"They provided ideas that we hadn't really thought of, which helped our program stand out."
Nuala C.
Director, BrandFire
Growth Marketing Services
Your product and its growth marketing, built under one roof.
Most development companies finish the build and hand it over. You spend the next six months briefing a marketing agency on what the product does, while competitors who launched later are already ranking, getting cited by AI, and acquiring users.
At RaftLabs, growth runs alongside the build. Go-to-market strategy is defined in week one. SEO, content, and AI visibility foundations are laid while the codebase is written. Campaigns are ready before the launch button is pressed. One company. Both tracks. No cold start.
Product development and marketing run in parallel - hype, content, and AI visibility start in week one, not on launch day.
No switching agencies mid-project. One company handles the build and the growth. No briefing from scratch.
AEO, AIO, and GEO built in from the start - your brand gets cited in ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews.
Measurement infrastructure built alongside the product - attribution is confirmed before the first ad runs.
Bring the problem, the current workflow, or the existing code. We reply with a practical next step within one business day.
Trusted by
The brief
Start with what is not working.
Good software decisions begin with the constraint, not a list of features or a preferred technology.
01
Product launched three months ago but organic traffic is still flat and nobody is citing your brand in AI answers?
02
Marketing agency you hired has spent six weeks learning what the product does?
03
Running ads with no clear line between spend and revenue because attribution was an afterthought?
04
Build finished, launch done - and the momentum that should have been building for months starts from zero?
Plain answer
RaftLabs runs growth marketing in parallel with product development, not as a separate engagement after the product ships. Services include SEO, AEO, AIO, GEO, social media, content strategy, influencer marketing, PR, performance marketing, ASO, lifecycle email, graphic design, website engineering, and conversion rate optimization, so there is no cold-start on launch day.
What to remember
- Growth marketing runs in parallel with product development from week one, not after launch.
- AEO, AIO, and GEO are built into the content strategy from the start so the brand gets cited in ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews.
- Measurement infrastructure and attribution are confirmed before the first ad runs.
- Monthly retainer, scoped to active channels and content volume.
- Worth hiring agencies interrogate unit economics before quoting a price; guaranteed outcomes and platform ROAS alone are red flags.
The launch button gets pressed. Then the marketing starts from zero.
Two products ship the same month. One team briefs a marketing agency after launch, and six weeks later that agency is still learning what the product does. The other team had positioning, SEO, content, and AI-citation groundwork running since week one of the build.
By launch day, Google has already indexed one of them. The brand is already turning up in AI answers. The campaigns are built, tracked, and ready to switch on.
The difference was never the marketing budget. One team started the growth work in week one. The other started from zero on launch day.
Launch day should be the middle of your growth story, not the first page.
Most products die between "shipped" and "found"
New content does not rank the day you publish it. Organic search compounds over months, and AI answer engines take longer still to start naming a brand they have never seen. We know the lag because we run our own growth engine. The programmatic SEO system behind this site is our own build: roughly 3,000 pages that moved 12,000 monthly visitors across a migration with zero downtime and grew organic traffic about 30% in its first year on our own domain. None of that landed in week one. It compounded.
That lag is the whole problem with the usual sequence. Product work and growth work run back to back at most companies. Build finishes. Then someone briefs a marketing agency. By the time that agency understands the product well enough to position it honestly, the launch window has closed and Google has indexed a competitor instead.
RaftLabs runs both tracks at once: the product track (Discover, Design, Build, Ship) and the growth track (Position, Foundation, Content and Brand, Launch and Scale). We have taken products from build to their first paying customers across full-lifecycle engagements since 2015, rated 4.9/5 by clients on Clutch.
While the product is being designed and built, the growth motion is already moving. Positioning comes out of the same discovery interviews that shape the product. SEO and AI-visibility foundations get laid while the codebase is written. Social profiles go up, early content earns impressions, and the brand starts turning up in AI answers before launch day.
The first decision is not what to build.
It is whether software is the right answer at all. We use four possible recommendations before discussing a development scope.
- 01
Buy
Buy tools when the gap is execution tooling, not strategy. Ad platforms, analytics, and automation are rented, not built.
