How Domitille de Saint-Exupéry (CMO at Lemlist) Turned $1.2M into $31M in New ARR
The Dave Gerhardt Show (from Exit Five)
Using Paid to Learn New Markets
Domitille shares using paid ads to test messaging in Germany and adapt to local attitudes toward cold email.
#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
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