Growth HQ’s year-end reflection
With the New Year rapidly approaching, we thought it would be nice to ask the Growth HQ team to write a little piece reflecting on 2022 and thinking ahead to 2023. We often get caught up in our day-to-day lives and it’s sometimes good to pause and look back over the previous 12 months, acknowledging what we’ve been through, reflecting on what we’ve learnt, celebrating our successes and thinking about how to move forward.
From reviewing their professional highlights of the year to thinking of their personal goals and targets for 2023, here are the Growth HQ team’s reflections:
Shuheb Ali
There are many professional highlights to choose from this year but being promoted to Account Manager alongside opening up the Growth HQ office in London would definitely be top of my list.
During 2022 I’ve particularly enjoyed learning how to ensure clients can be onboarded swiftly, launch their Affiliate Programmes and ensure a long term strategy is set from the get go. I'm looking forward to continuing building on the great relationships I have with both GHQ clients and the GHQ team, as well as expanding our GHQ network across London, whether that be with new clients, publishers and even future members of our team!
When it comes to my personal life, taking the plunge and making my dream move to London has been full of new challenges, experiences and faces, which have exceeded my expectations! I’m really grateful to GHQ for helping make this dream a reality and my wonderful family and friends who have supported me in my day to day life and pushed me to fulfil my ambitions. Now that I live in London, one of my main goals is getting back to playing football and a healthy gym routine, as well as managing my free time to ensure I can regularly go back to Dorset to visit family and spend time with my nieces and nephews.
Firuj Ali
One of the things I'm most proud of this 2022 is seeing the Growth HQ team grow and flourish as well as setting up a base in London which means we have a wider pool of potential great people to join the team in 2023. I’m also really excited to see what new clients come onboard in the next 12 months.
This year I've learnt how important it is as an agency to stick to our collaborative nature with both our clients and team members. Collaboration is essential for solving problems, reaching goals and ultimately achieving mutual growth.
Seeing Illan grow from a little baby to a walking and almost talking little dude with a very strong will is definitely one of my personal highlights of the year. I’m so glad to have him and my partner Inez in my life, and I’m also really grateful for the awesome team we have at Growth HQ. In 2023 my main goal is to keep healthy, trying out new sports and activities. It can be hard to keep on top of your physical and mental health when work and parenting are often the priorities but I’d like to get out of my comfort zone and try something new.
Graeme Boase
Joining Growth HQ in October and being part of such a fast paced skilled team again has definitely reinvigorated me. I’m excited to see how the company continues to grow across clients, team and publishers in 2023. We have a lot of amazing things planned and I'm excited to see how these will pan out beyond next year.
After so many limitations and cancelled plans during COVID-19, this 2022 has been a year for me to do anything and everything, and attending Glastonbury Festival was definitely an amazing experience. I’m also really grateful to have been able to get back to travelling again, unrestricted travelling -abroad and around the UK- is something you can’t take for granted anymore!
Inez Miedema
There are so many professional highlights to choose from this year: London office expansion, doubling the team, smashing the first Q4 for many of our newly joined retail clients, and numerous existing clients extending their contracts… It’s so exciting to see the rate at which the team is growing and how we’ve managed to build a team of dedicated people who want to absolutely nail it for Growth HQ’s clients.
The main takeaway from 2022 is realising that the best agency-client match for Growth HQ is one that doesn’t necessarily have affiliate marketing resources available, but does understand performance marketing, is data-driven and wants to dedicate budget and time to learning what works at fast speed. For one of our biggest clients, we saw the percentage of new user revenue increase from 0.5% in Q4 ‘21 to 7.5% in Q4 ‘22, this was all underpinned by collaboration and speed of testing and learning.
The last two years were all about proving the concept of a data-driven, holistic affiliate agency. Focusing on all aspects of the affiliate world, from traditional incentive and comparison players to influencers and Paid PR. Now that we have a diverse client portfolio and 2.5x’ed both our revenue and profit, 2023 will be about investing into sustainable growth: people, development, more clients and giving back to the community.
Outside of my work life, I've loved seeing our ‘little man’ grow from a (mostly) helpless baby to a full blown cheeky, intelligent toddler. When raising a child and growing a business, it’s really important to have a support system and I’m extremely grateful for the people who surround me across Growth HQ, friends, family, nursery, my partner (in business and life), I couldn't have done it all without this crew.