- 02
Repair
Fix the current setup when channels exist but attribution or messaging is broken. A strategy sprint finds the break before new spend.
- 03
Build
Run a growth program when acquisition is a system, not a campaign. Start with one or two channels and expand the mix on measured results.
- 04
Wait
Do not scale spend before measurement. Get attribution and one working channel right before adding budget.
Not sure which path is yours? Bring it to a 30-minute call. Leave with the answer in writing.
This works when growth runs with the build, not months behind it.
Everything on the left should already be true for your company. Even one thing on the right, and a one-off audit or a single freelancer is the smarter first step.
A fit
You are building or have just launched a software product and want growth moving before launch day, not months after.
You would rather one company own both the build and the go-to-market than brief a separate agency from scratch.
You have budget for a monthly retainer and want every channel measured against revenue, not impressions.
Not a fit
You want a strategy document handed over, not a team that runs the campaigns.
You judge marketing on impressions and reach rather than trial signups, activation, and revenue.
You need a single one-off channel audit, not a continuous growth engagement.
What we build
Strategy and foundation, built while we build your product
Go-to-market strategy
ICP definition, competitive positioning, messaging hierarchy, and a channel plan tied to your unit economics and launch timeline. Built from the same user research that shapes the product, not a persona workshop conducted after the build is done. You leave the first phase with a written strategy, a prioritized channel stack, and an activation plan.
AI search visibility: AEO, AIO, and GEO
The next generation of search is AI-generated answers. When someone asks ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, or Gemini a question in your category, your brand should be the one cited. Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) structures your content to appear as the direct answer. AI Overview Optimization (AIO) gets your brand featured in Google's AI-generated summaries above traditional results. Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) builds the authority signals AI models use to decide which sources to cite. We build all three into the content strategy from day one, not bolted on after the fact.
SEO and organic search
Organic search foundation that starts compounding before launch. Technical SEO audit, keyword cluster mapping, on-page optimization, link-building strategy, and a content calendar tied to commercial intent. We do not treat SEO as a channel separate from AI visibility, the same content that ranks on Google is the content that earns AI citations when structured correctly.
Local SEO
Google Business Profile setup and optimization, local citation building, NAP consistency across directories, and geo-targeted landing pages for businesses that serve specific markets. If your product or service targets customers in London, Sydney, or Chicago, local search is a channel your competitors are almost certainly not using correctly. We build the local footprint during the product build so it has traction by launch day.
Website engineering
High-performance landing pages, campaign microsites, and conversion-optimised web properties built for speed, search, and lead capture. Not a full product build: targeted web engineering for the marketing surfaces your campaigns point to. Page speed, Core Web Vitals, structured data, and conversion tracking configured from the start.
Analytics and attribution
Measurement infrastructure configured before a single ad is run. GA4 setup, conversion event tracking, UTM taxonomy, and multi-touch attribution wired in at the product level, not retrofitted six months after launch. Every marketing decision your team makes is backed by data that shows channel contribution to revenue, not to clicks. We set this up during the build so the historical data exists from day one.
Content and brand, building presence before your competitors notice
Content strategy and development
A content plan built around keyword clusters, funnel stages, and sales-cycle intent, not a blog calendar invented from thin air. We map every content type (article, case study, comparison, guide, video script) to a search query your buyers are already asking, a funnel stage it serves, and a metric it is expected to move. Content is produced in-house: written, edited, and published to brand standards. No generic AI output, no content for content's sake.
Content marketing
Ongoing editorial output that compounds over time. Blog articles, long-form guides, case studies, pillar pages, and comparison content targeting high-intent keywords with low-to-moderate difficulty. Content tied directly to your AEO and GEO strategy so every piece has a dual purpose: ranking in traditional search and being cited as a source in AI-generated answers. Volume scales with your retainer. Quality does not drop.
Building online brand presence
Structured brand visibility across every surface where your buyers spend time (organic search, AI answers, social platforms, review sites, and industry directories. This is not vanity metrics) it is the deliberate construction of the authority signals that AI models, investors, journalists, and buyers use to evaluate your credibility. We build the digital footprint that makes your brand look like the obvious choice before anyone books a call.
