🎬 HubSpot's Second Act

ISSUE #263

The plot thickens...

Last month, we saw HubSpot's traffic "decline" spark a media frenzy. But while everyone was sharing Ahrefs screenshots, a bigger story was unfolding behind the scenes 👀.

Turns out, HubSpot's been playing 3D chess while others were stuck in the SEO game.

To hedge against Google's monopoly, HubSpot has been expanding its content portfolio for years (I wrote about it here).

The plan all along? Build owned channels where audiences already live, and ride the influencer marketing wave for reach. Classic case of zigging while others zag.

In this week's roundup, we cover:

• There’s more to the story: The truth behind HubSpot’s traffic (decline)

• Tools and tactics: Building an inbound growth machine

• From the trenches: How to use Gong calls to improve your product messaging

Let's dive in!

Ian at SaaS Weekly

INDUSTRY ROUNDUP

📊 SEO Shakeup | About that HubSpot traffic apocalypse...
After screenshots of their organic traffic nosedive went viral, HubSpot's SVP tells the full story – you guessed it: they're just pruning low-quality content while The Hustle and their creator program pick up the slack. (Link)

🦄 Private Markets | Unicorn watching just got more interesting
From Databricks outpacing Snowflake's growth to Anduril sprinting toward $1B revenue, the first State of the Private Markets report gives us a peek at who's ready to dominate tech's next chapter. (Link)

🌦 Marketing Report | “This just in: customers don't care about your AI feature”
New research from 767 software users reveals slapping "AI-powered" on your landing page actually lowers performance expectations – turns out users want benefits over buzzwords, who knew, right? (Link)

💰 Pricing & Packaging | SaaS pricing pages are playing musical chairs
January's roundup shows 100+ companies shaking things up – from Confluence charging for "automation runs" to Intercom making AI their star player, everyone's racing to find their Goldilocks pricing model. (Link)

FOR YOUR COMMUTE

🎙The 7,11,4 Hack That Turns $1 Into $10K Per Month!
Diary of a CEO

🎙Vertical AI Agents Could Be 10X Bigger Than SaaS
Y Combinator

FROM THE TRENCHES

LEADERS ON LINKEDIN

GROWTH PLAYS IN PRACTICE

🏰 GTM Strategy | 4 min read | Brendan Short at The Signal
Building an inbound growth machine

In theory: Traditional sales tech stacks treat prospects as “static” objects moving through the funnel.

But today's B2B buying journeys involve dozens of entry points, interactions, and varying levels of product awareness.

As a result, modern GTM teams need a system (like Default) that can instantly route, enrich, and activate prospects through personalized workflows.

In practice:

1. Build around data ingestion points: Instead of creating another point solution, focus on controlling critical data handoffs. Default started with inbound lead management – the crucial intersection between marketing spend and sales execution.

2. Design state-based workflows: Move beyond basic form-to-CRM pipelines. Create dynamic routing logic that:

• Instantly matches prospects to the right rep's calendar

• Enriches lead data in real-time

• Triggers personalized workflows based on buyer context

3. Leverage your entire customer data stack: Build native integrations with your internal data warehouses so GTM teams can use product usage data, customer events, and other signals to drive sales workflows without engineering support.

🖼 Growth Marketing | 6 min read | Foundation Team
How Ramp Spends Over $400,000/Month on PPC – And What You Can Learn From It

In theory: Traditional PPC frameworks focus on outspending competitors and maximizing click volume.

However, Ramp's "strategic contraction" approach shows that narrowing keyword focus and aligning closely with product strategy can drive better results.

While Brex doubled spend to $700K/month chasing volume, Ramp maintained $400K/month spend while growing from 15K to 30K customers.

In practice:

1. Contract keyword targeting strategically: Ramp cut targeted keywords from 19.7K to 6.5K, focusing on three buckets:

• Core product terms (business cards, expense management)

• New product launches (procurement software post-acquisition)

• Industry-specific bottom-funnel terms (e.g., "nonprofit accounting software")

2. Build defensive moats through PPC: Instead of chasing new territory, Ramp maintains strong coverage of core terms while expanding into adjacent categories. This prevents competitors from easily poaching customers in their key segments.

3. Target vertical-specific intent: Rather than competing on generic high-volume terms, Ramp targets long-tail keywords for specific industries like nonprofits, real estate, and ecommerce. These show higher intent to adopt financial management solutions.

TOP READ FROM LAST WEEK

1. SaaS Weekly Original: 🤖 AI Is Eating SaaS Alive (Link)