One of my priorities for next year is having a better work-life balance. Running a fast-growing business takes it out on you, so I’m going to get back to my weekly pottery classes and dinner dates with my partner.
Francesca De Cata
It’s been an exciting year for me professionally speaking. I’ve discovered affiliate marketing, a new area of marketing that I really enjoy and that I believe complements my already existing skills. I’ve learnt so much since I joined Growth HQ in July 2022 but I am really looking forward to expanding my knowledge in specific areas such as Google Analytics and social media performance, as well as navigating the freelance side of things.
This year I’ve realised how important it is for me to separate work from home and how beneficial it is to be in an office environment. Although it’s nice to be able to work from the comfort of my own home from time to time, I’ve noticed the negative impact it can have on both my mental and physical health. When I joined Growth HQ and started heading back into the office, I felt I was a lot more productive and my general wellbeing
On a personal level, I’m so proud of having improved my relationship with food. It’s far from perfect but I think I have made great strides towards building a healthy relationship with food. I definitely wouldn’t have been able to do it without my amazing partner, who is my rock, my pillar and my biggest supporter.
My main focus in 2023 will be my wellness and health as well as taking my foodie Instagram to the next level and perfecting my cooking skills even more.
Lydia Draper
It has been such an exciting journey to enter the affiliate space with such an amazing company and progressing into a permanent role at Growth HQ. This year I’ve particularly loved learning to communicate confidently with clients about marketing - whether that's updates, performance or recommendations!
The past 12 months have been all about learning how to manage campaign onboarding and analysis. I managed onboarding for our biggest client for the 2nd half of the year which required a structured process to make sure things went live seamlessly and performed well. As we move into 2023, I know I've only scratched the surface and I'm excited to keep optimising my processes to make it more efficient and contribute to smashing targets. I'm looking forward to learning more about the strategic and management of accounts, and being able to apply my learnings from ‘22!
Being near my friends and family, and moving in with my partner have been some of my personal highlights. I’m so happy to have such amazing people around me and I’m really grateful for their health and happiness. Next year I’m looking forward to prioritising my fitness and health more. I've started playing Womens Rugby and I would love to join a team and keep at that in 2023!
Emma Brocklehurst
My professional highlight of the year has been to move into my new role as an Account Manager but also to work with a bunch of dedicated, talented people and watch them grow alongside the agency. We've got an amazing team at Growth HQ and I truly love seeing everyone do well and support each other.
I've learned so much in the past year - GHQs rapid expansion into the affiliate world has meant we have a broad spectrum of clients and teams that have opened up to a lot of personal growth. My main learning has been to recognise alignments or differences between GHQ and our clients and how to be adaptable and flexible in order to work efficiently with positive results on both sides. I'm looking forward to seeing where the next year will take GHQ - we've got a lot of big plans and can't wait to start seeing these take shape!
On a personal level, I've had a fantastic year with so many positive experiences! Travelling around the US over the summer, buying a house and being surrounded by the best people at home and at work are some of the best things. One of my priorities for next year is working on our new house project as well as planning our wedding in August.
Francesca Wardzinski
Working for Growth HQ has been my first formal marketing position so it has been exciting to embark on this career path and earn a permanent executive position. One of the things I've most enjoyed this year is building quality relationships with clients and publishers - it's great that we regularly get to meet and network with new people. I’m looking forward to seeing the team expand more as well as opening up new opportunities for Growth and testing new verticals for my fintech and software clients in their busy Q1 period.
I had lots of change this year transferring into digital marketing from a very different role in customer service, so 2022 has definitely given me the opportunity to learn lots of new skills and become part of a great team. Towards the end of this year I've had the chance to work more independently on a handful of clients and take the lead in developing their growth strategy so I'm looking forward to taking more initiative here into the coming year as well as further refine my analytical skills.
2022 has been the first time in 5 years I have lived in Bournemouth, so it's also been really nice to reconnect with my hometown by working at a local agency and catch up with people I haven't seen since before the pandemic.
It has been a fantastic year full of learnings and growth, fun moments and great experiences for the Growth HQ team and we are looking forward to seeing what 2023 brings us.
