The Revenue Engine

Lightly edited for readability.

Host Your career journey into performance marketing.

Marica Seven years recorded. Two or three freelancing before that. I started knocking on doors. Hey, do you need help with your social media? It was 2017. Back in Romania. I was doing everything myself. As I grew I felt I needed to do more. That was the point I moved into paid media, and that was the moment I left my hometown for London. First time I entered the big advertisers field and could make real impact. Now I am at Directive, the biggest B2B independent agency in the world, helping clients turn ad spend into revenue and profit.

Host Has performance marketing made the industry more accountable?

Marica Everything is more integrated. Not just platforms, departments too. The CMO does not live in its own world anymore. The CFO is also included. Every pound into paid has to show its LTV and CAC. Performance marketing is more measured and more accountable than it was.

Host Many companies say they want growth but optimise for cost per click or cost per lead. Does the industry confuse optimisation with actual growth?

Marica Yes. That is the side effect of silos. Set a marketing department narrow KPIs and they will hit those KPIs and not care what happens further down the funnel. Qualified leads, opportunities, revenue. If you do not push them to look at all of it, they will not. Efficiency needs a revolution in how goals are set across marketing, sales and product.

Host Do companies need to build an engine internally?

Marica Yes. Companies are leaner now. Departments are more entangled. Not all of them are there, especially enterprise, which can still lean into old silo structures. But awareness is there. The best moment I saw this was in 2022 at Manning with the UK Government contract. No limits on what we could contribute to. Everyone had that mentality.

Host Automation, data and AI. Human strategy versus the algorithm.

Marica Coexistence. You can automate some deliverables but that will not replace your entire strategy. Prompting an AI to build a strategy does not cut it. But AI does make things faster. Use it, stay mindful of the rights you might be stepping on, know where the information is coming from.

Host Are marketers too dependent on the big platforms?

Marica Yes. And it depends on the company. Startups ramping up, paid media suddenly makes sense. Fine. But if 80 per cent of your revenue comes from one platform, that is a significant risk. Diversify. Any company relying on one platform or one source for a significant slice of revenue should rethink.

Host We are moving into a world of zero click. How well do clients understand AI discoverability?

Marica Everyone wants to do it. Most fail to realise it is traditional SEO plus a contextual layer to make content visible to AI overviews and LLMs, ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude. Done a bit better. There are companies generating real leads and revenue on the back of it in B2B. You will not see traffic the way you used to. You see the business outcomes.

Host Citations now come from Reddit, LinkedIn.

Marica Correct. Reddit was not a focus for people prior to 2025. LinkedIn is climbing fast for citations too. That means a transformation event inside enterprise: SEO and content teams need to combine. Old content is being optimised again and resurfacing, so information needs to be refreshed, or you confuse the customer journey.

Host Performance marketing for long-term growth versus short-term lead volume.

Marica Same discipline as the last ten years. Invest where you have data. Take measured risks. Our internal example: we increased investment in content and SEO and exploded our AI visibility. Was it a risk? Not really. We knew that was the future. Twenty per cent more, then up, then up again. Step by step.

Host Is iteration and experimentation happening enough?

Marica Yes, and it is forced now. Open Google Search Console and see clicks dropping year on year. That is why everyone is suddenly asking how to be visible to the AIs. The journey is transforming. People are adapting on the back of the change itself.

Host Companies genuinely using data to learn versus companies using data to justify.

Marica Some see ChatGPT referral traffic up a thousand per cent year on year and double down on that huge opportunity. Others over-report and stagnate. The latter wait six months or a quarter when they should pivot the budget now. Pivot now.

Host Creative thinking inside performance marketing.

Marica Most important moment of a company when it comes to paid media and creative investment. Traditional Google search is getting too expensive or returns less. Search behaviour is migrating to ChatGPT and Claude. Last year our LTV/CAC was three to one. This year, two to one. Significant drop. A lot of B2B is now moving spend into LinkedIn and Meta and realising they were under-investing there. Creative is the epicentre. You need a really good performance creative strategy to capture demand and drive it where you want.

Host Brand versus demand in a tough economy.

Marica Depends on the company. Digital-media-wise, companies should invest more in brand than they did. The low-hanging fruits are gone. Discoverability is the word. Companies are not investing enough in it. Long-term revenue engines.

Host Without brand you have nothing.

Marica Depends. A platform like Loveable hit overnight demand when nobody else had the solution. Any investment in brand at that moment would have generated significant return because it was balanced with timing. In an over-competitive industry where nothing new happens, LTV/CAC crumbles, see the supermarkets. Tesco and Ocado have had to become inventive in how they invest in brand.

Host Tech brands building community.

Marica Most powerful way to stay relevant. Communities built through real people’s stories make a huge impact. LinkedIn starts to pick up from an SEO perspective. Reddit the same. People-centred assets are generating growth.

Host Advice to younger individuals breaking into performance marketing.

Marica Toughest moment to enter the market. Current playbooks are built for a world that is fading. So: go in, break things, test, test, test, continue with what works. What worked in paid media last year will not work next. It never has. Follow the people’s journey and you will find your spot. That is how I started. I went to businesses asking if they wanted me to post their shoes on Facebook. They said yes. That won my first contract.

Host Quickfire. A brand doing great digital marketing right now.

Marica UK Government. I worked that contract. Real thought in every piece. The NHS campaigns, recruitment campaigns, social awareness work. The energy and value put in is fantastic. Every time I see an ad from that side I resonate.

Host One marketing metric people obsess over too much.

Marica Clicks. Likes and clicks.

Host One skill every performance marketer should develop.

Marica Analytical skills. They are a must right now. Marketing is moving in the direction Wall Street moved, toward quantitative work. You need to be able to read the data.