As we approach 2025, the marketing landscape continues to evolve rapidly, fueled by technological advancements, data analytics, and customer behavior insights. Companies must build growth teams that can not only respond to change but also anticipate it.
Growth marketing is no longer just about acquisition—it encompasses the entire customer journey, from initial awareness to long-term retention. A well-structured growth team structure helps scale operations, improve customer engagement, and optimize revenue.
In this article, we’ll cover creating a high-performing growth marketing team that is agile, cross-functional, and aligned with your company’s goals. From startups to enterprise-level organizations, we’ll explore key roles and how MarketerHire can help you build your ideal growth marketing team.
Why do companies need a growth marketing team?
The increasing competition businesses face today is the reason growth marketing teams are necessary. Using data, personalization, and iterative testing, growth marketing teams provide the agility and insights your company needs to continuously adapt and scale. Here are a few reasons why growth marketing teams are crucial:
1. They focus on long-term growth
Growth marketing goes beyond short-term tactics like immediate customer acquisition and, instead, aims to create sustainable growth by focusing on customer engagement, retention, and loyalty.
They focus on building deeper customer relationships and ensuring that each interaction facilitates lasting engagement and value for the company. They implement strategies such as personalized communication, loyalty programs, and ongoing tactics to keep customers connected to the brand.
2. Data-driven decision making
Growth marketing teams rely heavily on data at every stage to guide their strategies, from analyzing customer behavior to tracking metrics like click-through rates (CTR), conversion rates, and customer lifetime value (CLV).
They continuously monitor campaigns across channels and refine tactics through A/B testing to improve performance based on real results.
3. Cross-channel optimization
Growth marketing teams effectively use various channels—email, social media, SEO, and paid ads—to create a cohesive strategy that increases reach and engagement. This ensures that the brand’s messaging, visuals, and tone are consistent no matter where a customer encounters the company, which reinforces brand recognition and trust. Managing marketing automation tools effectively ensures streamlined operations, allowing teams to execute campaigns more efficiently across multiple touchpoints.
4. Adaptability and agility
Growth marketing teams respond quickly to changes in the market, customer behavior, or internal business needs. The business landscape today requires growth marketing teams to be able to shift strategies, test new ideas, and carry out changes rapidly to stay competitive and meet evolving customer expectations.
Their agility allows them to quickly adapt when a tactic underperforms, minimizing wasted time and resources. For example, at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, many businesses had to adjust their marketing strategies on short notice to fit shifting market conditions.
5. Increased customer lifetime value (CLV)
Customer lifetime value (CLV) refers to the total revenue a company expects from a customer throughout their relationship. Growth marketing teams aim to maximize CLV by retaining customers and increasing their long-term value.
Rather than emphasizing short-term sales, they prevent customer churn by addressing customer pain points through personalized tactics like special offers and tailored emails. They also work with other teams to deliver educational content, like tutorials and product guides, to improve retention and boost CLV.
Growth marketing team vs. demand generation team
While ‘growth marketing teams’ and ‘demand generation team’ are often used interchangeably, they’re not the same.
A growth marketing team focuses on the entire customer lifecycle, optimizing engagement, retention, and lifetime value through data-driven strategies. Their goal is to maximize long-term growth by retaining customers and increasing their value over time.
A demand generation team, on the other hand, concentrates on attracting potential customers at the top of the sales funnel. They focus on building awareness and generating qualified leads for the sales team to convert.
Here’s a table showing the difference between a growth marketing team and a demand generation team:
What are the growth marketing team’s roles and responsibilities?
The roles you hire for your growth marketing team depend on many factors, including your industry and your company stage. However, there are some common roles within a standard effective growth marketing team, including:
1. Head of Growth
The Head of Growth is responsible for driving a company’s overall growth strategy by overseeing and coordinating all activities related to acquiring, retaining, and monetizing customers. They collaborate with marketing, product, and sales teams to ensure they all align on growth initiatives.
In addition to analyzing customer behavior and optimizing the entire growth funnel, the Head of Growth also leads the entire growth team, manages budgets for growth efforts, and oversees testing and performance optimization. The Head of Growth is also deeply involved in performance marketing to ensure that campaigns generate measurable results across all marketing channels.
2. Growth marketer
A growth marketer focuses on identifying and implementing strategies to drive business growth across all stages of the customer funnel. Their role involves experimenting with different marketing channels, optimizing campaigns, and using data to improve acquisition, activation, retention, and revenue.
They are constantly testing new ideas, analyzing results, and iterating to find the most effective ways to grow the business.
