Jan 2022 - Dec 2024

Agency CRM: Driving Activation & Growth

Overview

How a risky bet became the central agency hub — increasing activation, engagement, and becoming a field for continuous growth experimentation.

scope

Fake Doors
Funnel Analysis
A/B Tests
Activation & Engagement
Clients flow
Tasks Management
Reporting

stakeholders

Head of Product
3 Engineering Teams
Billing Team
Marketing Team
Data Analysts

Overview

How a risky bet became the central agency hub — increasing activation, engagement, and becoming a field for continuous growth experimentation.

Impact of change

+57%

setups

х5.5

avg. client profiles

avg. profiles

+7%

active users

+9%

payments

Client Profile

Context

What is Agency CRM?

Agency CRM is a central hub for all client-related assets and activities that marketing and SEO agencies perform inside Semrush. The goal was to anchor agencies inside the platform, connecting their daily workflows with core Semrush tools. The more client data users store and manage in CRM, the higher the switching cost — making both CRM and Semrush more irreplaceable.

Agency CRM is a central hub for all client-related assets and activities that marketing and SEO agencies perform inside Semrush.

Agency-Client Collaboration via Online Portal

Task Management

Projects and Key Data Monitoring

File Storage

Client Profile

Agency-Client Collaboration via Online Portal

Tasks Management

Projects and Key Data Monitoring

File Storage

My role

Individual Contributor Both on Strategic and Hands-on Levels:

I shaped discovery patterns, end-to-end design, validation frameworks and experimentation frameworks.

Led end-to-end 0→1 product design and launch.

Defined product design vision and growth strategy.

Defined growth experiments to accelerate adoption and activation.

Partnered with engineering, data, and product to integrate CRM into Semrush ecosystem.

Built experimentation backlog and growth initiatives in Dev Sprints

challenge

Build Product in a Lean User-Centered Way, Without Going into Feature Fabric

Build Product in a Lean User-Centered Way,
Without Going into Feature Fabric

It started with a small, lean release containing just a few features and basic functionality. The main user action was to create a client — the more, the better.

It started with a small, lean release containing just a few features and basic functionality.

The first critical action — “Add your first client” — was a major friction point.

It started with a small, lean release containing just a few features and basic functionality. The main user action was to create a client — the more, the better.

The first critical action — “Add your first client” — was a major friction point. Activation dropped before users experienced value.

After creating a client, they landed on a profile page, where they needed to set up and fill out the profile with details.

The first critical action — “Add your first client” — was a major friction point.

After creating a client, they landed on a profile page, where they needed to set up and fill out the profile with details.

Based on research and user analytics, I identified key patterns:

Clients are perceived as websites — users optimize websites for their clients.
Every agency account already had ~8 projects in Semrush.
Many used HubSpot as their external CRM.

My hypothesis:
If we let users import existing projects or HubSpot contacts in one click, activation and engagement will grow.

Activation tactic

One-Click Client Creation

Only one field 'Domain', because client means website for our users. Two import sources: from Projects and Hubspot, allowing users instantly add multiple clients at once.

When importing clients from Projects, users saw confirmation how much projects to be imported, how they would look and where to find them.

All imported Projects instantly connect to client profile, allowing to monitor key data without distractions on other domains, forming key behaviour habit.

% of users who added at least one client

14% → 22%

avg. client profiles per user

2.3 → 12.7

approach

Continuous Loop of Growth Tactics

To drive self-serve activation, I launched a series of quick-win experiments focused on reducing time-to-value.

Add first client

Aha moment

Engagement

Monetization

Reduce Inputs

Import Sources

Wappalyzer Domain Data

Wappalyzer Data

Templates & Quick actions

Retention Emails

Templates & Actions

Retention Emails

Profile Unlocked

Add first client

Aha moment

Engagement

Monetization

Reduce Imputs

Auto Import

Wappalyzer

Templates

Emails

Profile Unlocked

Research showed most users analyzed leads to spot SEO gaps and pitch services.

We hypothesized:
If CRM instantly reveals a client’s tech stack, users perceive value faster and use CRM as a research tool — not just storage.

aha-moment tactic

Revealing Instant Value

Integrated Wappalyzer API, auto-enriching each profile with full tech-stack data. Freemium users saw partial data; full stack unlocked via paid plan — our first embedded upsell trigger.

% of attributed payments

+9%

With adoption growing, focus shifted to daily engagement. We introduced Task Templates and Quick Actions — pre-defined, high-frequency agency tasks accessible in one click. Measured via cohort analysis, new user cohorts showed higher weekly activity and reduced churn in the first 30 days.

engagement tactic

Building Habits — Quick Actions & Templates

Quick actions are a simple shortcuts to the necessary parts of the product users can do easily and on auto-pilot

On a task creation step we added most popular templates agencies work with when starting work with the clients.