Graphic design
Brand-consistent visual assets for every channel: social graphics, ad creatives, email headers, landing page illustrations, pitch deck visuals, case study layouts, and infographics. Designed to the brief, not templated. Every asset is sized and optimized for the platform it runs on. Fast turnaround without a separate agency relationship or a three-week briefing process.
PR management
Earned media strategy: identifying the publications, podcasts, and newsletters your buyers trust, crafting the angles that editors will cover, and managing the outreach to land placements. PR placements build the authority signals search engines and AI models weight heavily, a brand cited in TechCrunch, Forbes, or a niche trade publication earns link equity, social proof, and AI citation credibility simultaneously. We manage the PR motion in-house as part of the growth retainer.
Growth and acquisition, the channels that bring buyers to you
Social media marketing
Platform-specific strategy and execution across LinkedIn, Instagram, X, Facebook, and TikTok: whichever channels your buyers actually use. Organic social that builds community and brand authority, not just follower counts. Content calendars tied to campaign launches, product milestones, and content publishing. Community management and engagement. Monthly performance reports showing reach, engagement, and traffic driven to your site.
Influencer marketing
Identifying, vetting, and managing partnerships with creators and subject-matter experts who have genuine audiences in your category. Not follower-count chasing: micro and mid-tier influencers with real engagement rates in your niche consistently outperform large accounts with disengaged audiences. We manage briefs, content approvals, payment, and performance tracking so you are not running an influencer program on top of everything else.
Performance marketing
Paid search and paid social campaigns built for measurable acquisition, not impressions. Google Ads, Meta Ads, and LinkedIn Ads with conversion tracking and attribution configured before spend starts. Every channel is evaluated against cost per acquisition at your unit economics, if a channel cannot generate positive-ROI leads at your average contract value, it gets cut, not optimized indefinitely. You see cost per trial, cost per MQL, and cost per closed deal, not cost per click.
App store optimization
App Store and Google Play keyword strategy, metadata optimization, screenshot copy, and review management for mobile products. For apps we build, ASO starts before submission, you rank on target keywords from day one, not after 60 days of guessing. For existing apps, we audit the current metadata, rebuild the keyword strategy from search volume data, and implement changes with measurable ranking uplift.
Lifecycle and email marketing
Onboarding sequences that activate trial users, retention campaigns triggered by product behavior, and win-back flows for churned accounts. Email is the highest-ROI channel for most SaaS and app-based products when it is tied to product events rather than a weekly newsletter blast. We build the sequences alongside the product so activation triggers are wired in from launch, not bolted on six months later when churn is already a problem.
Conversion rate optimization
Landing page A/B testing, pricing page optimization, onboarding flow analysis, and funnel drop-off identification tied to real behavioral data. CRO without measurement is guesswork, which is why attribution and event tracking are configured before any test runs. You see where users drop, why they drop, and what the fix is worth in incremental revenue before committing to the change. Winning tests ship. Losing tests are documented so you do not run the same experiment twice.
Why it works better when product and marketing share a roof
We know the product before we write a word of copy.
Go-to-market strategy built by an agency that spent three weeks learning the product is strategy built from assumptions. We run discovery with your users before the first sprint. That research shapes the positioning, the ICP, the keyword clusters, and the AEO content strategy, not a persona workshop conducted after the build is done.
AI citation authority is built during the build, not after.
The entity associations, topical authority signals, and structured content that AI models use to decide which brands to cite take months to build. Starting after launch means your competitors, who started earlier, have a compounding lead. We start the moment the product strategy is defined.
Attribution is built into the product, not retrofitted.
Instrumentation decisions (which events to track, how to structure funnel data, how to tie trial signups to acquisition channels) cost a fraction when made at build time. Add them six months post-launch and the historical data is already gone.
No cold-start on launch day.
By the time the product ships, the SEO foundation has been running for months, early content is ranking, AI citations are accumulating, and campaigns are ready to activate. You arrive at launch with momentum, not a blank slate.
What we see when we run growth for a software product
We do not only advise on growth systems. We build the ones other teams run their campaigns on. We built the referral and viral-marketing platform a US marketing agency runs, with 12+ third-party integrations wired in. We built the receipt-and-rewards engine behind Aldi's AldiFest campaign in Ireland, which pulled 2,000+ sign-ups in its first week, and the loyalty platform Energia's rewards program runs on. So when we plan a growth motion, we work from inside these systems, not from a slide about them.