Read: Growth Marketers Are Modern Marketing Managers – And That’s a Good Thing
3. Data analyst/growth analyst
A data analyst ensures that marketing decisions in the growth marketing team are data-driven. They collect, analyze, and interpret data on customer behavior, campaign performance, and market trends. By designing and analyzing A/B tests and tracking key metrics like customer acquisition cost (CAC) and customer lifetime value (CLV), they provide insights that guide the marketing strategy and optimize efforts for the best results.
4. Growth product manager
A growth product manager operates at the intersection of product development and marketing, leveraging data-driven insights to identify opportunities for product enhancements that drive customer growth. They design features, run A/B tests, and optimize the user experience.
Collaborating with cross-functional teams like engineering, marketing, and customer success, they make sure product updates align with business goals and impact key growth metrics.
5. CRO Specialist
A Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) specialist improves the percentage of website visitors who take desired actions, such as signing up or making a purchase. Using data-driven insights, they run experiments like A/B tests to optimize elements like landing pages and call-to-action buttons. By analyzing user behavior and addressing friction points, they enhance conversion rates and increase ROI from marketing efforts.
6. Growth UX/UI designer
A growth UI/UX designer creates visually appealing and intuitive digital experiences that enhance customer engagement and drive conversions. They conduct user research, gather feedback, and analyze behavior to identify and address pain points.
Collaborating with product managers, developers, and CRO specialists, they implement design improvements that optimize user experiences, ultimately boosting retention, conversions, and overall business growth. Their role plays a significant part in lifecycle marketing by ensuring that customers have an engaging, seamless experience throughout their journey with the brand.
Read: Hire a UI Designer To Build a Website or App That Leaves a Lasting Impression
There are other roles you can have in your growth marketing team, depending on what your main channel is, including:
- Content marketer
- SEO specialist
- Paid acquisition marketer
- Email marketer
- Marketing automation specialist
- Growth hacker
Different ways to organize growth marketing teams
There are two major ways to organize a growth marketing team: the decentralized model and the centralized model. Each one offers distinct advantages depending on how your company operates and what it aims to achieve. Below is a breakdown of the two models:
Decentralized model
In a decentralized model, growth marketing teams are distributed across different departments, business units, or product lines. Each team operates independently and focuses on the growth objectives specific to their area of the business, such as a particular product, region, or customer segment.
Pros:
- Teams can create highly specialized growth strategies tailored to their product or market. This approach allows for deeper customer insights and personalized marketing.
- Since each team operates independently, they can quickly pivot or experiment without needing approval from a central team.
- It is ideal for companies with diverse product lines or operations across multiple regions.
Cons:
- With separate teams, there’s a risk of inconsistent messaging or brand identity across the organization.
- Different teams may invest in similar tools, campaigns, or agencies, which can lead to inefficiencies and increased costs.
- There is a risk of silos, where teams may not share insights or successful strategies with one another. This can result in lost opportunities to learn from other parts of the business.
Centralized model
In a centralized model, the growth marketing team operates as a single, unified department, overseeing growth initiatives across all areas of the company. This team works with other departments, such as product or sales, but remains responsible for all growth marketing efforts.
Pros:
- Centralized teams maintain a uniform brand message, strategy, and customer experience across all channels and markets. This ensures a cohesive marketing approach throughout the organization.
- With one team managing growth efforts, there’s less duplication of resources. Tools or expertise can also be shared across the entire organization, leading to better cost efficiency.
- Centralized teams can use data and insights from different campaigns or markets to inform and improve broader growth strategies.
- There’s a single point of accountability for growth marketing success, which can streamline decision-making and prioritization.
Cons:
- A centralized team might struggle to respond quickly to specific market or product needs because the decision-making process has to go through many layers of approval.
- Centralized teams may lack the deep product or market expertise that decentralized teams have, which leads to more generic or less relevant growth strategies for specific markets or segments.
- As centralized teams scale, they can become more bureaucratic, limiting agility and the ability to experiment quickly in individual areas.
Choosing between decentralized and centralized models
The decentralized model will serve you better if you’re a large organization with diverse product lines, regions, or customer segments. This model allows flexibility and agility in addressing unique market needs but requires strong communication and alignment to avoid fragmentation.
If you’re a smaller company that prioritizes consistency and efficiency across the board, the centralized model will work well for you. It will help you operate with a singular brand focus and optimize resource use. However, you’ll need to ensure that the team is flexible enough to respond to the needs of different business units.
How to structure growth marketing teams
The two major factors that determine the structure of your growth marketing team are the industry and company stage. In this section, we’ll show you how to structure your growth marketing team if you’re an e-commerce, B2B, or local business. You’ll also learn some ideal structures for startups, growth-stage companies, and enterprise-level organizations.
