Marketing ROI up 40% while the cost base came down 20%

This was a category that still had to be explained while it was being sold. The marketing function had to do several jobs at once: establish the category, give buyers a reason to participate, support marketplace activity, and build enough internal discipline to know which work was earning its keep.

We built the function around commercial contribution rather than activity. Positioning, acquisition, content, launch work and reporting were brought into one operating model, with spend assessed against marketplace performance rather than impressions or campaign output.

The combination is the point. Growth did not come from putting more money in. The function got smaller in cost terms while producing more commercial value per dollar.

That is the short version. What the first ninety days looked like, and what we got wrong on the way, is a conversation rather than a web page.