Growth hacking
growth marketingGrowth hacking means pursuing growth through fast, measurable experiments across the whole customer journey, not just marketing. Its core is a cycle: ideate, prioritise, test, measure and scale what works.
Good to know
Despite the name it is not about tricks but a disciplined process: a growth team continuously produces hypotheses, prioritises them by expected impact and runs weekly experiments, most of which fail. The value comes from learning speed: ten fast experiments teach more than one polished campaign.
Experiments span the whole funnel from product to pricing and onboarding, which is why growth work needs marketing, product and data playing together. Durable growth is rarely one hack: it is the accumulation of dozens of small improvements that a testing culture produces steadily.
IN PRACTICE
The growth experiment cycle
Ideate and prioritise
Hypotheses are gathered from data and ideas scored by impact, confidence and effort. The queue lives every week.
Test small and fast
The experiment is built with the smallest possible implementation: a week’s test, not a month’s project.
Measure and scale
A successful experiment is scaled, a failed one logged as a lesson. Both are results.
PITFALLS
Two growth hacking mistakes
Tricks without a foundation
Hacks save neither a product nobody wants nor a path that leaks. Foundation first, experiments second.
Experiments without bookkeeping
Without documentation the same tests run twice and lessons leave with the people. The experiment log is the growth team’s memory.
FREQUENTLY ASKED
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between growth hacking and marketing?+
Growth work spans the whole journey from product to retention and leans on experiments; marketing focuses on creating and capturing demand. In practice the lines blur: growth marketing combines both.
Does growth hacking suit an SME?+
As a method, yes: fast experiments and listening to data need no growth team. One weekly experiment in marketing is already growth hacking.
Where should experiments start?+
At the funnel’s biggest leak: analytics shows where most customers vanish. There even a small improvement produces the biggest result.
How many experiments should run at once?+
As many as you can measure reliably: with small traffic, 1–2 at a time. Overlapping experiments in the same spot muddle the results.
What is a North Star metric?+
One metric that describes the value delivered to customers and that all experiments serve, for example weekly active users. It prevents local optimisation.
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Maintained by the VSCY editorial team · Updated 6 Aug 2026 · Part of the marketing glossary (99 terms)
