟮: Warm emails to our own ad engagers using Fibbler to push engagement data from our Thought Leader Ads into Clay, then enriching for ICP contacts.

The best signal so far? The replies. 

People are writing back that even though they might not be interested they loved the content. And that warms a marketers heart. 🫶

And we've already seen a couple of direct signups too.

𝗟𝗮𝘆𝗲𝗿 𝟯 𝗶𝘀 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘀𝗼𝗼𝗻: warm emails triggered by website visits, organic post engagement, recently promoted marketing leaders, and other intent signals.

Turns out people don't hate outbound. 

They just hate lazy outbound.

A few months ago I searched for "best linkedin attribution tool" on ChatGPT and Google. Fibbler wasn't mentioned anywhere.

I'd spent 15 months growing Fibbler almost entirely through LinkedIn. 

My posts, our ads, building a community around what we do. And it worked really well. Branded search traffic had been growing 100% over the past year.

But non-branded organic traffic growth was basically zero.

And I realized that would become a real problem if we wanted to scale. 

Because more and more B2B buyers are asking LLMs things like "what are the best LinkedIn attribution tools" or "what are the alternatives to HockeyStack."

And if you're not showing up in those results, you're missing out on buyers that are already in-market.

So I reached out to Sam and the team at Breaking B2B to help us build an SEO and AI search program from scratch.

The whole approach was the opposite of what I expected. 

We ignored the big high-volume keywords completely. Instead we went after searches that barely have any volume but where the person searching is ready to buy right now.

We've been running this for about three months now and our content breaks down into three layers:

𝗟𝗮𝘆𝗲𝗿 𝟭: Owned listicle content. Alternatives pages, comparison articles. Honest breakdowns where we show where Fibbler wins and where we're not the right fit. I've used most of these tools myself over the years so I know where the real differences are. These pages started ranking within days.

𝗟𝗮𝘆𝗲𝗿 𝟮: Integration and use-case content. Pages like "how to integrate LinkedIn Ads with HubSpot" or "LinkedIn Ads Clay integration." Tiny search volume but the people searching have a very specific problem that Fibbler solves.

𝗟𝗮𝘆𝗲𝗿 𝟯: External placements and backlinks. Getting Fibbler mentioned in other people's comparison articles that already rank on Google or get cited by AI tools. Plus earning niche relevant backlinks to boost our own pages.

Three months in, non-branded traffic is up over 200%. Our listicle pages convert at around 9%. And most importantly, it's driving real signups and we're showing up on important topics in LLMs.

I spent 15 months convinced that LinkedIn was the only channel I needed.

Turns out you can build a brand that people love but still can't find in LLMs.

And that's a very expensive blind spot.

Connecting Startups & Scaleups with Marketers that fuel business growth| Talk to me about Talent Acquisition, Candidate Experience, Market Insight, Job Searching, D&I, Headhunting, Career Progression

I don’t just “send CVs.”
I help founders, CEOs and CMOs hire marketers who actually move the needle and help great marketers land where they can do their best work.

I’ve seen the cost of getting it wrong: wasted spend, stalled growth, burned-out teams.
And the upside of getting it right: pipeline compounding, CAC improving, careers taking off.

I’ll challenge the brief, push back when it’s vague, and fix broken processes.
From CAC payback to PLG and ABM, I speak marketing so you don’t hire a unicorn JD for £35k or a “Head of Everything.”

If you want bums-on-seats, I’m not your person.
If you want the right marketer, right now let’s talk: sinead.willis@propellondon.com | +44 7858 425 481

𝐅𝐨𝐫 𝐂𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐢𝐝𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐬
I speak to marketers all day, every day from first hires to VPs. 
Most are leaving because they’re underpaid, undervalued, or stuck proving their worth to people who don’t get marketing.

If that’s you, you’re in the right place.
I’ll help you benchmark your value, prep for interviews, and get clear on where you’ll actually thrive, not just survive.

My inbox is open whether you’re actively looking or just need to sense-check your next move.
No fluff. Just honesty and strategy.

𝐅𝐨𝐫 𝐄𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐲𝐨𝐧𝐞 𝗪𝐡𝐨 𝐅𝐨𝐥𝐥𝐨𝐰𝐬 𝐌𝐲 𝐂𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐭
I’m not here to sugar-coat the market.
I’m here to say what everyone in marketing is already thinking > out loud.

The overworked “one-person marketing team.”
The £35k “Head of Growth.”
The Marketing Directors that a parachuted in to fix everything that's broken.
The “we want creativity but here’s our template” brief.
The marketers that are sick of hearing, just make us go viral and just put something on LinkedIn.

