How Domitille de Saint-Exupéry (CMO at Lemlist) Turned $1.2M into $31M in New ARR
The Dave Gerhardt Show (from Exit Five)
What Lemlist and Clap Do
Domitille explains Lemlist's product, Clap acquisition, and the company's focus on outbound for B2B sales teams.
#332 | Dave is joined by Domi de Saint-Exupéry, CMO at Lemlist, a bootstrapped $40M ARR sales engagement platform, to break down exactly how she turned $1.2M in marketing spend into $31M in new ARR in 2025. Domi shares the full breakdown of every channel, agency, influencer strategy, and partnership play that drove results. This includes how they went from $0 to $500K in paid ads, why partnerships are the most underrated B2B growth channel, how they built a micro-influencer program, and what AI use cases are actually working (and which are overrated). If you want real numbers and real playbooks, this one's for you.
Timestamps
- (00:00) - Introduction: $1.2M in spend, $31M in new ARR
- (03:33) - What Lemlist does and how the company got to $40M ARR
- (06:48) - Going from $0 to $500K in paid ads: what triggered the shift
- (11:03) - How to execute paid ads well: outsourcing vs. in-house, and scaling by channel
- (17:18) - LinkedIn ads creative: why "on-brand and safe" was the wrong approach
- (21:48) - Mistakes made in paid: Snapchat, Spotify, and channels that didn't work
- (25:18) - The micro-influencer playbook: how to find, brief, and measure creators
- (36:44) - How influencer content compounds with paid ads and outbound (the Julio story)
- (42:14) - Partnerships: why $450K went here and why it's the most underrated B2B channel
- (50:44) - AI in marketing: what's overrated (content generation) and what's actually working
Join 50,0000 people who get Dave's Newsletter here: https://www.exitfive.com/newsletter
Learn more about Exit Five's private marketing community: https://www.exitfive.com/
***
Brought to you by:
AirOps - The content engineering platform that helps marketers create and maintain high-quality, on-brand content that wins AI search. Go to airops.com/exitfive to start creating content that reflects your expertise, stays true to your brand, and is engineered for performance across human and AI discovery.
Customer.io - An AI powered customer engagement platform that help marketers turn first-party data into engaging customer experiences across email, SMS, and push. Learn more at customer.io/exitfive.
Convertr - The enterprise lead data management platform that sits between your lead sources and your CRM, automatically validating, enriching, and standardizing every lead before it touches your systems. Check them out at convertr.io/exitfive.
Compound Growth Marketing - A full-funnel demand generation agency that helps high-growth cybersecurity, DevOps, and enterprise software companies drive more pipeline through AI SEO, paid media, and go-to-market engineering. Visit compoundgrowthmarketing.com and tell them Dave sent you.
***
Thanks to my friends at hatch.fm for producing this episode and handling all of the Exit Five podcast production.
- They give you unlimited podcast editing and strategy for your B2B podcast.
- Get unlimited podcast editing and on-demand strategy for one low monthly cost. Just upload your episode, and they take care of the rest.
- Visit hatch.fm to learn more
The AI-powered Podcast Player
