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SparkToro
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Researched profile. Starter Story's AI research system compiled this page from 72 public sources — the founder didn't write it. Automated research can misread or misattribute a source, so treat figures as best-effort. How this works →
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How SparkToro Grew

Audience research tool for marketers and creators

How did SparkToro grow?

Summary of the sourced claims below

SparkToro grew initially by building a waitlist of about 18,000 people before launch. Its top-of-funnel marketing relied heavily on influence marketing through channels like podcasts, websites, social accounts, events, webinars, media publications, and YouTube channels that already reached marketers and market researchers. Word of mouth became a major growth driver, shifting from direct marketing efforts to over 80% coming from secondary word-of-mouth. The company also utilized outsourcing with independent contractors, agencies, and consultants to support various functions including marketing and product improvements.

Channels

6 channels · grouped by how SparkToro grows

  • Community marketing

    · 2 mentions · 2 sources
    “I find sources of influence (people, publications, email newsletters, podcasts, blogs, social accounts, industry news sites, webinars, YouTube channels) that folks in the worlds of marketing and market research pay attention-to. Then, I build a connection or get an introduction, and see if they’r...”
    high
    Show 1 more quote
    “Our most successful top-of-funnel marketing has come through what I’d call “influence marketing” (no “r”). That is, we found channels of influence -- podcasts, websites, social accounts, events, webinars, media publications, YouTube channels, etc. -- that already reached marketers and market rese...”
    high

  • SEO

    · 1 mention
    “In the first 6 months after our launch last year, we received 113K visits from Google search. ~70% of those (according to Google Search Console) came from branded searches for SparkToro, Spark Toro, Rand Fishkin, or one of our free tools. The last 6 months, search traffic rose to 193K, of which ~...”
    high

  • Word of mouth

    · 1 mention
    “We rely on folks hearing about our brand, directly from me doing some marketing thing with an existing source of influence, or indirectly from secondary word-of-mouth. In the first few months after launch, it was almost entirely the former. Today, it’s 80%+ the latter.”
    high

  • Outsourcing

    · 1 mention
    “We’ve embraced the outsourcing model (something I recommend to everyone), utilizing more than a dozen independent contractors, agencies, and consultants to help us with everything from classifying podcasts to conversion rate optimization to taxes, accounting, art design, UI/UX, and more.”
    medium

  • Great customer service

    · 1 mention
    “We plan to keep providing high-touch levels of personal service to everyone who emails us (except for you, guest post spammers!), and to scale that support in the product by fixing things fast and making iterative improvements based on feedback.”
    medium

  • Milestone Email

    · 1 mention
    “We’d built up ~18,000 folks on a waitlist for the SparkToro launch, starting in March 2018 and running through March 2020.”
    high

How 2,678 businesses grow

Of businesses with mapped growth channels, the share using each — SparkToro’s highlighted.
  • Referral/Word-of-mouth
    68% ◀
  • Social media
    58%
  • Search/SEO
    57% ◀
  • Email
    47% ◀
  • Community
    33% ◀
  • Content/Inbound
    31%
  • Partnerships
    30%
  • Paid ads
    24%
  • Events
    24%
  • Press/PR
    17%
  • Outbound/Sales
    16%
  • Marketplaces/App stores
    8%
  • Brand Authenticity
    2%
  • Product expansion
    2%
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