Growth Is Not Marketing — Here's the Difference

Why this matters

Conflating growth with marketing causes orgs to assign the wrong success metrics, hire the wrong people, and optimize the wrong levers. Growth is cross-functional and measured by retention and compounding; marketing is largely about top-of-funnel visibility. Getting this wrong means a team that calls itself 'growth' but only runs ad campaigns and wonders why the numbers don't compound.

Demo

Compare two team charters — one growth, one marketing — and their respective north star metrics.

Try it yourself

1. List three A/B tests that only a growth team (not marketing) could run — each must touch the product UI, not an ad.
2. Identify which AARRR stage each team owns and write down one metric per stage they would report weekly.
3. Rewrite the marketingTeam primaryMetric to one that a growth team would consider a lagging vanity metric and explain why.
4. Name a company whose growth team famously operated inside the product (not ads) and find the blog post or case study that describes their loop.

References

• Andrew Chen — What is Growth?
• Reforge — Growth vs. Marketing