A few patterns hold on almost every software product we take to market:
Content compounds; it does not spike. The first month of a content program looks like nothing is happening. Month four is where the curve bends. Teams that judge the program at week six kill it right before it starts working.
AI citations lag rankings. A page can rank on Google weeks before ChatGPT or Perplexity starts naming the brand in its answers, because the authority signals those models read take months to accrue. That is why we start them during the build, not after it.
Attribution is a build-time decision, not a reporting one. If the events, UTM taxonomy, and funnel structure are not wired in before launch, the historical data you need to prove what worked simply does not exist later.
The share of searches that end without a click keeps climbing as AI answers absorb the top of the funnel. Being the source an answer engine cites now matters more each quarter than being the tenth blue link.
The channels we run, and what each one is for
Growth channels and the job each one does
| Channel | The job it does | When it starts paying off |
|---|---|---|
| SEO and AI visibility (AEO, GEO) | Compounding organic demand and AI citations for buyers searching your category | Slow to start; months to compound. The earlier it begins, the larger the lead |
| Content marketing | Feeds SEO and AI answers, earns trust, arms sales with proof | Three to six months before the curve bends, then it keeps paying |
| Performance marketing | Fast, measurable acquisition you can turn on and read the same week | Immediate, but it stops the moment you stop spending |
| Lifecycle and email | Activates trials and wins back churn once traffic exists | Fast, but only once you have users to nurture |
| App store optimization | Organic install volume for mobile products on target keywords | Weeks after metadata ships; compounds with reviews |
Pitfalls we plan around
Vanity metrics that do not connect to revenue.
Impressions, reach, and follower counts feel like progress and move nothing. We agree the revenue-linked KPIs before the first campaign runs, and we report against those, not the numbers that only ever go up.
One-channel dependency.
A product that gets all its growth from a single channel is one algorithm update away from zero. We build a mix so a Google core update or an ad-account suspension is a dip, not an extinction event.
Growth before retention.
Pouring acquisition spend into a product that leaks users just fills a leaking bucket faster. If activation and retention are broken, we say so and fix the funnel before we scale the top of it. That is why lifecycle email and CRO sit inside the same retainer, not in a separate phase.
Which part of your growth is stuck?
Tell us where you are: just launched with no traction, spending on ads with no attribution, or building a product and want marketing to run alongside it. We will scope the right engagement.
How it works
From strategy to scale
Every growth engagement starts with a strategy sprint. Nothing runs without measurement configured first.
- Phase 101
Diagnose
We audit your current marketing state: what channels have been tried, what data exists, what attribution is in place. We define your ICP from discovery research, identify the AI answer opportunities in your category, map the funnel, and configure measurement before any spend begins. You leave the first phase with a written channel strategy and agreed KPIs.
- Phase 202
Build the foundation
Channel selection, content plan, AEO and GEO strategy, campaign architecture, and keyword research. Paid campaigns are architected before spend begins. SEO and AI visibility technical foundations are implemented. Social profiles are built or audited. Analytics tracking is confirmed live across all active channels.
- Phase 303
Launch
Paid campaigns go live. First content pieces are published. Social profiles start posting. App Store metadata is submitted. PR outreach begins. Every channel that activates launches with tracking confirmed and attribution verified: no spend runs without measurement. You see the numbers from day one.
- Phase 404
Grow
Weekly performance reports against agreed KPIs. AI citation tracking alongside organic ranking reports. A/B tests on channels already generating results. Losing channels cut fast, winning channels expanded. Monthly strategy review to adjust the channel mix as data accumulates and your market understanding deepens.
What clients say
What our clients say
Three-year average engagement. Founders and operators describing the work in their own words. No marketing varnish.
All of the sprints were completed on schedule and on budget. We highly recommend RaftLabs!
Charles E.
