Why Your Marketing Plan Might Be Holding You Back
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In this episode, host Karen Lloyd welcomes Olga Denisova, CMO of Gotphoto.com, to explore her approach to marketing planning and execution.
With a track record of turning marketing departments into growth engines and helping companies achieve up to 40% year-on-year growth, Olga shares her unorthodox decision to abandon traditional annual marketing plans in favour of strategic pillars and adaptable initiatives.
From her experiences at major tech success stories, including Semrush's IPO and helping Veeams reach a $5 billion valuation, Olga offers a masterclass in agile marketing strategy, testing culture, and redefining marketing's value in the modern tech landscape.
What You’ll Learn in This Episode:
✔️ Why the traditional annual marketing plan may be limiting your growth potential
✔️ How to implement a strategic pillars approach with 90-day planning horizons
✔️ The importance of creating a dedicated testing budget (5-10% of your marketing budget)
✔️ Techniques for balancing data-driven decisions with real customer feedback
✔️ Ways to demonstrate marketing's value in both Product-Led Growth and Sales-Led Growth models
✔️ The importance of translating marketing metrics into business outcomes
✔️ Why successful implementation of AI requires focusing on customer problems first
EPISODE OUTLINE AND HIGHLIGHTS
[03:19] Moving beyond traditional marketing plans to strategic pillars and initiatives
[05:24] How strategic pillars work in practice: the scale-up approach
[11:24] Creating a culture of testing: giving teams freedom and dedicated budget
[14:02] The ideal test budget allocation and why it matters
[18:00] Testing strategies: attribution models and influencer marketing
[20:14] The limitations of attribution models and the orchestra analogy
[21:45] Transitioning from large powerhouse companies to smaller scale-ups
[24:10] Leading remote marketing teams across different time zones
[26:49] AI perspective: focusing on customer problems, not technology implementation
[29:19] Marketing's evolving value proposition in PLG and SLG environments
AGILE MARKETING PLANNING
During her exceptional track record of driving growth, Olga has made the bold decision to abandon the traditional annual marketing plan for her team in 2025. Instead, she focuses on clear strategic pillars while maintaining flexibility in tactical execution.
"All of a sudden, by the end of Q1, your marketing plan is not viable anymore. You need to rethink your budget. You need to recalculate your targets. You need to change your strategy," Olga explains. "At some point, I just thought, 'Why would you spend so much time on something that you are going to sometimes revert?'"
Her alternative approach focuses on clear objectives with a 90-day planning horizon, allowing her team to adapt quickly based on real customer feedback and market changes. This method enables faster iteration and responsiveness, especially important for scale-ups targeting rapidly evolving markets.
"We scheduled a monthly cadence with our sales team because sometimes we marketers forget to talk to real people," she notes. "We look at data, but sometimes you can just seclude yourself in this chamber of data. But sometimes you can just ask around what people actually want to hear."
CREATING A TESTING CULTURE
Olga emphasises that building a true testing culture requires more than just rhetoric—it demands structural and budgetary commitment. She advocates for a dedicated testing budget, separate from regular marketing KPIs, to encourage bold experimentation.
"What happens in companies is even if there is an allocated budget, at the end of the day, it is still counted as the marketing budget that should be contributing to a certain number of customers and performed within a certain CAC range," she explains. "It's not a real test budget if you still need to deliver certain expected results."
At Semrush, Olga built a dedicated "digital hacking" team focused exclusively on testing, which enabled them to run over 100 documented tests per year. This specialised team included:
A marketing analyst to ensure data-driven decision-making
Conversion rate optimisation experts
Search engine optimisation specialists
The team operated with clear metrics for evaluating test ideas before implementation—assessing potential revenue impact and using a structured brainstorming process where team members contributed ideas that were then evaluated systematically.
"We did have a certain target in the amount of tests that we need to accomplish. We also implemented decision metrics for tests where we would be very diligent about understanding how much of an impact this particular test can drive," Olga explains.
She also emphasises the importance of setting up reporting and processes to track performance daily, allowing for quick evaluation of new ideas against historical performance. This creates a balanced approach that combines quantitative data with qualitative customer insights.
Her advice: "For CFO purposes, they should not tie this test budget back to the expected results. Consider it to be just the playground, the sandbox... It gives you freedom, it gives you speed, and that's where the best ideas come from."
Olga recommends starting with at least 10% of your annual marketing budget dedicated to testing, though she acknowledges this may vary based on company stage and budget constraints. Even with limited resources, she insists on having some dedicated testing budget to foster innovation and create space for bold ideas that might otherwise be dismissed as too risky for core marketing activities.
TODAY’S GUEST
Olga Denisova brings a wealth of experience in B2B tech marketing, with a track record of 14 years driving exceptional growth across global markets.
Her strategic insight has been instrumental in scaling marketing operations at companies like Semrush and Veeam, where she led teams of 40+ professionals to consistently deliver 27-49% year-over-year growth and spearheaded successful campaigns that directly influenced millions in revenue.
Olga's approach is rooted in data-driven decision making and multi-channel marketing excellence, balancing performance metrics with brand development to achieve sustainable business growth while fostering high-performing marketing teams.
You can connect with Ogla on LinkedIn.
OUR HOST
Karen Lloyd is a passionate marketing head-hunter and recruitment expert specialising in marketing and C-suite in the technology sector. With over 25 years of experience in the recruitment industry, Karen brings a unique depth of expertise that sets her apart from most recruiters.
Over her career, Karen has accumulated a wealth of experience that includes serving as a Board Director and being actively involved in growing a business for 13 years. Karen has been a part of five start-ups, giving her first-hand knowledge of the critical importance of hiring the right people.
Currently, Karen is the founder and Director of Armstrong Lloyd. She leads a very special team that partners with businesses and empowers them to build industry-leading marketing teams for some of the most exciting B2B technology brands - from small agile and disruptive start-ups to global giants providing a wealth of product and service offerings.
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