I write about it all.
Real stories, real data, and the real state of hiring in 2025.
If you want insight without the corporate spin and you care about better work, better leadership, and better marketing, and you also want to laugh along the way, then hit Follow.

Much love x

Sinead Willis

Last week I shared a candidate for a VP Marketing role.⁣ They met him for a first stage at 1pm. ⁣Then they scheduled his second and final stage to take place that same day.
⁣
They called him that afternoon and offered him the role.⁣
He accepted.⁣
He started Monday.⁣
⁣
One day.⁣
Interviews done.⁣
Offer out.⁣
VP Marketing hired.⁣
⁣
There is no reason recruitment can’t look like this.⁣
⁣
No six-week process.⁣
No endless hoops.⁣
⁣
There is genuinely no reason recruitment can’t look like this more often.⁣
⁣
When everyone knows what they’re hiring for,⁣
respects people’s time,⁣
and trusts their judgement,⁣
⁣
hiring moves fast.⁣
⁣
And everyone wins.⁣
⁣
Congratulations Sebastian Gutierrez 😀, excited to see the impact you have Mapal Group!!

Sinead Willis 

The Marketing Recruiter | I help Tech Startups & Scaleups build marketing teams that actually drive growth | Mentor, advocate, ally for my audience.

A Marketing Director said something to me recently "The hardest part of my job isn't the strategy. It's doing the strategy while also defending the need for strategy."

Every single week she's in rooms explaining why marketing isn't just execution. 
Why brand isn't a nice to have. 
Why you can't measure everything in a 30 day window. 
Why cutting the budget in Q1 will hurt the pipeline in Q3.

She's not doing this once.
She's doing it on a loop.
While also trying to actually do her job.
And she's up there with the best marketing leaders I know.

Imagine what you could do if you were able to spend the energy on the work instead of justifying the work.

If your Marketing leader is spending more time defending marketing than doing it
That's not a marketing problem.

That's a leadership alignment problem.
And it will cost you more than you realise.

I spoke to a VP Marketing who just started a new role and she looked a million times happier since I saw her last.⁣⁣ She’d gone from being “bloody miserable”  ( her own words😅) to genuinely happy.⁣⁣ Here is what she said had changed: 
⁣⁣
The dynamic at the top.⁣⁣
⁣⁣
She said sales aren’t dictating.⁣⁣
They’re collaborating.⁣⁣
⁣⁣
She’s not defending marketing.⁣⁣
She’s building with it.⁣⁣
⁣⁣
And if you’ve ever sat in those meetings, you know the difference.⁣⁣
⁣⁣
No subtle power plays.⁣⁣
No performative pipeline pressure.⁣⁣
No being talked over when targets are missed.⁣⁣
No “marketing needs to fix this” energy.⁣⁣
⁣⁣
Just shared ownership of the number.⁣⁣
⁣⁣
Similar commercial pressure.⁣⁣
Still ambitious targets.⁣⁣
⁣⁣
But the tone she said is completely different.⁣⁣
⁣⁣
In her previous role, she was constantly bracing herself.⁣⁣
Preparing to justify.⁣⁣
Navigating ego.⁣⁣
⁣⁣
In this one, she’s focused on growth.⁣⁣
⁣⁣
That shift from defence to delivery changes everything.⁣⁣
⁣⁣
We don’t talk enough about how much leadership dynamics impact happiness at senior level.⁣⁣
⁣⁣
It’s not always the workload.⁣⁣
⁣⁣
It’s the power balance.⁣⁣
⁣⁣
And when that balance is healthy, you feel it immediately.⁣⁣
⁣⁣
If you’re currently feeling drained in a senior role, ask yourself:⁣⁣
⁣⁣
Is it the job…⁣⁣
⁣⁣
Or is it the dynamic?

There's a type of company that's very easy to spot.
They've had four marketing leaders in five years.

Every time one leaves, the narrative is the same.

"Wasn't the right cultural fit." "just not what we needed at this stage." "We've learned a lot about what we're looking for."

And then they hire again.
Same brief. Same structure. Same dynamic at the top.
And wonder why the outcome keeps repeating.

I've said it before and I'll keep saying it:

If the story always ends the same way, the problem isn't the characters.
It's the script.

No marketing leader however talented can thrive in a system designed to fail.

Before you open the next brief, ask the harder question.
What are we going to do differently this time?

Because if the answer is "find another person"
You already know how this one ends.

It’s amazing how often talent isn’t the issue in marketing.⁣ The environment is.⁣
⁣
Shifting goalposts.⁣
Twelve priorities at once.⁣
No clear north star.⁣
Data used selectively.⁣
Trust withheld.⁣
Budgets cut mid-campaign.
Every idea marked “urgent.”
⁣
Even exceptional marketers struggle there.⁣
⁣
Before you blame the person, look at the conditions.⁣

Have you created an environment where good marketing can actually work?

