About Us: What Does Ladder Do?

As a data-driven marketing agency, we get this question a lot. Whilst almost everyone is looking for the best ways to grow a company, they don’t always understand or need what Ladder has to offer. This post is our way of being transparent and helpful (two of our core values) so that nobody wastes time considering working with us when we wouldn’t be a good fit. If after reading this post, you’re nodding your head more than shaking it, get in touch:

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Ladder is an ROI-driven growth solutions company. We help companies test new ways to grow through three major solutions:

1) Technology: we have a platform called the Ladder Planner that automates your marketing plan and acts as a system of record for your testing strategy.

2) Consulting: we work with you to develop your growth strategy and ensure you’re planning and executing each test in a way that drives results.

3) Agency: if you don’t have the relevant skills in-house, we offer a retainer-based full-service relationship where we execute everything for you.

Technology

Most marketers guess at what will work, based on what worked in the past or for someone else. They’re either lucky or they get it wrong. The Ladder Planner automates your marketing plan based on data from thousands of hours and millions of dollars spent testing what works (or doesn’t). As well as automating your marketing plan, the Ladder Planner also acts as a system of record for your testing strategy. Each hard won insight is immortalized in your own personal playbook, ready to help new staff hit the ground running as you scale your team.

Consulting

Perfect for teams that want to retain the execution and marketing knowledge in-house, but need extra accountability, help with training and fostering a data-driven culture. We’ll guide you through the process of testing what platforms, audiences, messaging, creative and user journeys lead to the most profitable customers for your business. Marketing is a complex and constantly evolving ecosystem; we’ll keep you up to date with all the latest trends, tactics and tools so you’re constantly at the edge of what’s possible.

Agency

A one-stop shop for growing your business across all marketing channels and funnel stages. Our lean, agile methodology helps us maximize growth for the minimum possible resource. We execute a set number of tests each week and use the results to determine our strategy for what tactics to bet on next. You’ll work with a world-class growth strategist, armed with the Ladder Planner and our in-house creative team, to quickly iterate across the platforms, audiences, messaging, creative and user journeys most likely to work for you.

Our Values

Whilst our technology and experience certainly help, our secret sauce is the way we approach marketing and what we value. It’s what has helped us attract and retain the best talent and repeatably drive success for our clients and customers. We have five main values:

1) Transparent: we’re honest with you, even if the truth hurts. For every test we clearly spell out our hypothesis, and if it fails we own that failure (and move on to something that does work).

2) Persistent: truth be told, we can be a little annoying. Expect us to chase you when tests are being held up. Don’t expect us to let up even after we’ve seen success.

3) Test-driven: we only trust data if it came from a controlled experiment. Quantitative and qualitative analysis helps us spot opportunities, but the case isn’t closed till we run a test.

4) Creative: some of the best marketing campaigns in history would never have worked in a spreadsheet. We work to make sure good, original ideas don’t get shot down.

5) Helpful: business advice, custom analysis, excel help, sense-checking, intros to investors, prospects and employees… we’re always on the lookout for ways to be helpful.

Our Process

Note: We expanded on this explanation in a blog post, which you can find here: https://blog.ladder.io/growth-hacking/.

Monday – Analysis

Your strategist pulls together a weekly report detailing your marketing funnel (by channel) and digs deeper into the data to learn what is working (or not). They send across a concise summary explaining what they learned and why that matters for your business.

Tuesday – Strategy

Now the strategist consults our tactic database (you can see an example here: https://ladder.io/playbook/?utmsource=blog&utmmedium=content&utm_campaign=about) which is sorted within the Ladder Planner in order of likely impact on your business. They choose the three tactics most likely to work based on everything they know about your business so far.

Wednesday – Approvals

Each tactic proposed goes through two layers of approvals. First the strategist’s choices are ‘stress-tested’ by a panel of other strategists and senior leadership. If their logic and data holds up, they then pitch the tests to you on their weekly call for final approval.

Thursday – Execution

All tests due to go live are built in the relevant platforms. They get a final check from another team member to catch any issues, and you’re notified as they go live. The budget, creative, tracking and test duration were all approved ahead of time, so there should be no surprises here.

Friday – Review

We run final health checks going into the weekend to make sure no tests is exhibiting unusual behavior and that performance isn’t suffering. We make any optimizations and adjustments needed and then get on with in-depth training and post-mortems to share knowledge across the team.

Does it Work?

Ladder’s founding team developed the testing methodology the product is built on through decades of experience, spending over $40m across marketing channels for fast-growing startups and large corporations. At Ladder we’ve used this process to good effect, helping Y Combinator, 500 Startups, and TechStars companies grow and launch new products for global public companies. Over 1,000 tests launched across a database of 1,000+ tactics have contributed to our client’s success, with several exits, series A rounds and double-digit revenue growth.

While our approach won’t work for everyone, we’re confident that if it’s possible to grow your business, we’ll find the way.