67% Revenue Growth Over Four Years as CMO
How a $1.5B entertainment technology company rebuilt marketing around data-driven commercial discipline, growing revenue 67% while cutting customer acquisition cost 56%.
The challenge
The organization needed a marketing function that could drive predictable, profitable growth, not just spend. The operating model lacked commercial discipline, and acquisition and retention were not connected to unit economics.
The approach
As CMO, Zachary restructured the marketing organization and replaced the operating model with data-driven commercial discipline, rebuilding acquisition and retention marketing from the ground up. Business data was connected to a customer data platform, enabling personalization and hyper-segmentation, and reinvestment shifted toward high-intent, high-lifetime-value customers. The result was lower cost and accelerating revenue and EBITDA at the same time.
The refocused team drove growth across the full customer base at a company generating over $500 million in annual revenue: signups grew 103% and weekly active users grew 15.7% while customer acquisition cost fell 56%, meaning the growth came from efficiency, not from buying volume. Revenue growth of 67% represented more than $1 billion in total handle.
The work extended beyond consumer acquisition. It included developing and optimizing B2B marketing strategy and programs for the company's SaaS, hardware, and content distribution businesses, and leading the design and deployment of a re-envisioned enterprise loyalty program connecting physical and digital experiences across the customer journey.
What was done
- Restructured the marketing organization
- Installed a data-driven operating model
- Rebuilt acquisition and retention marketing
- Connected a customer data platform for segmentation
- Shifted reinvestment toward high-LTV customers
- Built board and executive reporting
- Developed B2B marketing programs for SaaS, hardware, and content distribution lines
- Led design and deployment of an enterprise loyalty program spanning physical and digital experiences
The outcomes
The principle behind it
The mechanics behind the numbers were specific. A new customer valuation model built on predictive analytics identified which players were worth acquiring and at what cost, driving the 56% CAC reduction. Reinvestment governance shifted spend toward high-intent, most-engaged customers, including a dedicated growth strategy for the VIP wagering segment. And the budget that funded the work was earned, not given: direct board-level briefings and comprehensive ROI forecasting secured an increase from $8M to $15M.
For the companies State of Mind Strategies advises, the transferable lesson is not the scale. It is the sequence: understand customer economics first, restructure spend around them second, and report in terms a board can fund. That sequence works at $5M in revenue the same way it worked at $1.5B, and it is the discipline behind the Commercial Growth Model.
Growth followed discipline, not volume: connect spend to customer economics, concentrate resources on the customers worth acquiring, and report in terms leadership can decide from. The same discipline drives every State of Mind Strategies engagement.