Because more often than not, it isn’t the talent that’s broken.
It’s the system around them.

I spoke to a CMO last week who’d just stepped into a growth-stage business that was ready to deploy £7M into marketing because leadership believed they were primed to scale. Her audit revealed they were nowhere close. Here's what she found:
⁣⁣
They were still measuring last-click CPA. Not CAC.⁣⁣
𝘛𝘩𝘦𝘺 𝘬𝘯𝘦𝘸 𝘸𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘪𝘵 𝘤𝘰𝘴𝘵 𝘵𝘰 𝘨𝘦𝘯𝘦𝘳𝘢𝘵𝘦 𝘢 𝘭𝘦𝘢𝘥.⁣⁣
𝘛𝘩𝘦𝘺 𝘩𝘢𝘥 𝘯𝘰 𝘪𝘥𝘦𝘢 𝘸𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘪𝘵 𝘤𝘰𝘴𝘵 𝘵𝘰 𝘢𝘤𝘲𝘶𝘪𝘳𝘦 𝘢 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘧𝘪𝘵𝘢𝘣𝘭𝘦 𝘤𝘶𝘴𝘵𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘳.⁣⁣
⁣⁣
No cohort analysis.⁣⁣
𝘛𝘩𝘦𝘺 𝘤𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥𝘯’𝘵 𝘴𝘦𝘦 𝘸𝘩𝘪𝘤𝘩 𝘤𝘶𝘴𝘵𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘳𝘴 𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘺𝘦𝘥, 𝘸𝘩𝘪𝘤𝘩 𝘤𝘩𝘶𝘳𝘯𝘦𝘥, 𝘰𝘳 𝘸𝘩𝘺.⁣⁣
⁣⁣
No clear ARPU.⁣⁣
𝘛𝘩𝘦𝘺 𝘥𝘪𝘥𝘯’𝘵 𝘬𝘯𝘰𝘸 𝘩𝘰𝘸 𝘮𝘶𝘤𝘩 𝘳𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘯𝘶𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘢𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘢𝘨𝘦 𝘤𝘶𝘴𝘵𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘳 𝘢𝘤𝘵𝘶𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘺 𝘨𝘦𝘯𝘦𝘳𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘥.⁣⁣
⁣⁣
Majority of the users had never transacted.⁣⁣
𝘔𝘰𝘴𝘵 𝘱𝘦𝘰𝘱𝘭𝘦 𝘸𝘩𝘰 𝘴𝘪𝘨𝘯𝘦𝘥 𝘶𝘱 𝘯𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳 𝘣𝘰𝘶𝘨𝘩𝘵 𝘢𝘯𝘺𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨.⁣⁣
⁣⁣
A small % of customers were driving the majority of revenue.⁣⁣
𝘈 𝘧𝘳𝘢𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘰𝘧 𝘤𝘶𝘴𝘵𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘳𝘴 𝘸𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘤𝘢𝘳𝘳𝘺𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘣𝘶𝘴𝘪𝘯𝘦𝘴𝘴.⁣⁣
⁣⁣
And they were gearing up to scale.⁣⁣
⁣⁣
They weren’t even ready to survive.⁣⁣
⁣⁣
𝐓𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐢𝐬 𝐰𝐡𝐲 𝐈’𝐥𝐥 𝐤𝐞𝐞𝐩 𝐬𝐚𝐲𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐢𝐭:⁣⁣
⁣⁣
Investing in senior marketing leadership is not about more campaigns.⁣ It’s about commercial reality.⁣⁣
⁣⁣
It’s about knowing whether growth will multiply profit… or problems.⁣⁣
⁣⁣
Too many businesses think they have a growth problem.⁣⁣
⁣⁣
What they actually have is a fundamentals problem.⁣⁣
⁣⁣
Throwing £6M at broken foundations doesn’t fix them.⁣⁣
⁣⁣
It exposes them.⁣⁣
⁣⁣
Before you scale, you need clarity.⁣⁣
⁣⁣
𝐘𝐨𝐮 𝐧𝐞𝐞𝐝 𝐭𝐨 𝐮𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐧𝐝:⁣⁣
⁣⁣
Who makes you money.⁣⁣
Why they stay.⁣⁣
Why others don’t.⁣⁣
⁣⁣
That level of clarity doesn’t come from a dashboard.⁣⁣
⁣⁣
It comes from experience.