Industry
1. For e-commerce
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If you run an e-commerce business, you likely focus on customer acquisition and retention through digital channels. Therefore, the roles you hire for your growth marketing team have to cater to that. Here’s a proposed structure:
- Head of Growth/Growth Marketing Manager
- Paid acquisition specialist/performance marketer
- SEO Specialist
- Amazon expert (if you use the platform)
- Email marketer
- Lifecycle marketer
- CRO Specialist
- Social media manager
- UX/UI designer
- Data analyst
Why this structure works:
This growth marketing team structure is ideal for an e-commerce business as it covers both customer acquisition and retention. The Head of Growth oversees strategy, while the paid acquisition specialist drives traffic through paid channels, and the SEO specialist attracts organic traffic.
The email marketer and lifecycle marketer focus on retaining customers and encouraging repeat purchases, while the CRO specialist ensures site visitors convert. A UX/UI designer enhances the website's user experience, and the data analyst tracks performance to provide actionable insights.
2. For B2B
Since B2B businesses cater to other businesses, there will be longer sales cycles, and the roles you hire have to focus on getting your target audience through those sales cycles to conversion. Here’s a proposed structure:
- Head of Growth/Growth Marketing Manager
- Demand generation specialist
- Account-based marketing (ABM) manager
- Content marketer
- SEO & SEM specialist
- Email marketer
- Sales enablement manager
- Marketing operations manager
- Data analyst
Why this structure works:
This structure focuses on the longer sales cycles and relationship-building required in B2B companies. A demand generation specialist creates awareness and generates leads, while an ABM manager targets key accounts with personalized campaigns. The content marketer and SEO/SEM specialist produce educational content to build authority and trust.
The email marketer nurtures prospects, and the marketing operations manager ensures smooth tool and process integration to support the sales team. A sales enablement manager aligns marketing materials with sales efforts, and a data analyst provides insights to optimize campaigns.
3. For local businesses
If you’re a local business, your focus is likely on customer loyalty and localized digital strategies. What you need is a small growth marketing team with niche experience. Here’s a proposed structure:
- Head of Growth/Growth Marketing Manager
- Local SEO specialist
- Social media manager
- Email marketer
- Customer loyalty/community manager
- Paid media specialist (focused on local ads)
- Data & analytics coordinator
Why this structure works:
This structure focuses on building a strong presence within a specific geographic area. A local SEO specialist ensures high rankings in local searches, while a social media manager engages the community on platforms like Facebook and Instagram.
The email marketer manages localized promotions, and a customer loyalty/community manager strengthens relationships with loyal customers. The paid media specialist runs targeted local ads, and the data & analytics coordinator tracks performance to ensure efforts are optimized for local engagement.
Read: Hire a Local SEO Expert—Make Your Voice Heard in the Right Place
4. For agencies
Working with multiple clients requires working with various marketing channels and data analysis. A well-rounded team with specialists is what you’ll need to have that handled. The team includes:
- Head of Growth/Growth Director
- Client acquisition manager
- Account manager
- Paid media specialist
- SEO & content strategist
- Email marketing specialist
- Data analyst
- Creative director
Why this structure works:
This structure is designed to help agencies grow their client base and support multiple clients. A client acquisition manager focuses on bringing in new clients, while an account manager serves as a liaison between clients and the agency.
The paid media specialist manages advertising campaigns, the SEO & content strategist ensures strong search engine rankings and the email marketing specialist handles client email campaigns. A data analyst tracks campaign performance, and the Creative Director oversees design and copywriting to ensure alignment with client goals.
Read: Why You Need a Fractional Creative Director and How To Hire One
Company stage
1. Startups
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In startups, growth marketing teams are typically small, consisting of 3-5 people, due to tight budgets and the need for lean operations. With limited resources, each team member must wear multiple hats and focus on the most impactful areas of growth.
- Head of Growth / Growth Marketing Manager
- Performance marketer (Paid acquisition + SEO)
- Content marketer / Social media manager
- Data analyst
- Email marketer (Optional, depending on size and needs)
Why this structure works:
This lean structure allows multi-functional team members to cover multiple growth areas, ensuring all key channels are addressed with minimal resources. It focuses on high-impact, cost-effective channels like paid ads, SEO, and content marketing. The small, agile team can also experiment quickly, scaling what works and pivoting as needed, which is essential in the fast-paced startup environment.
2. Growth stage
Growth-stage companies (with revenues ranging from $20 - $200 million) are scaling rapidly, so the growth marketing team needs to expand beyond a small, lean setup. These companies often use a combination of in-house roles and freelancers to manage growing marketing demands while maintaining flexibility.
- Head of Growth/VP of Growth
- Growth marketing manager
- Content marketer
- SEO content writer(s)
- Content editor
- Video producer/editor
- Content marketer
- SEO Specialist
- PPC marketer
- Ad copywriter
- Paid media specialist (for specific campaigns)
- Graphic designer
- Email marketer
- CRM manager
- Performance marketer
- Data analyst
- Growth marketing manager
Why this structure works:
This structure allows growth-stage companies to build a core in-house team that manages strategy, data, and key marketing channels, while leveraging freelancers for specialized or project-based tasks.
