Hey! This post feels very relevant for me (I’m Director of Growth at 80k, and manage a digital marketing team, haha!). We’ve spent $mns and years of staff time on growth + digital :)
Three major reasons we don’t invest more: 1. Low capacity to plan + execute campaigns (I failed to hire despite hundreds of hrs of effort in 2024);
2. Slow feedback loops on end-of-funnel outcomes we care most about (people changing their careers can take years)
3. Evidence suggesting that digital marketing is perhaps less likely than other growth channels to find the folks who are most likely to really love our advice (i.e., in for-profit terms, lower CLTV)
Anyway, it seems possible we should connect / chat more about this at some point! :D
Honestly, I think 80,000 Hours is one of the EA orgs that’s actually doing this relatively well. A lot of people’s first exposure to EA ideas seems to come through your content and digital channels, which already suggests meaningful impact.
My intuition is that at some point there are diminishing marginal returns on performance-style digital growth. In for-profit contexts, when budgets get large enough, it often becomes rational to shift away from strictly measurable performance marketing toward less directly attributable channels, because those end up strengthening performance indirectly rather than replacing it. I wonder if something like that is happening here as well.
I was also curious about your point on hiring capacity — do you think the difficulty was mainly a lack of candidates with the right skill set, misalignment with the role’s constraints, or something else? That part feels like an important bottleneck in its own right.
And yes, I’d definitely be happy to stay in touch. If you ever find yourselves looking for extra help or outside perspective on this in the future, I’d be very interested to chat ;)
Hey! This post feels very relevant for me (I’m Director of Growth at 80k, and manage a digital marketing team, haha!). We’ve spent $mns and years of staff time on growth + digital :)
Three major reasons we don’t invest more:
1. Low capacity to plan + execute campaigns (I failed to hire despite hundreds of hrs of effort in 2024);
2. Slow feedback loops on end-of-funnel outcomes we care most about (people changing their careers can take years)
3. Evidence suggesting that digital marketing is perhaps less likely than other growth channels to find the folks who are most likely to really love our advice (i.e., in for-profit terms, lower CLTV)
Anyway, it seems possible we should connect / chat more about this at some point! :D
Honestly, I think 80,000 Hours is one of the EA orgs that’s actually doing this relatively well. A lot of people’s first exposure to EA ideas seems to come through your content and digital channels, which already suggests meaningful impact.
My intuition is that at some point there are diminishing marginal returns on performance-style digital growth. In for-profit contexts, when budgets get large enough, it often becomes rational to shift away from strictly measurable performance marketing toward less directly attributable channels, because those end up strengthening performance indirectly rather than replacing it. I wonder if something like that is happening here as well.
I was also curious about your point on hiring capacity — do you think the difficulty was mainly a lack of candidates with the right skill set, misalignment with the role’s constraints, or something else? That part feels like an important bottleneck in its own right.
And yes, I’d definitely be happy to stay in touch. If you ever find yourselves looking for extra help or outside perspective on this in the future, I’d be very interested to chat ;)