Ahrefs CMO Tim Soulo cares about ethical marketing
So how do you know when to hire one — and who to hire? If you’re looking for an excellent freelance social media manager like Chen, MarketerHire is here to help. This is an excerpt from MarketerHire's weekly newsletter, Raisin Bread. To get a tasty marketing snack in your inbox every week, subscribe here. It’s right in his Twitter bio. But what does it mean, exactly? Marketers don’t take a Hippocratic oath before they start working. Sure, the Federal Trade Commission regulates marketing, but it has struggled to keep up with the rapidly changing digital landscape — and with enforcement at scale. That means how marketers treat customers is largely up to… them. This week, we talked to Soulo about the ethical principles he and the Ahrefs team rely on at work.
Be generous. Ethical marketing is about “putting [your audience’s] experience latestdatabase.com above your objectives,” Soulo said. In other words: Give more than you take. It’s the key to both marriage and marketing. without going rogue. But marketers can’t give so much they tank their organizations’ budgets. Or get fired. Ethical marketing requires buy-in at the owner level. In Ahrefs’ case, it comes from the founder and CEO, Dmitry Gerasimenko. “He is consciously sacrificing a portion of our potential revenue and growth for the sake of… integrity,” Soulo said. Follow the golden rule.
Gerasimenko’s code of business ethics is simple, Soulo said: “I want to be the kind of company to our customers that I want other companies to be to me.” Be honest. Don’t overpromise in your marketing copy, Soulo said, and don’t buy likes or clicks or Reddit upvotes. It muddies the line between ads and UGC. Don’t be possessive. It shouldn’t be hard to cancel a SaaS subscription, or any recurring expense, according to Soulo — but some businesses add Kafka-esque friction to this process, or require a phone call. In Ahrefs’ interface, the red cancel button is easy to spot. |