Hiring freelancers for roles like copywriting, design, or video production helps manage costs while ensuring the company can scale marketing efforts quickly and efficiently. This combination provides flexibility, allowing the business to focus on high-growth areas, maintain quality, and adapt quickly to market demands as it scales.
3. Enterprise
Enterprise companies typically have revenues exceeding $200 million and operate at a large scale, often with diverse product lines and global reach. These companies need a comprehensive in-house growth marketing team supplemented by freelancers, marketing agencies, or consultants for certain projects to manage complex, multi-channel strategies effectively.
- Chief Growth Officer
- VP of Growth Marketing
- Growth marketing manager
- Growth marketers
- Growth product marketers
- UX/UI designer
- Affiliate/partnership manager
- Paid acquisition manager
- Paid media specialists
- Programmatic expert
- Display advertising specialist
- SEO manager
- SEO Specialists (on-page, off-page, technical SEO)
- SEO content strategist
- Content marketing manager
- Content writers
- Video content producer
- Graphic designer
- Content distribution specialist
- Social media manager
- Data analyst/Growth analyst
- CRO Specialist
- Email marketing specialist
- Marketing Automation Specialist
- Growth marketing manager
- VP of Growth Marketing
Why this structure works:
This structure provides a high level of specialization while maintaining clear leadership and collaboration across teams. With distinct roles such as Chief Growth Officer, growth marketers, CRO specialists, and paid media specialists, the team can optimize specific stages of the customer journey—acquisition, retention, and revenue growth—while leveraging data-driven insights to drive results.
Each manager oversees specialized teams, ensuring that experts handle key areas like SEO, content marketing, and paid acquisition. This division of labor enables enterprise companies to execute complex, multi-channel strategies and target growth holistically, with dedicated teams focused on optimizing every aspect of the funnel.
How should a company grow its marketing team? (What’s next)
To grow a growth marketing team effectively, you need to take strategic steps that align with your company’s goals, resources, and changing market conditions. It’s about building a team that has your company’s objectives in sight to ensure long-term success and scalability. Here are some steps to take:
- Start with key foundational roles. In the early stages, you should focus on hiring generalists who cover broad marketing functions like a growth marketing manager, content marketer, and data analyst (depending on the channel(s) that are working for you).
- Add specialized roles as your team expands. As your company grows, expand your team with specialized roles to support more complex growth strategies. Adding roles like a paid media specialist, customer retention specialist, SEO specialist, email marketer, and UI/UX designer allows you to manage different marketing channels, improve customer engagement, and optimize the user experience.
- Scale with strategic hires. Consider adding senior leadership roles to your company as it grows. Roles like Chief Marketing Officer to unify marketing efforts, branding, and growth initiatives at an executive level and VP of growth marketing to oversee larger-scale growth initiatives across the company.
- Hire fractional talent. Fractional (or freelance) talent gives you access to specialized skills and expertise without the cost of full-time hires. This way, you’re able to bring in experts for specific projects or to fill in temporary gaps in your team, allowing you to scale your efforts as needed.
- Invest in tools and technology. As the team grows, invest in market automation tools and technology platforms like Google Analytics, HubSpot, and Marketo to generate reports, automate email marketing, nurture leads, and follow up with customers.
- Monitor team efficiency. Regularly evaluate the team’s performance, tools, and strategies. Be open to restructuring the team or reallocating resources as the business grows. For example, as the team grows, you might centralize certain functions (e.g., data analytics) or decentralize to empower individual product teams.
Build a powerful growth marketing team with MarketerHire
Building an effective and scalable growth marketing team is important to sustain long-term success, no matter the industry or company stage you’re in. However, finding the right talent for these roles can be quite challenging. The hiring process can also be time-consuming and costly, with multiple interviews, back-and-forth negotiations, and training.
However, with MarketerHire, you can find the best marketers for hire without having to go through a grueling and expensive interview process. MarketerHire gives you access to a network of thousands of pre-vetted expert marketers, including growth marketers, paid search experts, marketing analysts, SEO managers, and more from companies like Amazon, Airbnb, and Uber.
MarketerHire uses a combination of human expertise and AI to match companies like yours with marketing experts in as little as 48 hours. Since we’ve already vetted each marketer (we accept only 1% of applicants), you can rest assured that whomever we match you with knows how to do their job. We provide a two-week, risk-free trial to help you determine whether your company and the marketer we matched you with are compatible. If not, we’ll rematch you with another marketer for free.
If you’d like to know how MarketerHire can help you build your growth marketing team, schedule your first call today.