% of active users

+7%

feature stickness

+3%

I propose an initiative to also target non-converted users. I defined two categories:

Those who visited landing but have not started;
Those who started but were inactive for a 28-day period.

retention tactic

Retain Users with Emails

Email sent at 14 and 28 day after landing visit.

Email sent after 28 days of inactivity

open rate

33%

ctr

12%

Activation tactic

One-Click Client Creation

Based on research and user analytics, I identified key patterns:

Clients are perceived as websites — users optimize websites for their clients.
Every agency account already had ~8 projects in Semrush.
Many used HubSpot as their external CRM.

Based on research and user analytics,
I identified key patterns:

Clients are perceived as websites — users optimize websites for their clients.
Every agency account already had ~8 projects in Semrush.
Many used HubSpot as their external CRM.

Based on research and user analytics, I identified key patterns:

Clients are perceived as websites — users optimize websites for their clients.
Every agency account already had ~8 projects in Semrush.
Many used HubSpot as their external CRM.

My hypothesis:
If we let users import existing projects or HubSpot contacts in one click, activation and engagement will grow.

Replaced multi-field onboarding with a single “Domain” input and two instant import options — from Projects and from HubSpot.

When importing clients from Projects, he knew how much projects to be imported, how they would look and where to find them.

All imported projects auto-linked to client profiles.

% of users who added at least one client

14% → 22% (+57%)

avg. client profiles per user

2.3 → 12.7 (x5.5)

aha-moment tactic

Revealing Instant Value

Research showed most users analyzed leads to spot SEO gaps and pitch services.

My hypothesis:
If CRM instantly reveals a client’s tech stack, users perceive value faster and use CRM as a research tool — not just storage.

Integrated Wappalyzer API, auto-enriching each profile with full tech-stack data. Freemium users saw partial data; full stack unlocked via paid plan — our first embedded upsell trigger.

% of attributed payments

+9%

engagement tactic

Building Habits — Quick Actions & Templates

With adoption growing, focus shifted to daily engagement. We introduced Task Templates and Quick Actions — pre-defined, high-frequency agency tasks accessible in one click.

Measured via cohort analysis, new user cohorts showed higher weekly activity and reduced churn in the first 30 days.

Quick actions are a simple shortcuts to the necessary parts of the product users can do easily and on auto-pilot

On a task creation step we added most popular templates agencies work with when starting work with the clients.

Just in one click user creates one or many tasks with pre-populated description and all the necessary info.

% of active users

+7%

feature stickness

+3%

retention tactic

Retain Users with Emails

I propose an initiative to also target non-converted users. I defined two categories:

Those who visited landing but have not started;
Those who started but were inactive for a 28-day period.

I propose an initiative to also target non-converted users. I defined two categories:

Those who visited landing but have not started;
Those who started but were inactive for a 28-day period.

I propose an initiative to also target non-converted users. I defined two categories:

Those who visited landing but have not started;
Those who started but were inactive for a 28-day period.

Email sent at 7 and 14 day after landing visit.

Email sent after 28 days of inactivity

open rate

33%

cTR

12%

Takeaways

Agency CRM as a Blueprint for Cross-Suite Discovery

Consistent experimentation turned CRM from a “tool” into a growth lever inside the Semrush ecosystem.

Teams adopted shared experimentation and validation framework → no more guessing, just hypothesize, execute and learn consistently.
Products shaped the roadmap → not with features, but metrics elevation, growth initiatives, full user journey ownership.
Experiments group was created → POs, HoP, HoM, Design attend weekly meetings to share their experiments and align with others new ones.

Consistent experimentation turned CRM from a “tool” into a growth lever inside the Semrush ecosystem.

Teams adopted shared experimentation and validation framework → no more guessing, just hypothesize, execute and learn consistently.
Products shaped the roadmap → not with features, but metrics elevation, growth initiatives, full user journey ownership.
Experiments group was created → POs, HoP, HoM, Design attend weekly meetings to share their experiments and align with others new ones.

Consistent experimentation turned CRM from a “tool” into a growth lever inside the Semrush ecosystem.

Teams adopted shared experimentation and validation framework → no more guessing, just hypothesize, execute and learn consistently.
Products shaped the roadmap → not with features, but metrics elevation, growth initiatives, full user journey ownership.
Experiments group was created → POs, HoP, HoM, Design attend weekly meetings to share their experiments and align with others new ones.

Consistent experimentation turned CRM from a “tool” into a growth lever inside the Semrush ecosystem.

Teams adopted shared experimentation and validation framework → no more guessing, just hypothesize, execute and learn consistently.
Products shaped the roadmap → not with features, but metrics elevation, growth initiatives, full user journey ownership.
Experiments group was created → POs, HoP, HoM, Design attend weekly meetings to share their experiments and align with others new ones.