Hiring managers say they want marketers who’ve “been in the weeds.”⁣
⁣
But the moment they see a messy CV,⁣
it’s filtered out.⁣
⁣
Funny, that.⁣
⁣
Because that’s exactly what the weeds look like.⁣
Messy.⁣
Unclear.⁣
Hard-earned.⁣
⁣
The muddy jeans tell you who’s done the fixing, the testing, the figuring it out without a playbook.⁣
⁣
I’ll take the muddy jeans every time.

VPs and CMOs are not just hiring for marketing ability right now.⁣ ⁣They’re hiring for communication skills.⁣ It’s one of the biggest differentiators I’m seeing in mid - senior marketing hires.⁣
⁣
Because most marketing leaders have already lived through:⁣
⁣
Shifting goalposts.⁣
Budget cuts mid-quarter.⁣
Board pressure.⁣
Founders with a new “urgent” idea every week.⁣
Being treated like a service desk.
Churn caused by product, labelled a marketing problem.
CFO scrutiny on every pound that can’t be directly attributed.
Pipeline gaps that appear overnight and need fixing “by Friday.”
Brand work deprioritised until growth stalls.
⁣
They know what it takes to navigate that environment.⁣
⁣
And it isn’t just channel expertise.⁣
⁣
It’s the ability to:⁣
⁣
Push back without creating friction.⁣
Translate trade-offs into commercial language.⁣
Explain why something won’t work without sounding defensive.⁣
Manage up.⁣
Hold a line.⁣
Influence laterally.⁣
⁣
The marketers progressing fastest through processes right now aren’t just strong operators.⁣
⁣
They’re strong communicators.⁣
⁣
They know how to say:⁣
⁣
“If we prioritise this, we deprioritise that.”⁣
“If we cut budget here, we extend payback there.”⁣
“If we pivot mid-cycle, we lose learning.”⁣
⁣
And they say it calmly.⁣
⁣
If you’re in marketing and want to progress, invest in this skill.⁣
⁣
Because technical ability gets you in the room.⁣
⁣
Communication keeps you there.⁣
⁣
And often, it’s the only thing standing between being respected as a strategic partner…⁣
⁣
or being treated like a support centre

Is marketing the only function where you’re expected to operate at the next level long before you get the promotion?⁣
⁣
I speak to candidates in this position constantly.⁣ People who are:
⁣
Running bigger budgets⁣
Hiring and managing people⁣
Expanding into new markets⁣
Owning new verticals⁣
Carrying senior-level accountability⁣
Watching their targets 2x, 3x more
⁣
Yet the title and pay never quite catch up.⁣
⁣
And when they finally do?⁣
⁣
It’s 12–18 months after they’ve already been operating there.⁣
⁣
By that point it feels less like a promotion…
 and more like formalising what you’ve been doing for free.
⁣⁣
This isn’t development.⁣
⁣
It’s delay dressed up as opportunity.⁣
⁣
But it's SO short sighted because it seems that so many businesses forget, that 𝐚𝐥𝐦𝐨𝐬𝐭 𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐲 𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐤𝐞𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐩𝐮𝐭 𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐩𝐨𝐬𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐢𝐬 𝐪𝐮𝐢𝐞𝐭𝐥𝐲 𝐥𝐨𝐨𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠.⁣
⁣
Not loudly.⁣
Not dramatically.⁣
Just… updating their CV at 10pm.⁣
⁣
They will leave.⁣
They will get market rate.⁣
And they will join a company that recognised their value from day one.⁣
⁣
And if you’re reading this thinking “this is me”⁣
⁣
There are businesses out there that won’t make you wait to be valued.

I spoke to a VP of Marketing who’d just joined a new business. As soon as he started they asked him to audit the agency.

Everyone suspected the agency wasn’t very good.
No one could explain why.

So he went back to basics.
Spoke to the agency.
Spoke to the internal team.

It wasn’t one-sided.

Paid search was unprofitable.
ROAS was low.
The relationship had turned toxic.

But the bigger issue was organic.

Visibility across search and LLMs had collapsed over 12 months.

The assumption from the agency 
“It’s just AI. Everyone’s seeing this.”

They weren’t.

When he looked properly, the problem was technical.
Bot blocking had been added to the site.
Search engines couldn’t crawl it.

It had been there for a year. No one had spotted it. 

He found it in two weeks.

They fixed it.
They’ve already recovered roughly half the lost visibility.

Why am I sharing this? 

Because serious problems can hide in plain sight.
And the right experience changes outcomes fast.

Many businesses say they can’t afford a senior marketer.

From what I’m seeing, in many cases, they can’t afford not to.

Good judgement prevents expensive mistakes.

And strong marketing leadership tends to pay for itself quickly.

⁣

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