📉 Google humbles HubSpot

Author

Ian Ito
January 24, 2025 • Estimated Reading Time: 7 minutes

ISSUE #261

It was a big week in SaaS:

Marketers are going crazy about HubSpot’s traffic decline. Forget “Cat Memes,” an Ahref screenshot sparked a comment frenzy on LinkedIn (and a competitor feud).

Meanwhile, Clay raises a flashy extension round as they continue powering the modern GTM tech stack.

In this week's roundup, we cover:

  • Is SEO is dead (again)?: HubSpot’s traffic takes a nose dive

  • Back to the classics: “They wrote the rules of digital marketing…before computers existed”

  • From the trenches: Sell the story, not the features when talking to prospects

Let's dive in!

Ian at SaaS Weekly

INDUSTRY ROUNDUP

🔍 SEO Shakeup | HubSpot's traffic takes a tumble
The posterchild of inbound marketing saw its blog traffic nosedive from 10M to 2.5M monthly visitors after Google's August core update. Turns out even the company that wrote the book on content marketing isn't immune to search's new "actually be useful" algorithm. (Link)

🛠️ Tech (Stack) Drama | The tools teams love to hate
Lenny's survey of 6.5K tech pros found something interesting: Slack and Jira ranked high on both the "most loved" and "most hated" lists. Meanwhile, Linear's minimalist approach is quietly eating Jira's market share with fed-up project teams. (Link)

🤫 Marketing Secrets | When "Mad Men" knew more than your AI
Turns out the OGs of marketing called our modern playbook...in 1923. While we're all chasing AI-powered tactics, the real growth secrets are collecting dust in century-old marketing books. (Link)

🚀 GTM Stack | Growth's new best friend is…
Clay just snagged another $40M at a $1.25B valuation by treating sales like software development - turns out OpenAI, Canva, and 5,000 others love the idea of a "GTM development environment" where growth ideas can be coded like features. (Link)

FOR YOUR COMMUTE

FROM THE TRENCHES

đź‘· | Garrett Jestice | Founder of Prelude Marketing | Writer of GTM Foundations
“Instead of leading with features during a sales pitch, tell the story of your best customers”

What’s one growth lesson you’ve learned recently?

I discovered that transforming your sales pitch into an overview of a customer case study creates a more authentic and effective way to connect with prospects.

Rather than focusing on product features, sharing the journey of an existing customer helps potential buyers see themselves in the solution.

How did you put this lesson into practice?

I implemented a simple 5-point framework that walks through the customer's initial challenge, alternatives they tried, why they chose our solution, their results, and what they purchased.

This approach not only makes selling more natural but also provides immediate feedback on our targeting and messaging––prospects either strongly relate to the story or tell us exactly why their situation differs.

LEADERS ON LINKEDIN

Product-Market Fit and Ideal Customer Profile are usually 25% customer demographic traits and 75% behavioral and belief traits.

Many founders don't learn this until too late.

Greg Head on LinkedIn →

The Old Stack vs. The New Stack đź”˝

The sales-tech landscape is evolving rapidly.

Felix Frank ⚙️ on LinkedIn →

GROWTH PLAYS IN PRACTICE

🏰 How they grew | 8 min read | First Round Capital
The GTM Inflection Points That Powered Clay to a $1B+ Valuation

In theory: Building a B2B content engine typically starts with company-created blogs, whitepapers, and case studies. But Clay discovered a more scalable approach: harness the natural advocacy of power users.

After spotting early customer advocacy on LinkedIn, they immediately doubled down and built a compounding content machine by amplifying their customers' voice and turning every interaction into content fuel.

In practice:

  1. Spot and amplify organic signals: Clay noticed customers posting about their product on LinkedIn without prompting – they were using it to position themselves as experts. Instead of trying new channels, they poured resources into enabling more customer content.

  2. Build content loops into every touchpoint:

    1. Turn community events into LinkedIn posts

    2. Convert LinkedIn posts into blog content and guides

    3. Then use customer conversations for product feedback and content ideas

  3. Create systematic enablement: Launch creator incentive programs that reward customers for sharing their Clay expertise. Support these creators with marketing resources, campaign help, and AI tools to generate personalized video content.

đź–Ľ Framework | 5 min read | Mike Northfield & Kalungi
The Growth Matrix: How to Use it to Guide Your SaaS GTM Strategy

In theory: Most B2B SaaS startups struggle to choose between competing growth opportunities: Do we double down on current customers? Enter new markets? Launch new features?

The Growth Matrix breaks these choices into four strategic buckets, helping founders make deliberate trade-offs instead of spreading resources too thin.

In practice:

  1. Start with a clear revenue target: Define your growth goal (e.g., "+$1M ARR in 12 months"). For each potential initiative, estimate three numbers:

    • Number of new customers it will generate

    • Expected annual contract value (ACV)

    • Implementation difficulty score

  2. Plot initiatives by risk/reward: Map each opportunity into the matrix:

    1. Market Penetration (safest): Upselling current customers, reducing churn

    2. Market Development: Entering new verticals or regions

    3. Product Development: Building new features for the current market

    4. Diversification (riskiest): New products for new markets

TOP READS FROM LAST WEEK

  1. Datadog acquires Quickwit (Link)

  2. Try these 3 CTA changes to increase conversions (Link)

  3. ServiceNow acquires AI-native conversation data analysis platform Cuein

    (Link)

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