Entrepreneur at Aggie Technologies
Proof
Case studies
- 01
Referral and viral marketing platform
- higher conversion rate for active campaigns
- 2.5x
- 02
Receipts and rewards web app for customer engagement
- sign-ups in the first week
- 2,000+
- 03
Nandi case study: a Web3 creator loyalty platform where fans never touch a seed phrase
A 10-week rebuild of Nandi's Web3 creator loyalty platform: passwordless sign-up, custodial wallets on Celo and BNB, creator waitlists with points, and gasless on-chain actions.- from first commit to last commit, February to April 2023
- ~10 weeks
- existing users to carry over from the earlier build
- 500
- seed phrases or wallet extensions for fans signing up with email, phone, or Google
- 0
What it costs
A monthly retainer priced on channels and output, not a cut of your ad spend.
Every engagement starts with a priced strategy sprint to lock the channel stack and KPIs before the retainer begins.
We run the work: strategy, content, campaigns, and reporting. Not a strategy deck and a handshake.
Starting investment
Starts at $10000
Per month, by scope. We charge for our time and strategy, not a percentage of ad spend. Most clients start with one or two channels and expand the mix once results come in. Paid media budget runs through your own accounts.
Measurement before spend
No campaign runs without attribution configured first. You see cost per trial and cost per acquisition by channel from day one, not after three months of unattributed spend.
Weekly, not quarterly
We report weekly on spend, results, and variance against plan. If a channel underperforms, you hear about it in the same week's report with a recommendation, not at the quarterly review.
Revenue and sales systems
Work with us
Tell us where the work is stuck.
Bring the rough workflow, half-built product, or messy brief. We will map the smallest useful first move, then send scope, timeline, and price in plain English.
- Scope and cost agreed before work starts. No surprises. No obligation.
- Working prototype within 3 weeks of kickoff.
- Pay by milestone. You see progress before each invoice.
- 60-day post-launch warranty. Bug fixes, UI tweaks, and deployment support. No retainer.
- All conversations are NDA-protected.
Common questions
Growth marketing is the practice of running structured experiments across acquisition, activation, retention, and referral to drive compounding growth - not just awareness campaigns. Traditional digital marketing focuses on top-of-funnel metrics like impressions, traffic, and reach. Growth marketing is accountable to the full funnel - trial sign-ups, activation rates, paid conversions, and revenue. If a campaign cannot move a metric that connects to revenue, it does not justify its spend. At RaftLabs, growth marketing runs in parallel with product development, not as a separate phase after the build ships. Positioning, SEO foundations, and analytics instrumentation start during the build so you arrive at launch with momentum, not a blank slate.
AEO is Answer Engine Optimization: structuring your content so it appears as the direct answer in search results and AI-generated responses. AIO is AI Overview Optimization: getting your brand featured in Google's AI Overviews, the AI-generated summaries that appear above traditional search results. GEO is Generative Engine Optimization: optimizing your content and online presence to be cited by AI tools like ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, and Gemini when users ask questions in your category. Together, these three disciplines represent the new frontier of search visibility. Ranking on page one of Google is no longer enough - your brand needs to be the source AI tools cite when they answer questions your customers are already asking. We build AEO, AIO, and GEO into the content strategy from day one, not as an afterthought.
We run them. Strategy, content creation, campaign management, reporting, and optimization. We are not a strategy-only consultancy that produces a document and leaves. Our default engagement is hands-on execution across whichever channels make sense for your product - SEO, content, paid, social, email, ASO, PR, or all of them. If you need a one-time strategy audit or a specific channel review, we can scope that separately, but we are built to run the work, not advise on it.
Yes. We prefer to work on products we understand deeply, which is why we run best when we are also the build team - no briefing overhead, no time spent reverse-engineering the product. But we do take on growth-only engagements. The onboarding is more intensive. We will spend more time on the product discovery phase, user interviews, analytics audit, and competitive review to build the same understanding our build clients start with on day one. We do not take on growth engagements blind - if we cannot understand the product well enough to position it honestly, we will tell you before we scope anything.
Marketing Automation is about building software that automates the execution side of marketing: lead nurturing pipelines, campaign deployment systems, lead scoring engines, and attribution reporting tools. It is a software product you own after delivery. Growth Marketing is about running the actual marketing work on your behalf: strategy, content, campaigns, SEO, AEO, GEO, social media, ASO, PR, design, and analytics - continuously. One is a product we build. The other is a service we run. Many clients benefit from both, and we can scope them as a single engagement.
Growth marketing engagements are priced on a monthly retainer, not a per-project fee. The monthly retainer is scoped to the number of active channels, content output volume, and the paid media budgets we are managing. We charge for our time and strategy - not a percentage of ad spend. Paid media budget runs through your own accounts. We start every engagement with a one-week strategy sprint at a fixed fee to define the channel stack, agree the KPIs, and confirm the monthly retainer before the ongoing engagement begins.
The margins-first test. Agencies worth hiring interrogate your unit economics before quoting a price; agencies worth avoiding lead with guaranteed outcomes. The break-even ROAS test: 1 divided by contribution margin. A 40 percent margin breaks even at 2.5x, a 25 percent margin at 4.0x. An agency celebrating a 2.8x ROAS on a 25 percent-margin business is reporting losses with confidence. Ask how they measure success. Listen for MER, contribution margin, and incrementality, not platform ROAS alone. Platform-attributed revenue summed across channels routinely exceeds what the business actually collected. Before assigning credit, write down what marketing does not control: pricing, inventory, product releases, seasonality, brand demand.
Too early for the agency route unless you have clear personas, messaging, and targeting. Use an agency to scale what you have found to work, even if you only tested it on 10 people. Otherwise they will be spinning their wheels. Two technical founders with a few thousand a month budget need someone to take ownership and execute. Paid media should show directional signal inside 60-90 days once tracking is trustworthy; SEO, content, and AI-search visibility need 6-18 months. In the first 30 days judge process quality: audit depth, measurement fixes, specificity of the written plan. The launch button gets pressed, then the marketing starts from zero. That is the moment strategy should already exist.
Guaranteed ROAS or rankings. A price quoted before any margin conversation. Platform-attributed revenue presented as business revenue. 12-month lock-in with no performance exit. Ad accounts or tracking owned by the agency. Two or more in one proposal is a pattern worth walking away from. What no agency can do: rescue a product nobody repurchases, out-market a broken offer, or make paid economics work below a margin floor. A candidate who names those limits early is negotiating honestly. An agency that asks about your margins before quoting a budget is showing you its operating system.
We agree KPIs before the engagement starts, tied to business outcomes rather than vanity metrics. Standard metrics we track include organic search traffic and keyword ranking positions, AI citation rate and brand mention frequency in AI answers, paid campaign cost per trial and cost per acquisition, email activation and conversion rates, App Store ranking by target keyword, social media reach and engagement rate, PR placements and share of voice, and multi-touch attribution showing channel contribution to pipeline and revenue. We report weekly on spend, results, and variance against plan. If a channel is underperforming, you hear about it in the same week's report with a recommendation - not at the quarterly review.
What is growth marketing for software companies?
Growth marketing for software companies is the practice of running simultaneous experiments across acquisition, activation, retention, and referral channels to drive compounding revenue growth. Unlike traditional digital marketing that focuses on brand awareness and impressions, growth marketing is accountable to the full funnel: trial signups, activation rates, paid conversions, and churn reduction. Services typically include SEO, AI visibility (AEO, GEO), performance marketing, content marketing, lifecycle email, app store optimization, and analytics.
How is growth marketing different from hiring a marketing agency?
A growth marketing engagement differs from a traditional marketing agency in three ways. It starts during product development rather than after launch. Every campaign is measured against revenue rather than impressions. And when the same company builds the product and runs the marketing, there is no onboarding overhead. According to research from Princeton University (KDD 2024), content with statistics and cited sources earns up to 40% more visibility in AI-generated answers. That advantage compounds when marketing and product work are aligned from the start.
What does a growth marketing retainer include?
A growth marketing retainer for a software company typically covers go-to-market strategy, SEO and AI visibility, content marketing, performance marketing (paid search and paid social), lifecycle email sequences, app store optimization, analytics and attribution setup, and conversion rate optimization. The specific mix depends on the product stage: a pre-launch product prioritizes GTM strategy, SEO foundations, and content; a post-launch product prioritizes paid acquisition, lifecycle email, and CRO.